In that way he need not have to account for the millions that flowed into his work in Kilinochchi and later for ten years in the east. And he has followers especially from the middle class Colombo gentry typical of those who have strayed away from the Cradle of our Culture. They are also aware that there are many non-governmental organizations in the western world that can be milked on some excuse or other including those who would use any excuse to get children under various kinds of adoption ruses.The email is a great medium to discuss issues of concern across lands and continents. Unwittingly, we have created a group with roots in Jaffna for generations that is very concerned about the happenings with the church (JDCSI) that is very special and precious to us.
On the feature on our second rung pastors, the Upethesiars and Pirasangiars, a university don reacted that tears rolled out from his eyes on to his cheeks. He remembered with great affection those humble men of faith who bonded well with their parish families.
A lady was concerned that the land on which she grew and gifted to the JDCSI for a particular purpose may be taken over by the Jeyanesan Cabal and abused in the name of a church; a church in my view that has no creed or doctrine but being put up like an Oil Drill that will enable the gushing of dollars.
Patrick Ratnarajah from London, a grandson of Bishop Sabapathy Kulendran has raised many issues with me and across the generational reality, we share with each other our views and concerns freely. In his mail a few days ago, he raised the question of some meeting that the Church of the American Ceylon Mission has planned:
Uncle: It looks like they are going ahead with the CACM. Apparently 3 Bishops from CSI are attending the meeting. The other churches are taking this as a blessing for them. Because JDCSI was so strong that the other churches were struggling to survive. It is such a shame that a church formed by my grandfather is now being split by Dollars.
My question to people who talk about democracy: Where is the democracy in appointing Jeyanesan as president of CACM? How can we stem this rot? Patrick
I can understand Patrick’s concern but we should never forget there is providence in action. There was a need to purge the JDCSI after Bishop Ambalavanar's term. Pity Bishop Jebanesan was considerably manacled by his predecessor; he whipped him to the state of a Beast of Burden. Furthermore, there are some people in the US who must be made to understand that we have a pride and dignity of our own and that the Cradle of our Culture is an ancient and all-accommodating one.
We have, for too long a period of time, lived with their shallow interpretation of our culture purely because it suited certain people amidst our middle class gentry that earned for them the categorization “Rice Christians” and quite appropriately too.
The one act of closing the Batticotta Seminary should have taught us a lesson. It was done without any understanding of the real needs of our people by a fellow called Rufus Anderson who must have been an arrogant, ignorant man; the likes of him though a dying species now, are still there in the mission circles. Since he was a White Man our people kept silent but there were some who showed their mettle and character by making Jaffna College possible.
Over the years, I have been quite fed up with the way our own smart types kept saying Jaffna College was founded by the American Ceylon Mission and continued to sing hosannas to the folks in the US and got their trips to that country and even sent their kids there for higher education often by lifting the bolt of the back doors.
Now we have Selvadorai Jeyanesan taking up the baton along with a few to whom the missionary bureaucrats in the US are next to God, if not God himself. Jeyanesan would have loved to do this as the bishop of the JDCSI. Since he destroyed that chance by his foolish behaviour in respect of a clergyman’s wife, he is now dead set on destroying the JDCSI itself with an establishment of his own.
In that way he need not have to account for the millions that flowed into his work in Kilinochchi and later for ten years in the east. And he has followers especially from the middle class Colombo gentry typical of those who have strayed away from the Cradle of our Culture. They are also aware that there are many non-governmental organizations in the western world that can be milked on some excuse or other including those who would use any excuse to get children under various kinds of adoption ruses.
The Eastern Province has far too many tsunami-ravaged and perpetual war displaced orphans and corruption is so rampant in Sri Lanka, thousands of children are at risk from far too many seeming good-doers. While many appear to be honest Samaritans especially those in cassock, there are the crafty ones who must be watched.
Take the case of the Anglican Bishop, the Rt Rev Duleep de Chickera who is unable to shed off personal prejudices and as a result is carrying on with these despite the reality that Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah is the consecrated Bishop of the CSI with which his church in South India is in union for 60 years. I have my suspicion that Bishop de Chickera’s concern is more personal than anything, the scholarship of Bishop Thiagarajah being the decisive factor.
This same Bishop de Chickera who is making a habit of visiting Tamil areas now and then, when he was Warden of Mount Lavinia’s St Thomas’ College, ordered the refuge-seeking Tamils off the premises and locked the gates. This was in 1983 when a major pogrom was let loose on the Tamils and many of the Tamil families in the school’s neighbourhood had their children studying in that school. One wonders how many people were killed as a result of Bishop de Chickera’s action.
Apart from that great and much loved Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe of Kurunegala, in what way has the Anglican Church contributed to seeking a solution to the ethnic nightmare in Sri Lanka?
This cleansing process for the JDCSI and also in respect of the Anglican Church in Sri Lanka has come in the form of Jeyanesan and his pseudo-Christian Church of the American Ceylon Mission, whatever that church means or stand for in creed, canon or doctrine. Just like Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Jeyanesan is being a Modern Day Santa Claus!
I am sure, unlike Jesus of course, the three CSI bishops coming to Sri Lanka – which is news to me – dreamt of reindeers in the sky and kept cookies and milk for Santa laden with crisp US Greenbacks so that he could fill their stockings with a lot of them.
Patrick in his letter to me referred to a priest he met in London recently who has nothing but a shallow grip on the situation in Jaffna. We cannot take such people seriously; evidently ministry was his last resort just like politics to the scoundrel. On what basis has Jeyanesan father the Church of the American Ceylon Mission ignored 190 years of history that impacted our people? Evidently these mean nothing to him and only he matters and that too because he lost the bishopric.
Having gone through this JDCSI problem the last few months personally, I can only thank God that I was prompted into it by some force I can never ever explain or even comprehend except to believe it was a direction to which I submitted myself totally. I neither knew Daniel Thiagarajah or Selvadorai Jeyanesan. But I realized that there was trouble largely generated by the Bishop's Stakes but the causes, deep and searing hot, were seeded during the Bishop Ambalavanar Era. One day I will expand on this in greater detail. I felt this needed some kind of intervention to stem the menace.
Thank God, we had Daniel Thiagarajah ready for it and for this we have to be thankful to the Rev Sebastian Anthony to whom the honour of his wife was paramount; wonderful man, great husband and a good role model for a family. I wrote to Patrick and said this is all providential.
It is a matter of time before we see this CACM contraption falls like ten pins. Surely all the people cannot be fooled all the time! Jeyanesan is riding pet hatreds, prejudices and clannish inclinations. Daniel Thiagarajah is an outsider. He came from the Anglican Church and his parents could not afford educating him at St Johns College, so he was enrolled at Central College where among other distinctions, he shined at sports.
There are people who have begun to ask questions about Jeyanesan’s integrity now and very soon the whole farce will fold up. He must be a very desperate man. Without an organization, he will be exposed. He was sure of becoming the bishop and that would have saved his skin. He now badly needs an organization to take cover. Why should this have happened to us? The mystery Kilinochchi fire that consumed certain accounts book some years ago should have been thoroughly investigated.
As the university don asked me: "Where did we go wrong and how?
During my student days I began to see this problem welling up. We kids from the surrounding villages were step-children and it was the privileged few who had the cake and honey and a lot more. What I admired about Patrick’s grandpa Bishop Kulendran was that he resisted so many privileges that would have been showered on him for the mere asking.
He lived the life of a sage and in integrity, was very strongly fibred. He was a spiritual personage, a political personage in that he stood for a federal state for Sri Lanka and very much a Gandhian, a social personage being reachable by anyone and an intellectual personage with his highly merited scholarship
Succeeded by the Ambalavanar era, the church has faced a terrible consequence. The choice for leadership it faced was either from one who came from outside like the Methodist-school educated Rev Daniel Thiagarajah from an Anglican Church origin or the other whose stewardship is absolutely appalling and now teamed up with a band of Kodumbavi pagan ritual followers dreaming of dollars from yonder regions.
I can very strongly take a stand and say that Daniel Thiagarajah has been maligned to a great extent merely to destroy him as a competing contender for the bishopric. Ironically, it is in him, the future of the JDCSI has been entrusted. This I believe is providential and our church is in good hands.
It is also high time the various churches in Sri Lanka, who have never ever made any serious attempt to create a Church of Sri Lanka, think beyond their restricted borders and embrace each other as one and the same. In a country where race and religion has ravaged the entire community for over a half century, at least the church can rise and take a strong stand for the unity of Sri Lanka and a witness to our faith. I wonder whether the National Christian Council has ever given thought to take up the country’s interests as paramount.
On the feature on our second rung pastors, the Upethesiars and Pirasangiars, a university don reacted that tears rolled out from his eyes on to his cheeks. He remembered with great affection those humble men of faith who bonded well with their parish families.
A lady was concerned that the land on which she grew and gifted to the JDCSI for a particular purpose may be taken over by the Jeyanesan Cabal and abused in the name of a church; a church in my view that has no creed or doctrine but being put up like an Oil Drill that will enable the gushing of dollars.
Patrick Ratnarajah from London, a grandson of Bishop Sabapathy Kulendran has raised many issues with me and across the generational reality, we share with each other our views and concerns freely. In his mail a few days ago, he raised the question of some meeting that the Church of the American Ceylon Mission has planned:
Uncle: It looks like they are going ahead with the CACM. Apparently 3 Bishops from CSI are attending the meeting. The other churches are taking this as a blessing for them. Because JDCSI was so strong that the other churches were struggling to survive. It is such a shame that a church formed by my grandfather is now being split by Dollars.
My question to people who talk about democracy: Where is the democracy in appointing Jeyanesan as president of CACM? How can we stem this rot? Patrick
I can understand Patrick’s concern but we should never forget there is providence in action. There was a need to purge the JDCSI after Bishop Ambalavanar's term. Pity Bishop Jebanesan was considerably manacled by his predecessor; he whipped him to the state of a Beast of Burden. Furthermore, there are some people in the US who must be made to understand that we have a pride and dignity of our own and that the Cradle of our Culture is an ancient and all-accommodating one.
We have, for too long a period of time, lived with their shallow interpretation of our culture purely because it suited certain people amidst our middle class gentry that earned for them the categorization “Rice Christians” and quite appropriately too.
The one act of closing the Batticotta Seminary should have taught us a lesson. It was done without any understanding of the real needs of our people by a fellow called Rufus Anderson who must have been an arrogant, ignorant man; the likes of him though a dying species now, are still there in the mission circles. Since he was a White Man our people kept silent but there were some who showed their mettle and character by making Jaffna College possible.
Over the years, I have been quite fed up with the way our own smart types kept saying Jaffna College was founded by the American Ceylon Mission and continued to sing hosannas to the folks in the US and got their trips to that country and even sent their kids there for higher education often by lifting the bolt of the back doors.
Now we have Selvadorai Jeyanesan taking up the baton along with a few to whom the missionary bureaucrats in the US are next to God, if not God himself. Jeyanesan would have loved to do this as the bishop of the JDCSI. Since he destroyed that chance by his foolish behaviour in respect of a clergyman’s wife, he is now dead set on destroying the JDCSI itself with an establishment of his own.
In that way he need not have to account for the millions that flowed into his work in Kilinochchi and later for ten years in the east. And he has followers especially from the middle class Colombo gentry typical of those who have strayed away from the Cradle of our Culture. They are also aware that there are many non-governmental organizations in the western world that can be milked on some excuse or other including those who would use any excuse to get children under various kinds of adoption ruses.
The Eastern Province has far too many tsunami-ravaged and perpetual war displaced orphans and corruption is so rampant in Sri Lanka, thousands of children are at risk from far too many seeming good-doers. While many appear to be honest Samaritans especially those in cassock, there are the crafty ones who must be watched.
Take the case of the Anglican Bishop, the Rt Rev Duleep de Chickera who is unable to shed off personal prejudices and as a result is carrying on with these despite the reality that Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah is the consecrated Bishop of the CSI with which his church in South India is in union for 60 years. I have my suspicion that Bishop de Chickera’s concern is more personal than anything, the scholarship of Bishop Thiagarajah being the decisive factor.
This same Bishop de Chickera who is making a habit of visiting Tamil areas now and then, when he was Warden of Mount Lavinia’s St Thomas’ College, ordered the refuge-seeking Tamils off the premises and locked the gates. This was in 1983 when a major pogrom was let loose on the Tamils and many of the Tamil families in the school’s neighbourhood had their children studying in that school. One wonders how many people were killed as a result of Bishop de Chickera’s action.
Apart from that great and much loved Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe of Kurunegala, in what way has the Anglican Church contributed to seeking a solution to the ethnic nightmare in Sri Lanka?
This cleansing process for the JDCSI and also in respect of the Anglican Church in Sri Lanka has come in the form of Jeyanesan and his pseudo-Christian Church of the American Ceylon Mission, whatever that church means or stand for in creed, canon or doctrine. Just like Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Jeyanesan is being a Modern Day Santa Claus!
I am sure, unlike Jesus of course, the three CSI bishops coming to Sri Lanka – which is news to me – dreamt of reindeers in the sky and kept cookies and milk for Santa laden with crisp US Greenbacks so that he could fill their stockings with a lot of them.
Patrick in his letter to me referred to a priest he met in London recently who has nothing but a shallow grip on the situation in Jaffna. We cannot take such people seriously; evidently ministry was his last resort just like politics to the scoundrel. On what basis has Jeyanesan father the Church of the American Ceylon Mission ignored 190 years of history that impacted our people? Evidently these mean nothing to him and only he matters and that too because he lost the bishopric.
Having gone through this JDCSI problem the last few months personally, I can only thank God that I was prompted into it by some force I can never ever explain or even comprehend except to believe it was a direction to which I submitted myself totally. I neither knew Daniel Thiagarajah or Selvadorai Jeyanesan. But I realized that there was trouble largely generated by the Bishop's Stakes but the causes, deep and searing hot, were seeded during the Bishop Ambalavanar Era. One day I will expand on this in greater detail. I felt this needed some kind of intervention to stem the menace.
Thank God, we had Daniel Thiagarajah ready for it and for this we have to be thankful to the Rev Sebastian Anthony to whom the honour of his wife was paramount; wonderful man, great husband and a good role model for a family. I wrote to Patrick and said this is all providential.
It is a matter of time before we see this CACM contraption falls like ten pins. Surely all the people cannot be fooled all the time! Jeyanesan is riding pet hatreds, prejudices and clannish inclinations. Daniel Thiagarajah is an outsider. He came from the Anglican Church and his parents could not afford educating him at St Johns College, so he was enrolled at Central College where among other distinctions, he shined at sports.
There are people who have begun to ask questions about Jeyanesan’s integrity now and very soon the whole farce will fold up. He must be a very desperate man. Without an organization, he will be exposed. He was sure of becoming the bishop and that would have saved his skin. He now badly needs an organization to take cover. Why should this have happened to us? The mystery Kilinochchi fire that consumed certain accounts book some years ago should have been thoroughly investigated.
As the university don asked me: "Where did we go wrong and how?
During my student days I began to see this problem welling up. We kids from the surrounding villages were step-children and it was the privileged few who had the cake and honey and a lot more. What I admired about Patrick’s grandpa Bishop Kulendran was that he resisted so many privileges that would have been showered on him for the mere asking.
He lived the life of a sage and in integrity, was very strongly fibred. He was a spiritual personage, a political personage in that he stood for a federal state for Sri Lanka and very much a Gandhian, a social personage being reachable by anyone and an intellectual personage with his highly merited scholarship
Succeeded by the Ambalavanar era, the church has faced a terrible consequence. The choice for leadership it faced was either from one who came from outside like the Methodist-school educated Rev Daniel Thiagarajah from an Anglican Church origin or the other whose stewardship is absolutely appalling and now teamed up with a band of Kodumbavi pagan ritual followers dreaming of dollars from yonder regions.
I can very strongly take a stand and say that Daniel Thiagarajah has been maligned to a great extent merely to destroy him as a competing contender for the bishopric. Ironically, it is in him, the future of the JDCSI has been entrusted. This I believe is providential and our church is in good hands.
It is also high time the various churches in Sri Lanka, who have never ever made any serious attempt to create a Church of Sri Lanka, think beyond their restricted borders and embrace each other as one and the same. In a country where race and religion has ravaged the entire community for over a half century, at least the church can rise and take a strong stand for the unity of Sri Lanka and a witness to our faith. I wonder whether the National Christian Council has ever given thought to take up the country’s interests as paramount.
------------------------------------------------------
Correction:
My attention has been drawn that when Tamils in the locality of Mount Lavinia's St Thomas' College fled for refuge to its premises in the wake of the deadly 1983 Anti-Tamil progrom, the gates were closed on them not by the Warden of the school, the Rev Duleep de Chickera.
They were no doubt closed by the Rev Duleep de Chickera but he was the deputy warden at that time. It was the same de Chickera who is today the Anglican Bishop of Colombo.
On this count alone he should never have been made the bishop of the diocese. If the Archbishop of Canterbury was not aware of this terrible failing of this man, de Chickera himself should have opted out of being considered for this office. There are many Tamils in Sri Lanka who are Anglicans.
Evidently the Anglican Church did not have a courageous man like the Rev Sebastian Anthony of the JDCSI to ensure that such types are prevented from becoming bishops.
Even now it is not late. Bishop de Chickera should honour this office and lay it down immediately.
Victor Karunairajan
My attention has been drawn that when Tamils in the locality of Mount Lavinia's St Thomas' College fled for refuge to its premises in the wake of the deadly 1983 Anti-Tamil progrom, the gates were closed on them not by the Warden of the school, the Rev Duleep de Chickera.
They were no doubt closed by the Rev Duleep de Chickera but he was the deputy warden at that time. It was the same de Chickera who is today the Anglican Bishop of Colombo.
On this count alone he should never have been made the bishop of the diocese. If the Archbishop of Canterbury was not aware of this terrible failing of this man, de Chickera himself should have opted out of being considered for this office. There are many Tamils in Sri Lanka who are Anglicans.
Evidently the Anglican Church did not have a courageous man like the Rev Sebastian Anthony of the JDCSI to ensure that such types are prevented from becoming bishops.
Even now it is not late. Bishop de Chickera should honour this office and lay it down immediately.
Victor Karunairajan
Post a Comment