Ecclesiastical Adaptation and Reformation: The Evolution of Dutch Reformed Urban Church Architecture in Sri Lanka (1658–1796)

Abstract

Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, was ruled by three Euro-Christian colonisers for over 450 years. Alongside their pursuit of trade and wealth, these colonial powers—the Portuguese (1505–1658), Dutch (1658–1796), and British (1796–1948)—sought to establish their distinct forms of Christianity: Catholicism by the Portuguese, Reformation by the Dutch, and Anglicanism and other Protestant denominations by the British. The missionary strategies and religious policies of these European colonisers varied significantly. Unlike Catholicism, which closely aligned with the external rituals of local religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, the Dutch Reformed religion emphasised Christian doctrine and biblical scripture, distinguishing itself in its liturgy, art, and architecture. This paper examines the origins and development of Dutch Reformed urban church architecture in Sri Lanka through archival, cartographical, and morphological research, complemented by an architectural survey of the surviving Dutch Reformed churches. The study reveals that the Dutch initially repurposed several Portuguese churches for Reformed worship, and later, they introduced the “Meeting House” typology, aligning with Reformed ecclesiastical and liturgical principles. Over time, this evolved into larger “Greek Cross Plan” churches, a trend that continued until the rise of Anglicanism.

1. Introduction

There is a notable lack of research on the evolution of Dutch Reformed church architecture in Sri Lanka, with limited examination of the transition from Portuguese Catholic to Dutch Reformed architectural models. However, the available, vital primary sources which give an idea of the early Dutch Reformed church models include Philippus Baldaeus’s ([1672] 2012) Naauwkeurige Beschryvinge van Malabar en Choromandel, der Zelver Aangrenzende Ryken, en het Machtige Eyland Ceylon)—the historical manuscript of the Dutch Predikant engaged by the Dutch East India Company (VOC)—and Pieter Brohier’s (2012) English translation of this historical manuscript, A True and Exact Description of the Great Island of Ceylon. Additionally, memoirs, diaries, and cartographical records of VOC officials and employees, such as Memoir of Joan Maetsuyker (1650), Memoir of Anthony Paviljoen (1665), Travel Diary of Isaac Augustin Rumpf (1716–1723), and Travel Diary of Wolfgang von Heydt (1744), provide essential first-hand insights into the Dutch Reformed Church and its seventeenth- and eighteenth-century network of churches.

A highly instructive primary source for contemporary cartographic illustrations and descriptions of Dutch churches, as well as some simultaneous previous Portuguese churches, is the collection of maps preserved at the National Archives in The Hague, the Netherlands, under the inventory of VEL Inventaris van de verzameling buitenlandse kaarten Leupe, 1584–1813. Similarly, recent collections of cartographic and iconographic illustrations depicting churches from the Portuguese and Dutch periods in Sri Lanka, such as R. K. Silva and W. G. M. Beumer’s (1988) Illustrations and Views of Dutch Ceylon, Rob van Diessen and Bert Nelemans’ (2008) Grote Atlas van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie: IV Ceylon, and Lodewijk Wagenaar’s (2016) Cinnamon & Elephants: Sri Lanka and the Netherlands from 1600, are noteworthy. John Penry Lewis’s (1902) journal article, titled “Dutch Architecture in Ceylon”, and his book, (1913) List of Inscriptions on Tombstones and Monuments in Ceylon, are supportive sources for understanding the evolution of Dutch churches and their chronology on the island. Similarly, Richard Leslie Brohier (1978) wrote a descriptive chapter on Dutch churches in his book, Links between Sri Lanka and The Netherlands (1978). Andrew Spicer’s (2016) Parish Churches in the Early Modern World is a valuable account of the works of other writers who have written about the Dutch churches in Sri Lanka.

From the most recent scholarship, the author of this article has published several preliminary articles, papers, and curated exhibitions covering the transition from Portuguese Catholic to Dutch Reformed architectural models. Particularly noteworthy are the symposium presentation “Architectural Heritage of Goan Oratorian Missionary Churches in Sri Lanka” (Goa, in 2019); the international conference papers “The Remains of Faith: Portuguese-Influenced Ecclesiastical Art and Architecture in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka” (Paris Sorbonne, in 2017) and “Nineteenth-Century Catholic Church Architecture in Sri Lanka: Evolution of a Tropical Model” (Bath, in 2016); a book chapter in Remains of Dark Days: The Architectural Heritage of Oratorian Missionary Churches in Sri Lanka (2019); and the exhibition titled “Crossroads of Faith: Dutch Ecclesiastical Heritage in Sri Lanka” (Galle, in 2024).

Moreover, regarding bibliographical sources on the Dutch Reformed Church activities, R. G. Anthonisz’s (1929) The Dutch in Ceylon: Early Visits and Settlements in the Island, H. U. Leembruggen’s (1942) “The Dutch Reformed Church in Ceylon: 1642–1796 and After” (in Journal of the Dutch Berger Union of Ceylon. Vol. XXXII), Sinnappha Arasaratnam’s (1988) Dutch Power in Ceylon 1658–1687, Richard Leslie Brohier’s (1978) Links between Sri Lanka and The Netherlands, and S. D. Franciscus’s (1983) Faith of Our Fathers, History of the Dutch Reformed Church are essential for a different perspective of Dutch-period narratives. In summary, the above-discussed historical sources and contemporary scholarship predominantly emphasise the parochial dimensions of the Dutch Reformed Church in Sri Lanka and the architectural descriptions and legacy of its churches.

2. The Arrival of the Dutch and the Fall of the Portuguese

During the last few years of the sixteenth century, the trading pioneers in the Netherlands, responding to the ‘great and profitable’ trade opportunities in Sri Lanka, dispatched a fleet under Admiral Joris van Spilbergen, and they anchored on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka near Batticaloa in 1602. Spilbergen encountered a friendly alliance with the local King of Kandy (De Silva and Beumer 1988, p. 35).1 The Dutch promised their military power against the Portuguese in exchange for generous trade concessions and a harbour on the island’s east coast (Pieris 1920, p. 171).2

According to the treaty between the Dutch and the King of Kandy signed in 1638, the Dutch involvement in trade and war affairs in Sri Lanka commenced. First, they captured the Portuguese forts in Batticaloa and Trincomalee between 1638 and 1639, and then Negombo and Galle in 1640. Since Galle was the most massive fort and the most valuable acquisition so far, it became the transitory headquarters of the new coloniser on the island (Perera 1948 p. 111). Subsequently, with the surrender of Colombo in 1656 and finally, in 1658, with the defeat of the last Portuguese strongholds, Mannar and Jaffna, the Dutch occupation of the coastal regions of Sri Lanka was secured.

The Dutch administration in Sri Lanka was not a government by a nation or sovereign, like the Portuguese, but a government by a commercial company—United East India Company—or Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, commonly known by the abbreviation VOC—which administered the island’s coastal regions purely in the interests of the company. Politics, religion, and education were subordinated to directly or indirectly increasing the company’s profits (Perera 1948, p. 210). However, like the Portuguese before them, the VOC took over the local administrative setup and adapted it for their purposes, including making some judicial changes. Like the Portuguese, the Dutch mainly left the local values as they had found them. During Dutch domination, the traditional social structure was also left intact (Barcatta 1991, p. 30). However, the VOC divided its territories into the three Commandements of Galle, Colombo, and Jaffna for administrative reasons (De Silva and Beumer 1988, pp. 130–35). See Figure 1.

3. The Suppression of Catholicism and Introduction of the Reformed Religion

With their newly acquired power, the first efforts the VOC made were directed against the Portuguese Catholic missionaries. The Portuguese missionaries, who were found in the strongholds of Colombo and Jaffna, were summarily deported to India. This fury against the Catholic missionaries continued to inspire the religious policy of the VOC in Sri Lanka (Tennent 1850, pp. 39–40). The policy was not necessarily motivated by religious hostility; rather, ‘Portuguese’ and ‘Catholic’ practically meant the same thing to the Dutch (Boudens 1957, p. 75). They may have thought it impossible to destroy one without eliminating the other. Therefore, the VOC followed a harsh anti-Catholic policy from 1642 to 1796. For instance, promptly, just two months after the surrender of Jaffna, the VOC issued a proclamation (Boudens 1957, pp. 74–75; Tennent 1850, pp. 46–47) which was considered the harshest edict ever given in Sri Lanka by the Dutch. Anyone who harboured a Catholic missionary or who even failed to denounce one whose whereabouts he happened to know would incur the death penalty (Boudens 1957, p. 74).

As the Dutch targeted Catholics, aiming to root out all traces of Portuguese influence, consistently with the VOC’s uniform practice elsewhere, the Dutch Reformed Church—the de facto state religion of the Netherlands—was introduced to the island as the state religion (Tennent 1850, p. 39). Generally, though the Reformed religion, by its very nature, was not proselytising like Catholicism, the Dutchmen who came to the East did bring with them a particular religious zeal that had been acquired with the wars of the Reformation against Catholicism in Europe. Sinnappha Arasaratnam generalises the momentum of the advent of the Protestant religion in Asia: the Dutchmen who came to the East were going as adherents of the ‘true Reformed faith’, just as their Portuguese predecessors believed they carried with them the only ‘true religion’ (Arasaratnam 1988, pp. 215–16).

Even before the Portuguese were fully expelled from the island, the Dutch undertook religious activities in their southern possessions. The Reformed Church was formally established in 1642 in Galle, then the VOC’s headquarters (Brohier 1978, p. 99). Nevertheless, the tangible religious activities among the inhabitants began with the total expulsion of the Portuguese missionaries from the island in 1658. The first Predikants to arrive in Sri Lanka were Johannes Stertemius (Galle in 1643), Phillipus Baldaeus (Jaffna in 1658), Ludovicus Boogaard (Colombo in 1660), Felco Weijlsm (Matara in 1685), and Antonius Stamperius (Negombo in 1692) (Brohier 1978, p. 99; Franciscus 1983, p. 8). The best known amongst them is undoubtedly Phillipus Baldaeus, perhaps the most illustrious missionary the Dutch Reformed Church sent to the island. From the outset, the scarcity of Predikants was an obstacle to the progress of the Reformed Church on the island. For example, on the Jaffna peninsula, Phillipus Baldaeus had to work single-handedly in an area that as many as forty Catholic missionaries had previously tended to. He could not physically address all the congregations of his vast mission (Baldaeus [1672] 2012, pp. XVIII–XIX). There were rarely as many as ten Predikants throughout the Dutch occupation. This fact may well explain why they were few, as it can be supposed that the VOC was not inclined to be so generous as to devote an important part of its revenues in favour of an extensive missionary effort (Boudens 1957, p. 205). Consequently, the vicissitude of the Reformed Church in Sri Lanka always depended on the generosity of the VOC.

Owing to the organisation of the local Christians, the Dutch seemingly did not follow the traditional village and caste parish system as the Portuguese had done in their territories. The island’s Reformed Church mission field was divided into four central ecclesiastical districts or church bodies, named consistories: Colombo, Galle, Mannar, and Jaffna. The Colombo consistory was considered to have priority over the others. Each consistory had a council or Kerkraad, consisting of a Predikant, the minor church officials from among the noteworthy members of the laity, and a political commissary or a government representative, who was usually very influential (Arasaratnam 1988, p. 218).

4. The Churches Inherited from the Portuguese

With the representatives of the VOC establishing themselves as virtual masters of the coastal regions on the island, the Reformed Church benefited from the solid Christian foundation laid by the Portuguese missionaries. In line with the VOC’s strategies elsewhere, a few existing churches in the territories acquired from the Portuguese were adapted for Reformed worship, and surplus structures were either demolished or repurposed for secular use. A noteworthy illustration of this VOC approach is the transformation of St Francis Church in Cochin, the first church erected by the Portuguese in India. Altered significantly to suit Protestant practices following the Dutch conquest of Cochin in 1663, it is the only church that the Dutch opted not to demolish in Cochin (Mattoso and Rossa 2011, p. 376).

A similar approach can be seen in Colombo, where only one Portuguese church was retained; the other churches were either demolished or converted for new uses, such as the Franciscan convent, which became a warehouse, and the church attached to it, St Francis Church3, was adapted for Reformed worship (Spicer 2016, p. 341). During this period, the adapted St Francis Church was known as Kasteel Kerk. Simultaneously, as Protestant worship required less liturgical space than was needed for the ceremonial and rituals associated with the Catholic mass and devotional practice, they sought to purge the interior elements of what they regarded as the idolatry trappings of mass (Spicer 2016, p. 26). Consequently, the Dutch removed altars, altarpieces, and images of the former Portuguese churches (Carita 2007, p. 272), transforming those interiors to establish an appropriate Reformed liturgical setting.

An analysis of the contemporary Dutch iconography of Caspar Steiger4 would seem to confirm the above. His splendid watercolour painting of Colombo (1710) illustrates this architectural adaptation very noticeably. As seen in the detail of his engraving below, St Francis Church in Colombo was altered to blend with the Dutch style of simple, high gables. A closer look at the detail of the same church shown in Caspar Steiger’s engraving and the earliest anonymous Dutch map of 1654–1655 uncovers this transformation. See Figure 2. The remodelled St Francis Church was recognised as the VOC’s official State Church for nearly a century. It was also the sepulchre for many Dutch governors and other eminent persons for many years (De Silva and Beumer 1988, p. 254), and the Dutch continued to use it until the eighteenth century despite its pitiful condition (Spicer 2016, p. 343).

Similarly, the bird’s-eye view perspective drawn by Dutch cartographer Johannes Vingboons in 1665–1670, titled “The fortification of the Town of Galle, with its street plan, on the Island of Ceylon” (“De fortificate van de Stadt Galen, met haar Loopende straiten op‘t Eijlandt Zeijlon”), specifies two Portuguese churches taken over by the Dutch inside the fortified walls of Galle (Diessen and Nelemans 2008, p. 172). It is believed that, as in Colombo, Reformed Church services only took place in one building, and therefore the street directed to that church is denoted as Church Street (Kerkstraat) (Diessen and Nelemans 2008, p. 172). Similarly, the old Portuguese Our Lady of Miracles Church (Nossa Senhora dos Milagres) within the fort’s walls of Jaffna was used for Reformed services for about half a century, until the erection of a new church in 1706 (Brohier 1978, p. 105).

At the same time, the VOC inherited an impressive number of Portuguese rural churches belonging to the conquered religious landscape beyond the principal towns. For instance, according to Philip Baldaeus’s engravings and descriptions, such rural churches in the northern territory mainly had lime and coral stones, and some had sticks and thatch mud structures. In general, these churches had a parish house (reitoria in Portuguese; kerckhuys in Dutch) in the compound and sometimes a school. Baldaeus’s descriptions provide evidence of more than 40 such churches inherited from Portuguese missionaries in the localities of the Jaffna Peninsula,5 the neighbouring islands,6 Mannar Island,7 and the Vanni mainland.8 The existing Portuguese-period church in Vaddukoddai, Jaffna, exemplifies a building adapted for the Reformed Church. Historical records indicate that the church underwent numerous modifications during the subsequent Dutch period. The inscription over the door, “Doen maken door den Heer Commandeur Laurens Pyl, Anno 1678” (“Restored by Commander Laurens Pyl, year 1678”), provides evidence of the adaptation’s date.

Nevertheless, the Reformed Church could not fully use all these Portuguese religious constructions due to the scarcity of Predikants (Somaratne 2016, pp. 211–13); moreover, the locals sometimes rejected the Protestant religion emphatically. It seems likely that most Catholic churches, one after the other, fell into decay. The relatively low priority of these buildings is perhaps best reflected in a comparison made in 1697: “The Company’s elephant stalls have been allowed to fall into decay like the churches” (Spicer 2016, p. 359).

5. Introduction of ‘Meeting House’ Churches

Although some churches inherited from the Portuguese continued to host Reformed services until the seventeenth century and, in some cases, until the eighteenth century, the Dutch gradually replaced the Portuguese churches in their principal urban settlements by constructing their own churches. This transition was driven by the deterioration, disrepair, or inadequacy of space and their new governance status. One such instance was in Galle: after the large complex of warehouses (pakhuis) (See Figure 3) and the main gate were completed in 16699, a part of the Ship’s Supplies Warehouse (Equippagepakhuis) was used as a Reformed church (shown between A-B and C-D in Figure 4) until the consecration of the present Groote Kerck in 1755 (Paranavitana 2005, p. 57). Johann Wolfgang von Heydt confirmed that this first Dutch church was on the extreme left of the warehouse’s upper floor, and a new belfry was in front of it (Heydt [1744] 1952, p. 54). The building still carries the date ‘1672’ on its arched doorway, which was probably the date of consecration. The old, high gable of curvilinear concavo-convex fashion is also relatively intact. See Figure 5.

In the later Dutch chronicles, plate XII, among the cartographic illustrations in Rumpf’s diary, presents a proposal for modifying this church at the warehouse of Equippagepakhuis.10 See Figure 6. It further reasons that “building the proposed church would mean the congregation would no longer have to gather in a warehouse” (Paranavitana 2015, p. 47). The Dutch’s architectural and ecclesiastical articulations of this new proposal differed remarkably from the previously modified Portuguese Roman Catholic models.

Now, the main entrance is on the longer side of the rectangular building instead of the earlier shorter gable frontal façade. The exterior is characterised by a single doorway and windows with pediments. Two pilasters and an entablature frame the doorway. In this type of church, the pulpit is typically located at the centre of the back wall (Lewis 1902, p. 111) as the liturgical focal point.

Concerning the spatial layout, whereas the previous Catholic church typology of three naves with two rows of masonry columns (Queirós 1916, p. 567; Baldaeus [1672] 2012, p. 318) is directive and offers a view of the chancel, this new Protestant space is more open to assembly and the preaching of scripture. This introduction of the new spatial layout to the Reformed Church in Sri Lanka corresponds to the adoption of a new architectural typology, the ‘Meeting House’, representing the simplest form of the early Reformed Church on the island. The Meeting House form was common to other Protestant sects worldwide, including the Quakers, Moravians, German Baptists, and the German Reformed. However, according to Rumpf’s diary, the proposed construction was postponed in anticipation of the government’s order in India. Nevertheless, the execution of this typology on the island is evident in Heydt’s engraving of the Negombo Dutch Fort (1736) (Heydt [1744] 1952, p. 54). One such close-living example of this old Meeting House model is the present Dutch church in Matara. The front veranda and back room were added to the main structure sometime later (Brohier 1978, p. 101). See Figure 7.

Moreover, when the Dutch built new churches for the Lankans outside the fortified towns, they erected buildings that could serve as places of worship as well as schools. These so-called Meeting House–School Church variants played an essential role in education since the VOC had to leave education in villages entirely to locally recruited schoolmasters and proponents due to a lack of Predikants (Anthonisz 1929, pp. 186–87). They would be squat, barn-like, rectangular structures with two gables and illustrated the gables reduced to their most primitive form. The masonry columns would support the roof on the two longer sides, and sections of half-wall, sometimes with upright wooden railings, would fill the open space above the half-wall (Brohier 1978, p. 100). This was the principal characteristic of the rural churches which the Dutch built (Lewis 1913, p. 204). Brohier confirms that two such ‘school churches’ were in Ambalangoda and Bentota (Brohier 1978, p. 100), dating back to 1755 (Lewis 1913, p. 204).

6. ‘Greek Cross Plan’ Churches

Concurrently, Dutch builders erected more significant churches in principal colonial towns from the mid-eighteenth century as part of the VOC’s new establishments. Their second effort, which departed from the above ‘Meeting House’ to the ‘Greek Cross Plan’ model, followed the coeval counterparts in other VOC colonies, such as Batavia (present-day Jakarta, Indonesia), Malacca (Malaysia), and Cape Town (South Africa). As the official places of worship of the VOC, these new churches ministered to the colonial administrators and elite, both Dutch and local. They stood in marked contrast to the more run-down structures that served the rural congregations (Spicer 2016, p. 349). In architectural terms, in this typology, the main body was enlarged to create seating space near the pulpit from which the sermon was delivered. The Greek cross plan contained four high gables, sometimes with a tower or lantern at the centre. Moreover, during this period, curvilinear gables began to be favoured over the stepped ones of the early period (Lewcock 1988, p. 123).

The most notable examples of this development are the principal churches of three consistories: in Jaffna, known as Kruys Kerk (1706); in Galle, known as Groote Kerk (1755); and in Colombo, known as Wolvendaal Kerk (1755). These churches recalled the most significant churches erected in places across the sea, built according to a Greek cross plan, such as Noorder Kerk in Amsterdam (1623), Kruiskerk in Batavia (1682, now demolished), and Tulbagh Church in Western Cape Town (1743).

The construction of the new Reformed church in Jaffna started in 1706, after forty-eight years of use of the old Portuguese period, Our Lady of Miracles Church (Nossa Senhora dos Milagres), within the fort’s walls for Reformed services (Brohier 1978, p. 105). It was the first edifice in the form of a Greek cross in Sri Lanka; therefore, it was named Kruys Kerk: Cross Church. See Figure 8 and Figure 9. Regretfully, the church was completely destroyed during the most recent civil war (1983–2009) in the region.

In Architectural Review, published in 1904, John Penry Lewis observes that the Dutch church at Jaffna shows how effective a building can be with simple materials and little attempt at ornament. The plan with a wide central area was especially suited for a modern town church, where a portion of the congregation should be within sight and hearing of the pulpit and altar. Lewis adds that the walls were four to five feet (1.2 to 1.5 m) thick and built of rubble and coral stone, of which the fort was constructed. The columns, arches, and pediments of the doorways were in the thin yellow bricks that the Dutch imported (Lewis 1904, p. 75). At the apex of a gable was a bell, undoubtedly belonging to the former Portuguese church, bearing the inscription “Nossa Senhora dos Milagres de Jafanapatão 1648” (De Silva and Beumer 1988, p. 312).

Groote Kerk in Galle was completed in 1755. The edifice is a splendid example of a Reformed church, slightly localised in the eastern Dutch colonies (Lewcock et al. 1998, p. 213). Unlike the Dutch church in Jaffna, the plan of this church is of a quasi-cruciform shape without a central tower. See Figure 10 and Figure 11. It is compensated by two unusual double-scroll moulding gables on the front and back walls, which give it a distinctive Dutch appearance and are sometimes referred to as the ‘Ceylonese Baroque style’ (Spicer 2016, p. 349). The gables are finished off with three flame-like finials. The church is still in use under the Christian Reformed Church, Sri Lanka.

Wolvendaal Kerk, built outside the fort of Colombo, became the principal place of Reformed worship in Colombo following the failure to rebuild the earlier Portuguese St Francis Church inside the fortified walls (Spicer 2016, p. 347). The foundation of this church was laid in 1749 and was dedicated to public worship in 1757. Pilasters with spreading scrolls at the sides support each of the four gables. See Figure 12 and Figure 13. The arms of the cruciform plan run directly north–south and east–west; the roof comprises four vaults radiating from a raised central tower or lantern, later replaced by a timber roof (De Silva and Beumer 1988, p. 257). The belfry stands at the foot of Wolvendaal hill, a considerable distance from the church. The bell dates back to the sixteenth century, during which time it hung in the Portuguese church dedicated to St Francis in the royal city of Kotte (De Silva and Beumer 1988, p. 262).

7. Concluding Remarks

The establishment of Dutch churches in Sri Lanka unfolded progressively, paralleling their territorial expansion along the island’s coastal towns. Initially, the Dutch adopted a few large Portuguese churches in fortified coastal towns for Reformed worship, while surplus structures were either demolished or repurposed for secular activities. Once they gained the capacity to construct their own churches, the Dutch introduced the ‘Meeting House’ typology, aligned with the Reformed ecclesiastical and liturgical traditions. Over time, they transitioned to the more spacious ‘Greek Cross Plan’ for their secondary constructions, predominantly in the key towns of Jaffna, Galle, and Colombo.

As it appears in Philippus Baldaeus’s coeval documentary sources and within surviving remnants of the Portuguese period, the principle typological plan of preceding Portuguese-period Catholic churches exhibited the distinctive feature of three naves formed by two rows of free-standing heavy masonry columns. As Louis Bouyer elucidates, within such spatial layouts, these two rows of columns divide the interior space and fragment the body of worshippers into three separate groups (Bouyer 1967, p. 61). Consequently, only the central nave could accommodate a unified congregation, while lateral groups experienced significantly limited participation in the liturgical proceedings. In stark contrast, ‘Meeting House’ churches and ‘Greek Cross Plan’ churches, notably devoid of internal columns, offered a radically different spatial dynamic. In these structures, liturgical furniture, such as the pulpit, could be readily positioned in the central area without impeding the congregation gathered around it. This arrangement fostered a more inclusive and unobstructed view, creating an ideal sacred space conducive to the Protestant liturgy. It emphasised congregational participation and the centrality of the preached word. Additionally, the geometric design of Reformed churches enhanced speech intelligibility.

Nevertheless, the unadorned architecture of the remodelled old Portuguese churches and newly built Dutch churches, with bare interiors and exteriors devoid of religious iconography and images, represented a significant departure from the preceding Portuguese-period Catholic churches. This lack of visual symbolism and the absence of vivid rituals and external rites did not align with the religious ethos of the local inhabitants, which the Catholic churches and their sacred spaces had mainly shaped. In this context, along with factors such as the scarcity of Predikants, the VOC’s reluctance to allocate significant revenues to missionary efforts, and the heavy emphasis on central Christian doctrines and biblical scriptures in religious teaching, the radical shift from Catholicism’s external religiosity—marked by ornate places of worship, the veneration of images, and religious processions akin to those in Buddhism and Hinduism—likely contributed to the inhabitants’ reluctance to embrace the Reformed religion. For instance, the cult of saints, missing in Reformed theology, played a central role in popular Catholic religiosity. Catholic missionaries were good at synchronising and complementing the Hindu–Buddhist gods and deities connected to different myths with the Catholic saints. Thus, each parish, whether urban or village, had its own patron saint, like the local Hindu–Buddhist deities. In the context of churches and chapels built until the second decade of the eighteenth century, Emerson Tennent compares the Dutch Reformed churches, built with state support, with the Catholic churches and chapels: “by 1717, Roman Catholics had 400 churches and chapels in all parts of the island, while the Dutch Reformed Church had barely one forth the number of either congregations or converts” (Tennent 1850, p. 53).

However, today, Sri Lanka boasts the finest collection of Dutch Reformed churches found in any of the former colonies in Asia. The old Dutch churches in Colombo, Galle, and Matara are still in regular use, although they are now under the ecclesiastical administration of the Christian Reformed Church of Sri Lanka. The relevant authorities preserve and protect nearly all these architectural treasures, ensuring their continued cultural and historical significance for future generations.