Blessed Joseph Vaz: Part 6 – The Apostle of Sri Lanka in Jaffnapattinam

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By T.V. Antony Raj

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“Blessed Joseph Vaz was our beloved Apostle. In many ways, he was a pioneer in the history of our country and the Christian faith. In fact, after Dutch persecution, which lasted 150 years, there would be no priest on the island without him.”
– Bishop Vianny Fernando, President of National Joseph Vaz Secretariat.

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In 1591, André Furtado de Mendonça led the second Portuguese expedition to the Jaffna kingdom. The capital of the Jaffna Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of the Aryacakravarti was Nallur. During that expedition, the King of Jaffna, Puviraja Pandaram (Tamil: புவிராஜ பண்டாரம்) was killed.

The Portuguese then installed the dead king’s son Ethirmanna Cinkam (Tamil: எதிர்மன்னசிங்கம்) as the King of the Jaffna kingdom. This arrangement gave the Catholic missionaries freedom to propagate the Christian faith. However, the incumbent king, resisted the missionary activities. In 1595, the King of Portugal ordered to remove him from the throne. But colonial authorities in Goa did not oblige as Ethirimanna Cinkam was not overly disruptive to their colonial interests.

In 1617, Cankili II (Tamil: சங்கிலி குமாரன்) a tyrant, came to the throne after a bloody massacre of the royal princess and the regent Arasakesari. The Portuguese colonists in Colombo rejected his regency. He then invited military forces from Thanjavur Nayaks and Malabari Corsairs to help him fight the Portuguese.

In 1618, Philip De Olivera built the Portuguese Fort in Jaffna.

Phillipe de Oliveira moved the center of political and military control from Nallur to Jaffnapatao (Jaffnapattinam).

The subsequent rule by the Portuguese deployed forced conversion of the population to Roman Catholicism. Most people fled the core areas of the former Jaffna kingdom due to excessive taxation.

On June 24, 1658, after a three-month siege by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) the Portuguese lost Jaffnapattinam.

Joseph Vaz in Jaffnapattinam

Joseph Vaz presumed that like in Mannar, there ought to be Catholics in Jaffna too. Cured of dysentery, Vaz wanted to find the Catholics in Jaffna and begin his mission. So, he wore a rosary around his neck and started begging for food, all the while observing and studying the reactions of the natives. He was fully aware that if the Dutch or any native Calvinist knew that he was a Catholic he would be subjected to ill-treatment, and death would soon follow.

One family in particular treated him well and he guessed that they were Christians. One day he asked the head of that family, whether he would like to see a priest and receive the sacraments. The man froze. The next time Vaz went to beg at that house, the man took him to the house one of his friends. Vaz then understood that though this friend was on good terms with the Dutch, he was in fact, a devout Catholic, but behaved as if he were not, to hoodwink the Dutch. His name was Dom Pedro.

After the preliminary introductions, Vaz revealed his identity to them. He showed his credentials as Vicar Forane of Kanara, which he had conscientiously brought with him. That night Vaz celebrated the first Mass after over 30 years in that house.

They told him that Jaffna being the headquarters of the Dutch command in the north of Ceylon, it was dangerous for him to remain there. They advised him to go to Sillalai, a hamlet ten miles away from Jaffna.

Rich in vegetation, and surrounded by paddy fields in the North and West and villages in the South and East, Sillalai got its name from a ‘small oil mill’ (Tamil: ‘siria aalai‘) in the area which extracted oil from gingelly seeds, margosa seeds and the seed of the honey tree or butter tree (ill upai). Over time, ‘siria aalai‘ became Sillalai.

The villagers venerate the statue of ‘Kathirai Matha‘ (‘Chair Mother’) – a rare depiction of Mother Mary seated on a chair holding baby Jesus on her lap. The Portuguese who landed at the small port of Sambil, about three to four kilometres west of Sillalai brought the statue to the hamlet.

The villagers took great pains to protect the statue from the Dutch. They moved it from place to place and hid it in deep wells and abandoned huts.

As advised Vaz went to Sillalai. The Moopar par (local catechist) provided a walled house for Vaz and John. The villagers built a hut nearby and Vaz used it as the church.

To avoid suspicion, he performed his apostolate at night in small groups of Catholics. He would walk from Sillalai to Jaffna at night to avoid the Dutch. In Sillalai, if anyone gave him any gift or money he would send that person to his host, the

In Sillalai, if anyone gave him any gift or money he would send that person to his host, the Moopar. He distributed the entire collection of money among the poor.

Vaz lived a simple life. He always ate sitting on the ground with rice served on a banana leaf. He slept on a grass or bamboo mat spread on the floor. His life of poverty can be summarized in his own words from a letter written to his nephew:

“Be content with what you are provided in the Community; be it in the refectory, or in the infirmary or in the wardrobe or in the cubicle, do not desire anything more by any other means, take the things assigned to you as the best in these places.”

Guided by the catechist, Joseph Vaz traveled throughout the Jaffna peninsula. He found the task of caring for the flock was a bit burdensome for one priest. On December 14, 1688, Vaz wrote his first letter from Ceylon to the Provost of the Oratory requesting him to send a helper.

Adrian Van Rheede, the Dutch commander of Jaffna was forcing the people to follow Calvinism. He was annoyed to note many people believed to be apostates of the Catholic Church and enjoyed the favours of the Dutch authorities were no longer frequenting the Calvinist Kirk. Dom Pedro, in particular, was one such person.

Van Rheede arrested many people he believed to be Catholics. He tortured them to denounce the person responsible for bringing about this situation. He then announced a reward for the head of the Catholic priest.

On Christmas night of 1689, Dutch soldiers surrounded the house where the congregation was celebrating the midnight liturgy with Joseph Vaz administering the sacraments. On entering the house, the soldiers arrested those inside. They desecrated the sacred images and divested the women of their clothes. They rounded up around 300 Catholics that night in and around the neighbourhood. But to their dismay, the priest was not among the prisoners. The soldiers wondered how he could have escaped.

In a letter to the Portuguese Governor of Goa, Father Andre Freyre, the Jesuit Provincial of Cochin, gave an account of this incident. In it, he said the Dutch soldiers could not find him because he used to disguise himself in a thousand ways “like Proteus in various disguises”.

Dom Pedro, the staunch Catholic was brutally executed by the Dutch soldiers along with seven other martyrs.

Joseph Vaz fled Jaffna and went deep into the jungle to escape from the Dutch. He crossed to Vanni, the mainland area of Northern Sri Lanka. From there, he reached Puttalam, then, a part of the Kandy kingdom, ruled by King Vimaladharma Surya II, who had ascended the throne in 1687, the same year that Joseph Vaz had entered Ceylon. He was the son of King Rajasimha II (1635  – 1687).

With the help of some Catholics, he continued his apostolate in Puttalam.

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Next → Part  7  – The Apostle of Sri Lanka in Puttalam

← Previous: Part 5 – Travel to Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

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RELATED ARTICLES

• BLESSED JOSEPH VAZ: PART 1 – THE EARLY YEARS
  (tvaraj.com)
• BLESSED JOSEPH VAZ: PART 2 – THE CONFLICT BETWEEN PADROADO REAL AND PROPAGANDA FIDE (tvaraj.com)
• BLESSED JOSEPH VAZ: PART 3 – THE APOSTLE OF KANARA
  (tvaraj.com)
• BLESSED JOSEPH VAZ: PART 4 – PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS IN CEYLON BY THE DUTCH (tvaraj.com)
• BLESSED JOSEPH VAZ: PART 5 – TRAVEL TO CEYLON (SRI LANKA  (tvaraj.com)
• BLESSED JOSEPH VAZ: PART 7 – THE APOSTLE OF SRI LANKA IN PUTTALAM (tvaraj.com)
• Joseph Vaz (en.wikipedia.org)
• BLESSED JOSEPH VAZ (josephnaikvaz.org)
• Blessed Joseph Vaz (newadvent.org)
• Kathirai matha of Sillalai (ceylontoday.lk)
• “Without the Blessed Vaz, there would be no priest on the island”(asianews.it)
• The relevance of Blessed Joseph Vaz to the evangelization of Asia today (oratoriosanfilippo.org)
• Bl. Joseph Vaz, first saint to Sri Lanka (en.radiovaticana.va)
• The Apostle of Sri Lanka: Blessed Joseph Vaz (1651-1711)
  (sspxasia.com)
• Jaffna (en.wikipedia.org)
• Puviraja Pandaram (en.wikipedia.org)
• Ethirimana Cinkam (en.wikipedia.org)
• Cankili II (en.wikipedia.org)
• Phillippe de Oliveira (en.wikipedia.org)
• Sri Lankan Portuguese creole (en.wikipedia.org)
• Kathirai matha of Sillalai (ceylontoday.lk)
•  Statue of Our Lady of Miracles, Jaffna patao (en.wikipedia.org)
• Pope Francis lauds first Sri Lankan saint’s ‘undivided love for God’ (catholicnewsagency.com)

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