CSI Jaffna Diocese

My grace is sufficient unto you - the Moolai Church
Eight years after Jaffna College was founded in 1872, the Moolai Church took form initially as a Cottage Congregation March 23, 1880 in a home which was situated in front of what later became the Moolai Church. The Rev S John was its first priest in charge and he served this parish for eighteen long years which would have also meant he took care of the local American Mission Vernacular School as well.
The first communicant members were Robert and Elizabeth Breckenridge, Thampapillay George, Neill John, Arutpiragasam Sinnapodi, Samuvel Komanathan, Poor Daniel Sinakutti, S John Sankarapillai, John Naganathar, Henry Velupillai, Dana Sara, Delia Rither C John and Mary Dana. Moolai Church along with Araly and Karainagar Churches, were satellite congregations of the Vaddukoddai Church when it began to develop as a major Christian community in the Valigamam West division. The Vaddukoddai Church, the physical foundation of which goes back to almost 400 years, firstly as a Catholic Church under the Portuguese, was founded as an American Ceylon Mission Church in 1931. The first church of the American Mission was Tellipallai founded in 1816 when the mission under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was launched in Sri Lanka.
Unlike the Church Missionary Society and the Methodist Church, the American Ceylon Mission was essentially rural centred in small townships surrounded by villages. The adherents were farming families and the first ones to emerge from this tradition were vernacular teachers. The American Ceylon Mission founded hundreds of vernacular schools which were foundational to the educational development of the Jaffna peninsula and this contribution to it was immense. Such schools were founded in Udupiddy, Usan, Chavakacheri, Atchuvely, Anaicottai, Araly, Manipay, Uduvil, Tellipallai, Changanai, Sandilipay, Pandatheruppu, Kankesanturai, Karainagar, Pungudutivu, Delft, Vaddukoddai and Moolai. These educational efforts progressed to the founding of several high schools and there were many of them.
The Moolai Church is a typical of the rural church along with a vernacular school and serving a village and its neighbouring ones harmoniously with the parent Hindu community. The enrichment was mutual and the efforts of the missionaries had a major impact on the community. This was further enhanced by the founding the Green Memorial Hospital in Manipay and the McCleod Hospital in Inuvil.
The village of Moolai also was the site of the first Co-operative Hospital in the country, a project of the local people and the first head of this hospital was Dr M O Chacko from Kerala, India whose first assignment was at the Green Hospital, Manipay. In later years, another physician from Green Hospital, Dr S Satkunarajah, joined this hospital
Among those who served the Moolai Church as presbyters, deacons and workers were the Rev R C Hasting, Rev Albert Kandiah during whose time the Moolai Church was built and consecrated, the Reverends S D, and G D Thomas, Catechists P V Vaithilingam, K S Eliyathamby, C W K Danforth, Worker/Teacher C H Cook, Catechist K P L Devanayagam, the Rev E T Williams, Catechist G Asirwatham, Sevak Sinnannan Yesusagayam, Catechists Henry Selvarajah, J S Markandu, N. Subramaniam, J C Kanagaratnam, Messrs W K Yesuthasan, Mr A Jeyakumaran, Chandran Arnold. S J Manickam, M Thevathasan and Reverends A Jeyakumar, A A Paul, E P Punitharajah, B Thevathas, D C Ratnasingam, Evangelist Jeyananthan, Reverends S Nadarajah, and T S Joshua. The following served as circuit pastors: The Reverends A C Thambirajah, E T Williams, and J J Ratnarajah.
Today, the Moolai Church has a very active congregation with its regular worship, Sunday School and various community activities spread into the neighbourhood. Some of its members have gone overseas and founded new homelands for themselves caused more by the political turbulence in the country. But a new hope has arisen in the community as in other churches of the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India as it comes to grips with the challenges of the current circumstances and ideals that are being pursued. It firmly believes in an entry that was made in the log book of the church by the Rev S D Thomas in 1917 when he took charge of the Moolai Church: “My grace is sufficient unto you.”