The Bishops of Jaffna in Northern Sri Lanka have met with the new prime minister of the island nation, urging him to quicken the pace of reform and rebuilding for the war torn north.
The Anglican and Roman Catholic Bishops of Jaffna in Northern Sri Lanka have met with the new prime minister of the island nation, urging him to quicken the pace of reform and rebuilding for the war torn north. On 27 March 2015 the premier, Ranil Wickremesinghe, (pictured) who had been born an Anglican and is the nephew the Rt. Rev. Lakshman Wickremesinghe, the late Church of Ceylon Bishop of Kurunegala, met with Church of South India’s Bishop in Jaffna, the Rt. Rev. Daniel Selvaratnam Thiagarajah and the Catholic Bishop Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundranayagam, along with local political leaders and military officers. Mr. Wickremesinghe, who converted to Buddhism at the start of his political career, is said to have discussed the resettlement of refugees driven from their homes in the civil war that ran from July 1983 to May 2009 between the country’s majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil populations. Jaffna was the stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels and much of the surrounding countryside was devastated in the fighting. The Jaffna High Security Zone (HSZ) remains under martial law. The overlapping jurisdictions amongst the islands Anglicans reflects the ethnic split in the nation. While the predominantly Sinhalese Church of Ceylon has dioceses in Colombo and Kurunegala and in principle covers the entire island, the Church of South India has a diocese for ethnic Tamils in the north and eastern regions of the country.
