The Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Church of Ceylon, Dhiloraj Canagasabey, has defiantly expressed his faith in God as terrorists attacked Churches in Sri Lanka. On Sunday afternoon, London time, the death-toll stood at 207, with hundreds more injured. “If God gives me permission to live, I shall live. If he gives me permission to die, I shall die,” he told the Archbishop of Canterbury in a telephone call this morning.
Bishop Dhiloraj was just beginning the Prayer of Consecration during an Easter Eucharist service at the Cathedral of Christ the Living Saviour at Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo, when the police arrived and warned him to leave. “You must come with us, they are about to come and kill you.” But the bishop refused to move until he had finished the Prayer of Consecration.
A total of eight explosions have occurred in Sri Lanka today. Three of them targeted Roman Catholic churches: St Anthony’s Shrine in Kochchikade, St Sebastian’s Church in Negombo and Zion Church in Batticaloa. Three more targeted hotels in Colombo: the Cinnamon Grand, the Shangri-La Hotel, and the Kingsbury. Another bomb exploded near Dehiwala Zoo in Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia. An eight explosion occurred when a suspected detonated a bomb as police raided a house in Mahawila Gardens, Dematagoda.
Officials say that seven people have been arrested. The Country has been placed on curfew.
“I am terribly shocked and deeply saddened by the barbarous acts of violence brought on innocent worshippers at Easter Sunday services”, Bishop Dhiloraj said in a statement. “The Church of Ceylon unreservedly condemns these cowardly and cruel acts of terrorism and conveys our deep condolences to the families and friends of those who have lost their lives and have been hurt. We wish all those who have been injured full recovery. We pray for them and their families, that God’s comforting presence will continue to be with them through this tragic experience.
“We call on the government to institute quick action to investigate thoroughly these incidents and to bring the perpetrators to justice. To ensure the safety of places of religious worship and to prevent any individuals or group taking the law into their hands or provoking acts of intimidation or violence against any community or group.
“I call on all Sri Lankans to be mindful at this time and to act with patience and understanding. The motives of those twisted and warped minds that planned and executed such appalling acts could very well be to destabilise the country and to cause damage to the unity and harmony of our nation.
“I pray that these persons, whoever they may be, will be awakened to the awfulness of their crime and will be moved to repentance.”
And he concluded with a prayer of hope: “may the Peace of the Risen Christ, who on the cross prayed for forgiveness, be with you all.”
In a statement, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said: “Those affected by the appalling and despicable attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka will be in the prayers of millions marking Easter Sunday around the world. On this holy day, let us stand with the people of Sri Lanka in prayer, condolence and solidarity as we reject all violence, all hatred and all division.”
He referred to the atrocity in his Easter Sunday sermon at Canterbury Cathedral this morning. “Left to ourselves, we define ourselves against others. We unite ourselves by finding an enemy. We reassure ourselves with a pride that demeans others,” he said. “Such are the age-old ways of gaining and guarding power. They treat proper difference and diversity, such as we are seeing with our hard pressed and unjustly vilified political leaders, as threats. They use words like treason or naivety.”
He said that this fear led to the rulers of the time terrifying Pilate “into the unjust execution of Jesus, and then to attack the new Christian church in Jerusalem”; and that hate “paved the road for Hitler to attack the Jews of Europe.”
He continued: “Every event, such as the fire at Notre Dame, is used by someone to stir hatred with lies, last week, by certain conspiracy groups, lies against Muslims, who have suffered so much in New Zealand.
“Pride denies our need of God and says we are sufficient to ourselves, that the will to power is indeed our vocation.
“The will to power leads to the murder of innocents in Sri Lanka, the utterly despicable destruction that, on this holiest of days, seeks to challenge the reality of the risen Christ, to say that darkness will conquer, that our choice is surrender or death.”
“Jesus chose to defy this darkness and he is risen indeed, so that death and evil know that their end is marked, promised and assured. Yet still evil rises in these times between the resurrection and the judgement, exercising the will to power, the seeking of an enemy.
“Such was the prophecy of Jesus when he said to his disciples that as he suffered they would suffer, but that he has overcome.”
Archbishop Justin has expressed condolences to Bishop Dhiloraj and to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith.
Excuse me, but how does +Welby know for certain that it is a “lie” that a Muslim arsonist may have been responsible for the Notre Dame fire? So far as I know at this time, the investigation is barely beginning. It may indeed have been an “electrical short,” but it will be several weeks at best before there’s any definitive information.
In the case of the Sri Lanka bombings, authorities there have identified Islamist terrorists as responsible. Honesty about the perpetrators is not “hatred.”
Well said!
I love an old English comedy starring John Cleece as a bumbling hotel owner who can’t seem to keep from ridiculing his guests. His wife called him “an aging brilliantine stick insect” and I applied that to ++Welby after reading Katherine’s post.
As I understand news reports, there are strict rules in place for builders working on old historic buildings with delicate wooden structures. There were no workers in Notre Dame that day, and nothing at all can be plugged in and be left sitting around. And there have been multiple reports of literally hundreds of arsons of Church fires throughout France over the last ?6 months.
I did see a creepy clerical figure walking along a high bell tower, while fire(men) were hosing the fire below. It could have been a photo-shopped kind of thing.
IF Welby can declare what is a lie by jumping to conclusions and speculating or ‘pontificating’, then he can certainly be called any number of things that are floating thru my head right now. I will hold on the the ‘aging brilliantine stick insect’ for now, tho…
We live in very unsettled and unsettling times. Economic power and cultural ‘self belief’ are slipping away from the Western world, and like all dying cultures we have become obsessed with the base and the trivial.
The outward trappings of greatness are still there, but they have been hollowed out, replaced with doubt, cynicism and sex..
John Cleese has quite a lot to say about it if you check the web..
He’s one cultural icon that I truly enjoy. I have seen Cleese live at the mic… he is a brilliant and engaging speaker.
No one is doubting muslims suffered in the New Zealand attack Brother Justin, the difference is that the world’s media will go on about that for weeks, whereas the events in Sri Lanka will quietly disappear from the front page again, like all the other hundreds of churches and Christians attacked news stories do.
And Katherine is quite right below. Naming the perpetrators of the attacks, and their ideology I might add, is not hatred. The ideology of the person responsible for the New Zealand attack was thoroughly examined by the media. The same rules must therefore be applied in the Easter Sunday situation.
Our former President and the woman that hoped to replace him both referred to the vicitms as “Easter Worshippers”. They aren’t the only ones.
What on EARTH is up with refusing to name Christian victims as such, but Muslim victims are lionized at length with endless hand wringing over their reputation, their status?
IT is also surprising (not) that luminaries like Brother Justin were quick to opine about what could have caused the Notre Dame fire while knowing NOTHING about Medieval architecture and the nature of the wood that formed it’s structure. Add to that the fact that Christian churches have been vandalized across France in the past year in SHOCKING numbers, Jewish places to a lesser degree, Muslim places at half the rate Jewish ones were.
I’m not saying it’s a FACT that the Notre Dame was burned on purpose. But I AM saying it’s FAR to early to say it wasn’t, the evidence skews toward arson, and the establishment media can’t be trusted to promulgate the truth when it becomes known.
I’m not even saying that if it was arson, it was radical Islamist arson. There’s a compelling case to be made from the other Christian churches that were vandalized that it’s radical ATHEIST folk. Witness the fellow who was caught in a church in New York City with cans of gasoline, lighter fluid, and lighters, claiming he was just passing through the church as a short cut. He’s a college professor…
Articles I have read on other websites state that other nations like Germany and Belgium are experiencing similar assaults on their churches, but that the MSM is not reporting the incidents.
One wonders that if it is in fact true that Christian churches are being attacked more often, why would the MSM cover it up? Are they afraid to report it or even under orders from governments not to report it?
Obama and Clinton are allies in despising Christianity and seek to keep “victim status” from being applied to this wide grouping. The term “Easter Worshippers” is inane and is designed to be a ‘weaponized’ term.