Groote Kerk, Galle: built as a father’s thanksgiving for a daughter born after years of waiting

On Church Street, inside the Dutch fort of Galle, in Sri Lanka, the Groote Kerk, or Dutch Reformed Church, is according to the sources the third Reformed church raised within the fort walls. The first stood near the present clock tower, the second faced today’s building, of which only the bell tower survives. The foundations of the present building were laid in 1682, with the works interrupted for decades. The church was finally completed in 1755, funded by a donation from the Dutch commander Casparus de Jong, lord of Spanbroek, and his wife Geertruyda Adriana Le Grand, in thanksgiving for the birth of a daughter long awaited. A memorial plaque inside records the death of de Jong himself, according to some sources in 1758, a detail not found elsewhere. The church floor is made of gravestones from the old Dutch cemetery, with Dutch-language inscriptions of the buried settlers. A second-hand pipe organ, brought from Colombo, was installed in 1760, with a second, smaller organ added in the south wing in the early twentieth century. Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, the congregation today belongs neither to the Anglican Church of Ceylon nor to a Presbyterian denomination, but to the Christian Reformed Church of Sri Lanka, the direct heir of the Dutch Reformed tradition, making this one of the oldest Protestant churches still in continuous use in Sri Lanka. The building stands within the perimeter of the UNESCO site “Old Town of Galle and its Fortifications”, inscribed in 1988, though it is not confirmed whether the official inscription text names this church specifically. A major restoration, funded by a contribution from the Netherlands embassy, was inaugurated on 28 November 2004 by then President Chandrika Kumaratunga, in the presence of the Dutch ambassador Susan Blankhart, exactly one month before the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004, which according to a source not found elsewhere did not damage the church, thanks to its elevated position and the protection of the fort walls. The restoration project won the 2005 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award for cultural heritage conservation.