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Saint Mary's Church, Negombo |
Saint Mary's Church, also known as Mahaweediya Palliya (lit: Grand Street Church; Sinhala: මීගමුව ශාන්ත මරියා පල්ලිය), is a Roman Catholic church located in Negombo town in Gampaha District, Sri Lanka.
History
Negombo was under the heavy influence of the Portuguese who arrived in Sri Lanka in the early part of the 16th century and as a result, the Christian faith was rooted across the region. Because of the large number of churches in the present Negambo town, it is often called "Little Rome" in the country (Ratnayaka, 2022).
As is revealed by some historical sources, a shrine named "Church of the Mother of God" had been erected on the present church site during the Portuguese Period (1597–1658 A.D.) but that was destroyed during the Dutch period [(1658–1796 A.D.) De Silva & Chandrasekara, 2009]. However, it is said that British rulers (1815–1948 A.D.) built the church on the same site again (De Silva & Chandrasekara, 2009). As per sources, the construction work of the church building was started in 1874 and completed in 1922 (Ratnayaka, 2022).
The Church Building
The church building built in neoclassicism style, shows architectural features of the Roman origin (Ratnayaka, 2022). The building is about 90 m long, and 60 m wide and the height up to the top of the main dome is about 52 m (De Silva & Chandrasekara, 2009). The vaulted ceiling of the church building is covered with images of saints drawn by the Buddhist artist N. S. Godamanna (De Silva & Chandrasekara, 2009; Ratnayaka, 2022).
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References
Books
1) De Silva, N.; Chandrasekara, D.P., 2009. Heritage Buildings of Sri Lanka. Colombo: The National Trust Sri Lanka, ISBN: 978-955-0093-01-4. p.120.
2) Ratnayaka, U. H. S., 2022. Gampaha urumaya narambamu (In Sinhala). Central Cultural Fund. ISBN: 978-955-613-313-4. pp.21-22.
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Attribution
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1) Negombo, Sri Lanka - panoramio (2) by Luděk Chmurovský is licensed under CC BY 3.0
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