Jaffna St. Peter's Methodist Church

The history of the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka dates back to the early 19th century (Melton & Baumann, 2010). The Methodist Bishop Thomas Coke (9 September 1747 - 2 May 1814) who hoped to open Methodist missions in the East Indies, set sail for Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) on 30 December 1813 with six other missionaries including William Ault, Benjamin Clough, George Erskine, Thomas Hall Squance, William Martin Harvard, and James Lynch. However, during the voyage, Coke died and was buried at sea (Melton & Baumann, 2010). The others, except for Harvard (he remained in Bombay, India due to family circumstances), arrived in Galle on 29 June 1814, six months after they started their journey and one year before the fall down of the Kingdom of Kandy.

After a little conference held on 11 July 1814, the missionaries decided to split up and travel to different parts of the country (MCC, 1964). Accordingly, Lynch and Squance went to Jaffna, Ault to Batticaloa, Erskine to Matara, and Clough remained in Galle (MCC, 1964; Pritchard, 2016). Harvard who was in Bombay came to Sri Lanka and settled in Colombo.  Lynch and Squance arrived in Jaffna on 10 August and they were received by the sub-collector James N. Mooyart (MCC, 1964). They with the support of other preachers such as Schwartz and Christian David started their propagation works by opening schools and circulating sermons written on Olas in Tamil (MCC, 1964).

Initially, the Lutheran Church in Jaffna was used by the missionaries for their sermons but the St. Peter's Methodist Church on the present site was completed and dedicated for worship on 19 February 1823 (MCC, 1964).