Thanksgiving service on August 1:

Bi-centenary of Ceylon Bible Society (1812-2012)

by Trevor Ludowyke

The Ceylon Bible Society (CBS) which commemorates its bi-centenary this year is by far the oldest registered organisation in Sri Lanka, registered in 1812, in then Ceylon. It was known as the Colombo Auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Today the Ceylon Bible Society consists of individual members deeply committed to spreading the Word of God among people and is neither a church in its own right nor exclusively affiliated to any one particular Christian church or Christian denomination.

CBS was introduced during the early period of the British era and with the blessing and sponsorship of the Anglican missionaries. It was a time of spring for the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka which had suffered suppression by the Dutch rulers which banned Catholicism from the country.

It was also a time when the Bible was less accessible to Catholic laymen and distributing copies of the Bible among laymen was not encouraged by the Catholic Church until after the Second Vatican Council.

The Bible Society founded in London in 1804 printed and distributed Bibles, at home and abroad. It comprised a committee which was half Anglican and half free churchmen in England.

Independence

Although the Bible Society has been a non-denominational body since its inception and was open to all evangelical Christians, the absence of any Catholic membership among the governing body during the pre-Vatican II era was a notable fact.

The Catholic Church, which was a much larger community and coming directly under the Vatican administration, maintained its independence in all spheres of her missionary activities while maintaining extremely cordial relations with the mainline Christian churches.

On the other hand the mainline Christian churches and other Christian denominations were heavily dependent on the CBS for their missionary activities. These churches and denominational sects rallied round the CBS owing to the vast amount of resources that were made available by the CBS with regard to spreading the Word of God since its inception.

The Catholic Church however, did not avail itself of the resources made available by CBS due to several reasons.

It is a known fact that Bible translations and other material published by CBS in the initial stages had not included the Deuterocanonical books of the Bible, which the Catholic Church had included it its canon on the Bible. This was the main reason why the Catholic Church was unable to use the CBS resources.

As a result CBS resource persons who were assigned the task of producing translations and Bible publications under CBS were mostly pastors and laymen from mainline Christian churches and other denominational sects who were only familiar with the bible versions without the deuterocanonical books.

Thankfully, the winds of change had blown through the Roman Catholic Church worldwide in the wake of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s and laymen were encouraged to read the Bible more frequently and pursue biblical studies.

Ecumenism came to be pursued by all churches globally and greater collaboration among them was evident in the Christendom.

In post independent Sri Lanka the Christian churches moved closer as the revival of Buddhism became more evident after years of neglect. This revival was spearheaded politically with the backing of the governments of post independent Sri Lanka.

It was against this backdrop that the Christian churches moved closer together and commenced sharing some of their resources as part of their sincere efforts towards ecumenism. In 1967, the CBS initiated preliminary discussions for a common translation of the Bible with representatives of the Catholic church.

The Catholic church co-operation towards the work of CBS is significant in Sri Lanka as Catholics have always been the majority Christian community in the island.

Greatly influenced by the ecumenical directives of the Second Vatican Council of 1962 the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka relaxed its stand on the use of the Bible by the faithful and promoted the reading of the Bible and Bible study by laymen.

Missionary

The Catholic church, which until then had kept aloof from the CBS and its missionary activities, joined ranks and Catholic Church leaders such as the great scholar priest Rev. Fr. Peter Pillai, Frs. Pio Champa, Rt. Rev. Don Sylvester (later became Bishop of Galle), and erudite scholar Bishop Edmund Peiris, joined the Translation Committee of the Bible Society, giving it greater purpose, strength and scholarly support.

By then the Catholic Church had published its own Sinhala translation of the Bible and the expertise of the Catholic Church in Hebrew and Greek languages and Sinhala scholarship contributed in a great way to CBS Bible translations and other activities to promote the reading of the Bible in the vernacular. Active Catholic participation in the CBS committee resulted in the publication of a new Sinhala translation of the Bible which included the Deuterocanonical books.

In 1973 Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Colombo the Rt. Rev. Bishop Oswald Gomis, addressed the Annual Public Meeting of the Ceylon Bible Society. Thereafter, the active participation of the Catholic Bishops and clergy contributed to the success story of CBS. The Catholic church also extended financial contributions towards the printing of the Deuterocanonical books with the New Sinhala Bible.

CBS is grateful to the Catholic church for the invaluable resources made available for its missionary activities.

An increasing number of Catholic scripture scholar priests have extended their services to the CBS and closer cooperation between the Catholic Church and the CBS augurs well for the future spiritual growth of the Christian community in Sri Lanka.

In recent times CBS has maintained close relations with the Catholic church islandwide and organised various programs within its parishes in many dioceses.

200th Anniversary Bible Project:

To commemorate the bi-centenary, CBS has launched the 200th Anniversary Bible Project. Ten-thousand Bibles will be distributed islandwide in Sinhala (NRSV/NRSC-DCC) and Tamil CLIC/CLIC-DC under the project.

This follows a number of research programs which revealed that there were a vast number of children and youth who do not have Bibles while some of them could not afford to buy one. The project aims at ensuring that a Bible or at least a new testament is made available to every Christian home in the island this year. The project has been funded by the Canadian Bible Society and local businessmen and professionals.

The main Service of Thanksgiving of the bi-centenary celebrations of CBS will be held on August 1 at the Cathedral of Christ the Living Saviour with the participation of Bishops, religious dignitaries and the faithful of mainline churches and other denominations, including the Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, who will deliver the main homily.

A combined Catholic schools children's choir under the direction of Francis de Almeida will be in attendance at the thanksgiving service and would sing God's praises in Hebrew, Greek and Latin.

A commemorative postage stamp to mark the anniversary will also be issued on August 1 at the CBS headquarters.