St. Mary's Cathedral, Trincomalee

Batticaloa was taken over by the Dutch in 1638 , and Trincomalee in 1639. By 1658, the Dutch were masters of the entire coats of Ceylon. Immediately, there began the persecution of Catholics and catholic priests. According to the statutem van Batavia – the Batavian code of the Dutch East India Company of 1642, the Dutch Reformed Church was the official Religion of all the territories coming under the administration of the Company. Consequently, no other religion was permitted to be practised therein 16 Although in other countries this piece of legislation was not strictly adhered to, in Ceylon it was ruthlessly enforced. Thus all Catholic churches and chapels were seized and priests banished from the place under pain of death. Catholic worship was forbidden and all the Catholics were compelled to send their children to the Dutch prosyletizing schools, and forced to baptize, marry and bury their dead according to the Dutch Reformed religious rite only. Harbouring a Catholic priest was courting death.

The Dutch issued their first 'Plakaart'on 19th., September 1658, which prohibited harbouring or concealing Catholic priests under pain of death 18 A second Plakaart was released on 11th., January 1715, which forbade conducting private or public meetings of Catholics or maintaining Catholic places of worship. A third Plakaart that was issued on 8th., August 1715, forbade children being baptized by Catholic priests. Analysing the reasons for such strong measures of the Dutch, Fr. S.G. Perera, S.J. one of Ceylon's renowned and much respected historian says: "on becoming masters of the land once held by the Portuguese, the Dutch began promptly and pitilessly to persecute the Catholics. This was not due to religious bigotry alone or to national .hatred, but chiefly to a cold-blooded state policy, adopted owing to the peculiar circumstances of the country.

There were many Portuguese descendants in Ceylon under Dutch rule, and large numbers of the people of the country living in the territories occupied by the Dutch were Catholics. Sympathy with the Portuguese was lingering in the hearts of both the one and the other class of Catholics and it was kept alive by the link of religion and the use of the Portuguese language. As the Dutch fell out with the King of Kandy, at whose invitation they had come to Ceylon and by whose help they had ousted the Portuguese, they felt they could not well be safe in the island till they had severed every bond with the Portuguese and destroyed every vestige of the Catholic Faith. Though in their other conquests they had tried after the first outburst, to conciliate the Catholics by leaving them free to profess their religion and permitting Catholic priests and churches to exist, in Ceylon they seized all the Catholic churches, colleges and schools and razed them to the ground or turned them to heretical or profane use, expelled all priests, fixed by law the penalty of death on any priest that dared to enter the island or on any Catholic that ventured to harbour a priest, compelled all Catholics to attend the Dutch kick, to baptize, marry and bury according to Dutch rites, to send their children to proselytizing schools set up by them and held out the most tempting inducements to apostacy making the prof­ession of the Catholic Faith a disqualification not only for holding office under the Dutch regime, but even for the traditional headman system of Ceylon."

Thus, the Catholic religion and adherents of the Catholic Faith, persecuted by the Dutch authorities, went underground, and remained so, for a long time. Some, being shallow in Faith and lured by worldly gains, succumbed and fell away. Yet many remained firm in their faith against all odds and absence of priests, until the coming of Fr. Joseph Vaz. So strong was their faith, that the threats and punishments imposed by the Dutch could not make them change.

As stated in a supplement to the Catholic Messenger, published in 1848, 'Many of the Catholics, as might naturally have been expected did indeed conform themselves to the new creed, partly for fear of the penal laws and partly for the sake of obtaining office under the Government; but a great many, intimidated neither by dangers nor seduced by temptations, clung with fervour to the ancient faith, and though deprived of their spiritual guides, nevertheless continued to hold their religious meetings at their houses in the middle of the nights" Further, Sir Tennent Emerson, a scholarly historian, who has read up all sources available in his time, while himself being not a Catholic, testifies to the fidelity and tenacity of the Catholics during the Dutch persecution, in these words: 'Notwithstanding every persecution, however, the Roman Catholic religion retained its influence and held good its position in Ceylon. It was openly professed by the immediate descendents of the Portuguese, who remained in the island after its conquest by the Dutch; and in private it was equally adhered to by large bodies of native both Sinhalese and Tamils, whom neither corruption nor coercion could induce to abjure it" Some of the Catholics from the Dutch occupied territories at the invitation of the king of Kandy moved over into the Kandian Kingdom and established themselves