St. Peter's Church, Nagapattinam

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St Peter's Church is a historic Protestant church in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, India. The present building dates from the period of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), when Nagapattinam was the administrative centre of Dutch Coromandel. A surviving cornerstone records that the first stone was laid in 1774 by Elisabeth Schreuder, wife of the Dutch governor Reynier van Vlissingen.

History

The VOC captured Nagapattinam from the Portuguese in 1658. In 1690 it transferred the headquarters of Dutch Coromandel from Pulicat to Nagapattinam. Textiles were the principal commodity of the Coromandel establishments. The Nagapattinam district administration states that the Dutch built ten Christian churches and a hospital in the settlement.

The 1774 cornerstone establishes the construction date of the present St Peter's Church. The building consequently belongs to the final decades of VOC rule. Nagapattinam was occupied by the British in 1781 during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, ending Dutch political control of the town.

Religious and social life

Christianity in Nagapattinam pre-dated Dutch rule; Portuguese settlement had already established Roman Catholic communities. Under the Dutch, Reformed Protestant worship was added to this older Christian presence. In 1732 missionaries associated with the Danish-Halle mission at Tharangambadi worked with Bernardus Engelbert, the Dutch chaplain at Negapatam, in missionary activity among the local population.

VOC records portray Nagapattinam as an administrative and commercial port inhabited by European and Indian employees and linked to neighbouring villages producing rice, indigo and woven cloth. In the early nineteenth century missionary Elijah Hoole described residents of English, French, Dutch and Portuguese descent living among a much larger Hindu and Muslim population, and recorded continued Protestant use of the old Dutch church.

Karikop Cemetery

The church adjoins Karikop Cemetery, a burial ground containing Dutch-period monuments. Its name derives from the Dutch kerkhof, meaning churchyard or cemetery. The cemetery is administered by St Peter's Church and has been the subject of conservation work involving Dutch heritage organisations and INTACH.

See also

  • Dutch Coromandel
  • Fort Vijf Sinnen
  • Karikop Cemetery