OMI Colombo Sri Lanka

The Parish of Hingurakgoda

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The parish of Hingurakgoda dedicated to Christ the King, belongs to diocese of Anuradhapura, and is in the deanery of Polonnaruwa. At present Hingurakgoda parish has got 06 substations namely Minneriya, Madirigiriya, Abagaswewa, Mahawadiya, Diyabeduma, and Nikapitiya. All together the whole parish comprises of nearly 450 families. In the main Parish there are about 260 families.

  • Minneriya-100
  • Diyabeduma-25
  • Madirigiriya-25
  • Abagaswewa-15
  • Nikapitiya-10

Most of the parishioners are farmers and some do tank fishing. Other than the Sunday masses offered in each Church, daily masses and cottage masses are also celebrated in the Parish. For which people gather with lots of enthusiasm helping and cooperating one another. Taking into consideration poverty and the education of the children coming from ordinary families language class are conducted freely.

Initially Hingurakgoda was a mission place operated by the Diocese of Trinco – Batticalo, Which used to send at different periods various priests to cater to the spiritual needs of the few Catholic families living in the whole area of Hingurakgoda and polonnaruwa. As a result late Rev. Fr. Sam Alexander who belonged to the Diocese of Trinco- Batticalo came to Hingurakgoda in 1945. He got government land and started a little Church building and a school which known as Rajarata Maha Vidyalaya.

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Late Rev.Fr. Sam Alexander Ranasinghe who came to Hingurakgoda in 1945 and he brought Catholic families from traditional Catholic villages and settled them in Hingurakgoda thus planted the seed of faith among the people who were longing for Christ. He also toiled hard to bring the scattered and abandoned Catholics back to the church, and now we are reaping the harvest of his sweat. In 1948 he started he started the building of the new Church. In 1952 the Church work of the new Church was completed and declare open in the same year as the Christ the King Church Hingurakgoda.

There is also a significant missionary contribution given by the Oblates who served in Hingurakgoda parish as parish priests in the latter stage. They are namely Rev.Fr. Antony Jayamana OMI, Rev.Fr. Shirly Ferdinando OMI, Rev. Fr. Rohan Silva OMI. After so many years the parish is once again given to the Oblates and at present Rev.Fr. Jude Saparamadu OMI serves as the parish priest of Hingurakgoda.

The difficulty of the mission

  • Since the parishioners are scattered, area wise the whole parish is about 50km. Hence there is a difficulty in travelling.
  • Ours is a predominantly Buddhist area in which the main task is to work with the Buddhist brothers and sisters, in peace and reconciliation while safe guarding the Christian faith and tradition of our Catholics and helping them to improve their life style and giving much priority to their spiritual needs.
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