Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Colombo


The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Colombo is a Latin Metropolitan Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church, whose ecclesiastical province covers all Sri Lanka plus the Maldives. It depends on the missionary Roman Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
The current Archbishop of Colombo, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI on 16 June 2009, is Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith. He is assisted in this role by the auxiliary bishops.
The archdiocesan mother church and cathedral seat of its Metropolitan Archbishop is St. Lucia's Cathedral.
Its other National Shrines are the Basilica of Our Lady of Lanka, a minor basilica in Tewatta, and St. Anthony's National Shrine in Kochchikade.

Statistics

As per 2014, it pastorally served 637,729 Catholics on 3,838 km² in 128 parishes with 592 priests, 1,560 lay religious and 292 seminarians.

History

Its suffragan sees are :

Ordinaries

;Bishops of Ceylon
;Bishops of Colombo
;Archbishops of Colombo
;Archbishops of Colombo in Ceylon
;Archbishops of Colombo
The Church of St. Theresa is a Roman Catholic church, located at Thimbirigasyaya Road Colombo, Sri Lanka. The current parish priest is Rev. Fr. Neil Dias Karunarathne C.Ss.R..
Over time the Catholic community of the area had been growing, and a Fr. James initiated a process in 1934 to construct the existing church. In 1937, a proposal was made to Fr. Giwdan, the parish priest of Bambalapitiya, to lay a foundation for a Catholic church. The bishop gave his permission, and as a result the temporary structure was built and dedicated to St. Theresa.
In 1951, construction started and in 1952 Archbishop Thomas Corey has handed over the church to Dominican fathers. It was completed and consecrated on 7 October 1961 by Archbishop Thomas Cooray.