“Just because someone comes from a lower caste in the wretched social practice of the Tamil community, he is not a thug. Father Jeyakumaran had better watch out playing the sickening game of caste in their, the CACM’s, desperate attempt to appropriate the properties of the JDCSI; better still, their godparents at the Wider Churches Ministries of the United Church of Christ in the USA had better pay immediate attention to the evil enterprise of the Church of the American Ceylon Mission. This must be ended forthwith.”______________________________
(March 23, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Rebel priest Father Sellathurai Jeyanesan’s Resident-in-Sri Lanka Caretaker of the Church of the American Ceylon Mission (CACM), Father Annappah Jeyakumaran should have been disrobed some years ago when he stole some millions from a Swiss organization that was meant for the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India (JDCSI).
When the felony was bared he was foolishly quick to blame the Tigers (LTTE) as having seized the funds from him. Later, he had no alternative but to accept that it was he who robbed the funds. The head of the JDCSI at that time, Bishop Subramaniam Jebanesan, no relation of Father Jeyanesan, was too soft in this matter and the felon got away.
On another occasion, Father Annappah Jeyakumaran, again no relation of Father Jeyanesan, had an unacceptable compromising “Challasa” engagement at Colombo’s Central YMCA which went against his Holy Matrimonial vows taken with his wife. Here again he was let loose to do pastoral work among the parishioners.
The very same Father Jeyakumaran was a member of the Synod Executive Committee of the Church of South India that unanimously chose the Rt Rev Dr Daniel Thiagarajah as the Bishop of the JDCSI. He was a party to this election.
His brother Annappah Jeyarajan was the treasurer of the JDCSI and he has crossed over to the rebel church along with his brother lock, stock and barrel; that is the JDCSI kitty of funds, instruments and documents. He is known to have virtually distributed JDCSI funds to various individuals without the authority of the body’s Executive Committee and among many issues, questions have been raised about some millions that were meant for a tsunami project in Thumpalai. In this scandal certain other people are believed to be involved and some shocking details are currently emerging.
His brother-in-law is Rajanayagam whose record in this respect is absolutely putrid. Just for a few dollars to line his pocket, he would cut down a mahogany tree on church property and sell it with impunity. He even demolished a heritage bungalow at Vaddukoddai for the timber (Burma teak) that was used in its construction. A former bishop had to relieve him from being in charge of a girls’ home in Uduvil because his nocturnal visits became an embarrassingly addictive habit for him.
Rajanayagam had also submitted bills to a German organization from a non-existing grocery shop said to be at Vaddukoddai that was supposed to have supplied materials to a children’s home run by this organization. Once he assaulted a journalist in public believing that he was the child abuser mentioned in a feature by this journalist that appeared on a national daily. Soon after that he was made a lay preacher, and later principal of Jaffna College.
When all these were happening, the community remained blinkered and dogmatically rigid to the terrible cancer that was virulently spreading among them. They were conditioned by pure self-interests, a factor the new Bishop, the Rt Rev Dr Daniel Thiagarajah was not willing to tolerate.
One must truly appreciate the task Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah faced when he became the Bishop of the JDCSI. Most of the problems he faces today are from the felons who controlled the church and those who turned their heads away to their activities. The very same people who overlooked these activities are now in various countries and some lending support to Father Jeyanesan and his activities because they have lost their power and clout in the JDCSI and Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah came from another denomination but that was many years ago. This is a kind of revenging exercise on one whom they reckon as an outsider. They would rather have a Boer but not one of their own.
Father Jeyakumaran, his brother Jeyarajan and brother-in-law Rajanayagam are key men in the army of Father Sellathurai Jeyanesan who also has a second line of priests indulging in activities that are quite out of character with their cassock calling. Once they even boarded up the Uduvil Church from the inside preventing the church from functioning. They have also held violent demonstrations taking the church to the gutters and even a pagan ritual to curse the Moderator of the Church of South India and Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah.
All these activities are possible because Father Jeyanesan had raised millions overseas in the name of widowed mothers, orphans and the displaced as a priest of the JDCSI. A good part of these collections are spent on lawyers for the many legal actions they have filed against the JDCSI and still, according to Father Jeyanesan, going to file tomorrow, Easter Monday in Jaffna.
Are socially discriminated people thugs?
In the recent missile fired by Father Jeyakumaran, he accuses Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah as using thugs. This is most interesting and has bearings on the evil caste system of the Tamil community.
Hitherto the Tamil elite from the upper echelons of the caste hierarchy controlled the JDCSI. The two top rungs are the Vellalas and their hitmen lesser caste Koviyars who may have come from the south and settled as farmers in the north; the Sinhala farmers belong to the Goviya community.
Those on the lower rungs were ignored and at some churches these people and their families were allowed to occupy the last two pews of the church. In the Tamil caste system anyone at the lower levels were considered the undesirables and troublemakers and this is most unfortunate. They do not have acceptance. In South India this is considered the Dalit Problem.
When Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah took office, this discrimination was swept off completely and today there is even a JDCSI representative from this community in the Synod of Church of South India. This writer has met some of these people in recent weeks and has had occasion to describe the experience with a great deal of joy. They all feel liberated and to them Bishop Thiagarajah is a kind of Messiah.
But to Father Jeyakumaran and his cabal of cassocked crooks, they are thugs all because these faithful who have stood the rigours of discrimination in the church for years let alone the larger community, come from the lower castes, even from a community unjustly reckoned as outcastes. One can now confidently say that Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah has put an end to caste practice in the church and within a very short period of time shown this in action.
Loyal parishioners from various churches have indicated their loyalty to the JDCSI in no small measure and with their head man still raising funds in North America, his deputies are continuing to plague the JDCSI and its members. We understand that an emissary sent to Sri Lanka to help Father Jeyanesan get over the problem he faces with an arrest warrant issued against him by the District Court of Jaffna failed in his mission. He has returned to the Netherlands but not before the bona fides of his visit was challenged. He was told that the CACM is not a church but an example of a highway robbery.
If Father Jeyanesan wants to head a church, he was quite welcome to start his own and many people have done that, some genuine but most with their intentions suspect. Why has he not submitted the accounts to the JDCSI and why does he want to appropriate the properties of the JDCSI? When Sri Lanka itself is going through perilous times, what kind of games are Fathers Jeyanesan, Jeyakumaran and others are playing. This is a terrible stain on the Tamil community.
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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