Rev Nico Weeber has been invited to preach at St Andrew’s Scots Kirk as sole nominee for the position of Minister at our Church. The plan is that he will preach on Sunday 5th December and those members present at Church on that day will be able to vote as whether to accept him as their future Minister.
About St. Andrew's Scots Kirk
We welcome you to St. Andrew’s Scots Kirk, a vibrant, growing parish of the Church of Scotland, located in the heart of Colombo. Our Mission is to provide a Presbyterian form of worship to which Christians of all denominations are welcome. Please email us if you want to meet in person to learn more about our church. See the contact us page for our mailing address, phone number, and email addresses. Our church doors are open every day of the year.
We invite you not only to explore this website but, more importantly, to worship with us whenever you are able. Our regular Sunday services take place at 9.30 a.m. If you are unable to be with us in person, please do read through our Orders of Service and sermons; you can access these directly through this page. We post Orders for Sunday services every Saturday and they are left online for a period of three months.
We also invite you to join us for our excellent special services and concerts that take place during the year; and for coffee and refreshments following the Sunday service, to assist with our mission projects, and for other fellowship activities. Details for all activities are posted on the Events page.
Finally, if you worship with us regularly, we invite you to consider supporting us financially to continue our Ministry at St. Andrew’s. We receive no financial support from the Government and so we rely on the generous support of everyone who worships with us.
Please help us to continue to carry forward the Presbyterian tradition of St. Andrew’s Scots Kirk. Come and worship.
Locum Minister at St. Andrew's Scots Kirk
Rev Roshan Mendis
Rev Roshan Mendis is the first Sri Lankan Minister to be appointed to St Andrew’s Scots Kirk.
Rev. Roshan felt a deep calling to serve the Lord and pursued his theological education at the Dutch Reformed Church Seminary and Bible Institute, and thereafter at the Reformed Theological College, Australia before being ordained in 1990. In 2005 he received the Academic Excellence award from the Alliance Graduate School, Philippines receiving a Diploma in Marriage and Family Ministry.
Rev. Mendis served the Dutch Reformed Church as a Minister for 23 years, and has also served on the Board of Governors of the Colombo Theological Seminary, and Methodist College. He has also served on the Executive Committee of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka and the Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka.
In 2013, he resigned as a Minister to join his alma mater S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia and was appointed as the Associate Chaplain of the school.
During the past few years, Rev. Roshan has assisted St. Andrew’s Scots Kirk as a visiting preacher in the absence of a permanent minister.
He is a gifted preacher and musician and has served the Church in Sri Lanka as an ordained Minister for 32 years.
"God is love, and those who live in love, live in God and God lives in them."
If you would like to speak with a Minister, we could connect you, so please reach out to our Church Officer.
Interim Moderator - Church of Scotland
Rev Páraic Réamonn, BA, BD
Páraic Réamonn was born and raised Catholic in Dublin, Ireland. In the Catholicism of his childhood, Mary and the saints loomed large. He had barely turned teenage, however, when the second Vatican Council (1962-1965) began. Vatican II sharply recentred the Catholic church on God and Jesus Christ – so far as he was concerned, not a moment too soon. Vatican II also encouraged Catholics to think, not of what divided them from, but rather what they had in common with, other Christians and people of other faiths (and none) – a lesson he took to his teenage heart and has never since unlearned.
At college in Dublin in the late 1960s, he was involved in the ecumenically minded Student Christian Movement. In 1972, he moved to Edinburgh to work for the SCM as Scottish travelling secretary. There he met and married his first wife, Rowena, an English Congregationalist; and there he felt a call to the ministry of word and sacrament. He applied to become a candidate for ministry in the Church of Scotland and, somewhat to his surprise (and subsequently, he suspects, theirs), was accepted.
Eleven years in rural parish ministry, where he served three village churches 30 miles southeast of Edinburgh and helped raise three young sons, were followed by a move to Geneva, Switzerland, to work in communication with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). His move initially was for three years, but he stayed for 21, working for WARC, the International Union against Cancer (UICC), Globethics, and the World Communion of Reformed Churches (what WARC became in 2010 when it united with the Reformed Ecumenical Council).
He retired in 2014 and promptly started working again, this time for almost four years as minister of the Church of Scotland’s church in Jerusalem, St Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church. These were, he thinks, the most memorable years of his ministry (apart, of course, from becoming interim moderator in SASK!)
His wife Rowena died in 2002 after a three-year battle with cancer, but in 2008 he married a second time. Vivien, who accompanied him on the local church review visit to SASK in February 2024, is a Swiss citizen of Hong Kong origin.
He has been since 1993 a member of the Church of Scotland, Geneva (a sister congregation of SASK in the international presbytery), serves on the kirk session there, and manages (or mismanages) the congregation’s choir.
He was sorry when Norman Hutcheson had to step down in 2024 as interim moderator of SASK but delighted to accept the challenge to step up in Norman’s place. He promises to do his best and hopes, by God’s grace, not to trip up more than two days out of three.
Our Mission
- to provide worship services which reflect truly the rich variety of Christian denominations represented in our church family.
- to worship God the Father through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
- to offer a welcome in Christian love to all who come to us.
- to invite faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.
- to encourage spiritual growth.
- to discover and develop our skills in Christian service.
- to reach out to those in need in the name of Christ.
Our Values
- Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (from Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 and 23)
- Integrity, honesty and openness.
- Excellence while acknowledging our human limitation.
- Justice in ministry and sustainability in mission.
- Diversity.
History of St. Andrew's Scots Kirk
Amongst those who came to Sri Lanka two hundred years ago to seek their fortunes, was a community of tea planters from Britain, many of whom were Scottish. In fact, it was a Scotsman, Thomas Lipton, who first developed the tea trade in what was then known as Ceylon. The Lipton brand of tea is well known to this day around the world. The early planters left their mark through the names of some of the present day plantations in the Hill Country – for example, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Culloden and Invergordon. They also left their church buildings in Kandy, Haputale and Colombo, which were spiritual homes away from home.
Worship at St. Andrew’s Scots Kirk, in Princes Street, Fort, Colombo, began on 21st October 1842. It was a member congregation of the Presbytery of Ceylon, part of the Church of Scotland, hence the name “Scots Kirk”. The congregation enjoyed good relations with its Presbyterian brothers and sisters in the Dutch Reformed Churches of the city. (The Dutch preceded the British in colonizing Ceylon.) The church experienced good times of growth but had to endure some difficult times especially when one minister departed and another was still to make the arduous sea journey out from Scotland.
Under the ministry of the Rev. Alexander Dunn, the church moved to its new premises at 73 Galle Road, Colpetty, in 1906. The site at Fort was required for other purposes and the city was beginning to spread south through Colpetty. With more than 100 years of history behind this beautiful early 20th century Church, St. Andrew’s has become an iconic building in the heart of the busy city of Colombo. The church building, designed by the Architect Edward Skinner, ARIBA, and built by Walker Sons & Co, with its beautiful stained glass windows, Gothic inspired columns and attractive marbled floor.
In 2007, St. Andrew’s Scots Kirk became a “sanctioned charge”, that is a full member, of the Presbytery of Europe (now known as the International Presbytery) of the Church of Scotland and an associate member of the local Presbytery of Lanka.
Today, more than half the congregation is from Asia with the other half coming from the other four continents of the world. A congregational (and pastoral) roll, rather than a membership roll, is maintained because so many of those attending are sojourners in Sri Lanka, here for the season of a contract with government, embassies, high commissions, the United Nations, other non-governmental organisations and a variety of commercial companies.
Ensuring a Safe Church for All
The Church of Scotland through the guidance of the safeguarding policy attends to the wholeness and well-being of each individual. Through its congregations, working together with the Safeguarding Service and statutory agencies, the Church seeks to safeguard the welfare of all people who come into contact with the Church and its services.
The Gospel proclaims that it is the responsibility of everyone within the fellowship of the Church to prevent harm, be it physical, sexual or emotional, and we will always seek to reduce risk.
The Church’s commitment to safeguarding reminds us that God cares passionately about welfare and well-being of all people.
Governance of St. Andrew's Scots Kirk: The Kirk Session
The Church of Scotland has a Presbyterian structure where Elders and Ministers share responsibility for governing the church at all levels. Both Elders and Ministers are ordained; Elders are known as “ruling elders” and Ministers are known as “teaching elders”. The Elders and the Minister of a congregation together form the Kirk Session, which the Minister chairs (or “moderates”).
St. Andrew’s Scots Kirk has a Unitary Constitution, which means that the Kirk Session deals with all matters related to the temporal and spiritual life of the congregation.
When a congregation has no permanent Minister, another Minister is appointed as Interim Moderator to lead the Kirk Session and congregation until a new Minister is appointed. St. Andrew’s Scots Kirk is presently in this situation. The current Interim Moderator is the Rev. Jim Sharp – who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, but is in regular contact with the Kirk Session and visits Colombo from time to time.
The current elders of the Kirk Session are:
- Mr. Rohan Mathew
- Ms. Anna Brochard
- Mr. Michael Anthonisz
- Ms. Gillian Mailler
- Mrs. Samantha De Saram
- Ms. Lakshmi Seneviratne
- Ms. Norma Swyngedauw
- Mr. Shewantha Rodrigo
- Mr. Graham de Kretser
Elders – both men and women – are ordained for life. Each may have a particular area of responsibility – such as Christian Education, Mission, Communications, Staff, Fabric and Finance, and are involved in the Pastoral Care of the congregation.
The Kirk Session oversees all church organisations. The Minister has a particular responsibility for the Christian education of the young and not so young.
If you have any queries or issues you want to talk about, please do not hesitate to contact the Session Clerk.
Church Staff
International Presbytery
St. Andrew’s Scots Kirk is one of fifteen congregations which form the Presbytery of International Charges (better known as the “International Presbytery”) of the Church of Scotland. The Presbytery oversees the Ministers in its congregations and provides support to these congregations. The Presbytery meets twice a year, over a long weekend; the Minister and an Elder from each congregation attend these meetings.