Christ Church

Located next to the Stadthuys Complex, Christ Church is the oldest functioning Protestant church in Malaysia and is placed within the jurisdiction of the Lower Central Archdeaconry of the Anglican Diocese of West Malaysia. Christ Church is also the oldest surviving Dutch church building found outside the Netherlands and Sunday services are still held in this church.

History of Christ Church

in 1641, the Dutch conquest of Malacca from the Portuguese Empire saw the proscription of the Roman Catholicism and the conversion of existing churches for the Dutch Reformed use. The old St. Paul’s Church at the summit of St. Paul Hill was renamed the “Bovenkerk” (High Church) and used as the main parish church of the Dutch community.

In 1741, in commemoration of the centenary of the capture of Malacca from the Portuguese, the Dutch burgher community decided to build a new church to replace the aging “Bovenkerk”. The foundation stone for the new church was laid by the Malacca born Captain of the Malacca Burghers, Abraham de Wind on 18th February 1754, on behalf of his father, Claas de Wind. Claas de Wind was a prominent Burgher who had been the Secunde (Deputy Governor) of Malacca but was too ill to partake in the historic ceremony. The church took a staggering 12 years to complete and later in 1753, replaced the “Bovenkerk” as the primary Dutch Reformed Church in Dutch Malacca. The Portuguese fort walls and the “Bovenkerk”, however, were demolished by the British at the beginning of the 19th century.

Christ Church bears all the hallmarks of the 18th-century Dutch architecture: a rectangular plan in a perfect 2:1 proportion: 82 feet by 42 feet; the 40 feet ceiling supported by a span of immense wooden beams which each were cut from a single tree; the roof covered with Dutch tiles; the massive walls raised using Dutch bricks built on local laterite blocks and then coated with Chinese plaster.

The granite bricks which pave the floor in Christ Church were brought to Malacca as ship’s ballast to keep the ship upright and afloat as they rode with the ocean’s wind and waves. The incised letters found on some of them are evidently storage marks. Upon reaching Malacca, the sailors would be ordered to unload the granite bricks to be used for construction in Malacca. The ballast was then replaced with commercial merchandise for their continued journey, sailing either to Indonesia, to other Dutch colonies in Asia or back to the Netherlands.

The floors of Christ Church also incorporate various tombstones with Portuguese and Armenian inscriptions used as paving blocks. The tombstones that are written in Portuguese were originally in St. Paul’s Church inside the Portuguese fortress. However, they were removed by the Dutch when they occupied Malacca in 1641. Since it is unlikely that the religious Dutch would have used Catholic tombstones inside a Protestant church, historians surmise that they were installed there by the British. Memorial plaques in Dutch, Armenian and English also adorn the interior of Christ Church.

Some of the Armenian inscriptions are as follows:

“Greetings! you who are reading this tablet of my tomb in which I now sleep. Give me the news, the freedom of my countrymen, for them I did much weep. If there arose among them one good guardian to govern and keep. Vainly I expected the world to see a good shepherd came to look after the scattered sheep.”

“I, Jacob, grandson of Shamier, an Armenian of a respectable family whose name I keep, was born in Persia near Inefa, where my parents now forever sleep. Fortune brought me to distant Malacca, which my remains in bondage to keep. Separated from the world on 7th July 1774 A.D. at the age of twenty-nine, my mortal remains were deposited in this spot of the ground which I purchased.” 

The church bell inscribed with the date 1698, suggesting that it was used for another purpose prior to the completion of the church. The church’s collection of “Kerk Boek” (Church Book), “Resolutie Boek” (Resolution Book), “Rapporten” (Reports) as well as the “Doop Boek” (Baptism Register) going back to the earliest Dutch times in Malacca have survived through the centuries. These antiquated documents are now being kept at the National Archives of Malaysia.

Christ Church also has in its possession a fine collection of extremely rare silver vessels that could traced back to the early Dutch period. This priceless collection is now kept safe in a vault of a bank and is hardly brought out to be exhibited for the public. The altar Bible has a brass cover inscribed with the passage from John 1:1 in Dutch.

The Anglo-Dutch treaty was signed on 17 March 1824, which effected the exchange of Dutch and British possessions in India and the East Indies, and Malacca was reassigned to the British for Bencoolen (now Bengkulu) at Sumatra. The British occupied Malacca at the beginning of April 1825 and the town was then placed under the direct authority of the English Bengal Government. In 1838, the church was re-consecrated with the rites of the Church of England by the Rt. Rev. Daniel Wilson, the Anglican Bishop of Calcutta and renamed Christ Church.

The maintenance of the church was taken over by the Government of the Straits Settlements in 1858. Under the British colonial administration, the building of Christ Church had undergone some minor changes. Its original Dutch windows were reduced and ornamented  while the porch and vestry were built in the mid-19th century.

During the Dutch rule of Malacca, the church, like many other Dutch buildings in South East Asia were painted white. However, in 1911 the Christ Church and the Stadthuys Complex were painted red by the British. The reason for the change of the colour scheme for these two buildings now remains unknown.

Since then, Malacca’s red buildings have become a hallmark of the Dutch influence in the town.

Important Events

6 March 1972 – Queen Elizaberth II visited the Malacca and prayed at Christ Church with the royal party, which included the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Anne and the now late Lord Louise Mountbatten.

13 December 2003 – Christ Church celebrated it’s 250th anniversary. Headed by Pastor Batumalai of the Anglican parishioners, the celebration began with a spiritual thanksgiving service and followed by a grand dinner in the ballroom of a hotel in Malacca.

Location

Address: 48, Jalan Gereja, 75000 Melaka
GPS Coordinate:  N 2.194462, E 102.249498

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Contact Details

Christ Church
48, Jalan Gereja
75000 Melaka

Tel: 06-2848804
H/P : 017-6743199 (Rt Rev Dr. S. Batumalai)
Email: christchurchmelaka@gmail.com

@amazingmelaka.com