The Chapel of Trinity College, Kandy, Sri Lanka

Built in the lines of Sri Lankan and Kandyan architecture and dedicated to the service of God in 1935, the Trinity College Chapel stands in a serene environment in the School. The Chapel is known to be one of the greatest architectural undertakings in contemporary Sri Lanka. Often referred to as a ‘Chapel without walls’, the Trinity Chapel is built upon elite composition of granite pillars, a high held roof along with magnificent wooden and rock carvings.

The Chapel is best known for its mural paintings done by David Paynter (an Old Boy himself). There are three distinctive murals behind the main altar, pulpit and lectern (depicting biblical stories in a Sri Lankan setting) to indicate the building's Christian ethic. The Chapel also consists of a ‘Side Chapel’ towards the North entrance. The Side Chapel is mostly used for services with less congregation and currently there are services held on Wednesday mornings for the hostelers at Trinity. The Side Chapel is always open for private prayer.

Located at the Southern entrance to the Chapel is a small ‘vestry’ currently being used to keep vestments and other liturgical objects and is also occasionally used as an office for the Chaplain.

The Chapel forms the central part of life at Trinity. Except on school holidays it is regularly used for Christian worship with short services on Tuesdays and Thursdays and regular Sunday Services. There are special services to mark the main events in the Christian calendar.

Trinity College Kandy has always catered towards producing boys with ‘Christ-like’ characters towards the society - who are able to serve each other with good spirit, love and compassion, who will annihilate ‘sins’ and show redemption to ‘sinners’, who will choose prevention before punishment and who will first learn to respect authority and later use it with good sense and restraint. The Trinity College Chapel is something inspiring for generations of Trinitians yet to be born. It will stand as testimony to their vision, their labour of love, their skill, and their dedication, for a millennium to come.