Pioneering in Strange Lands: Reverend Thiruchilluvai Joseph (1862–1929).
From ‘SENIOR REV. K. PAMPERRIEN IN SINGAPPORE,’ in Eastern Daily Mail and Straits Morning Advertiser, 21 November 1906, Page 5, we find the following:
President Visits Singapore and Selangor.
In response to an imitation issued by Mr. D. Arulanandam Pillai, an exceptionally large and representative gathering took place at the Anglo-Tamil School, Seranggong Road, on Monday, to welcome the Senior Rev. K. Pamperrien and Rev. T. Joseph of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission in India, who have come here to enquire into the condition of the Lutheran members in the Malay Peninsula. The school was tastefully decorated.
Mr. H. Rickard, of the Mission Press, presided, and Master Daniel Dyriam presented an address to the ministers.
Replying in English to the address, the senior minister said he was sorry he could not find a single European Missionary who could speak Tamil well, with the result that Tamils were sadly neglected spiritually.
Mr. Joseph spoke in Tamil.
Visit to Selangor.
The Rev. K. Pamperrien, President of the Leipzic Evangelical Lutheran Mission in India, with headquarters at Tranquebar, has been in Selangor for the past week, after visiting Penang and some towns in Perak. The Lutherans, of whom there is a goodly number among the Tamil community out here, have no pastor or proper place of worship in these parts, so that it has been found necessary for the head mission to send a minister here periodically to administer to the spiritual wants of the members of that body. The last visit to the Straits and the Malay States was made about two years ago by the Rev. Mr. Goetsching.Mr. Pamperrien held services here in the Methodist Church, by kind permission of the Rev. W. E. Horley, whose guest he was during his stay in Kuala Lumpur. It may be mentioned, by the way, that arrangements were made by Mr. Goetsching with the Methodist mission people by which services were held in their chapel for the benefit of those of the Lutheran persuasion.
A Great Necessity
In the course of one of the services, Mr. Pamperrien mentioned, as the result of his travels here, the great neccessity there was of establishing a Lutheran church in the Malay Peninsula. He had found that evangelical work among the poorer Tamils, especially those employed on the estates, was not as it should be. He was glad to be able to announce that evangelical work would be established in Penang and Province Wellesly, and Taiping, ipoh and Kuala Lumpur.From information which he had been able to gather in regard to the financial support likely to be forthcoming from those places, he was able to say that a European missionary would before long be stationed in Penang and a Tamil Pastor in Kuala Lumpur, as a small beginning in the way of evangelical work. All these arrangements, he said, would be eventually confirmed by the Venerable Collgium in Germany.
It is believed that the Rev. T. Joseph, of Shiyali, India, who accompanied the Rev, Mr. Pamperrien, will be appointed the Tamil Pastor for the F.M.S. The reverend gentleman will take up his new dutues after his return to India to settle some affairs.
From ‘NOTES FROM SELANGOR,’ in The Straits Budget, 13 December 1906, Page 8, we read the following:
Lutheran Mission.
From January 1, 1907, the Lutheran Mission will start their evangelical work in Kuala Lumpur. A house has been engaged for the purpose of holding the services, and a subscription list going around among the Lutheran Christians to raise the funds for the fixture of the premises. The Rev. T. Joseph, the Pastor, is expected to be here about the end of next month.
Today, a Tamil Lutheran Church, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia (ELCM) celebrated it’s 123rd anniversary in Malaysia this year, on 13 August 2024 while the Zion Lutheran Cathedral will celebrate their 100th anniversary as a congregation with a permanent premise.
On 30 November 1924, sixteen years after the decision to build a church was taken, the Rt Rev J Sandegren, Bishop of Tranquebar in India, dedicated Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church building in Kuala Lumpur (Source: here).
The fruits we see today can be traced to the fateful labors which Reverend Thiruchilluvai Joseph undertook during his tenure as a pioneering pastor in the early 1900s in what was then known as Malaya.
Tamil Lutherans came in with the workforce from Tamil Nadu, India, in the 1800’s.
As early as 1900, when the first missionaries from the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission (LELM) visited Penang, there were already 315 Tamil Lutherans in that state then.
Through the efforts of these missionaries, Reverend Thiruchilluvai Joseph (1862–1929) of the church (later organized as Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church — TELC, India), came to organize the Lutherans and had the first regular divine worship service on 30th January, 1907 in a shop lot (№4) on Scott Road, Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. This marked the beginning of a consolidated effort to establish Lutheran work in Malaysia.
Notes:
LELM: Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission or Evangelisch–Lutherisches Missionswerk Leipzig (Background found here). The Evangelical Lutheran Leipzig Mission is the successor organization of the Dresden Mission founded in 1836. The Leipzig Mission was moved to Leipzig in 1848 (Source found here).
TELC: Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Tamil congregation of different German, Danish, and Swedish Lutheran missions joined together to form the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (TELC) on January 14, 1919 (Source: Wikipedia). The joint enterprises of the Danish Halle mission, the LELM, and the Swedish mission led to the formation of the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1919 (Source: here).
The joint enterprises of the Danish Halle mission, the LELM, and the Swedish mission led to the formation of the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1919.
ELCM: Evangelical Lutheran Church Malaysia.
Shiyali, Sheeally, or Sirkali, Tamil Nadu, India is the location of the village which Reverend Thiruchilluvai Joseph hailed from.
For further reading:
Thiruchilluvai Joseph (1862–1929): Pioneer pastor of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaya.
