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200-Year-Old St James Church In Thane To Mark Jubilee On July 25

Mumbai: St James Church, one of the oldest landmarks from Thane's colonial history, is getting a facelift to celebrate its 200th anniversary in July. The church was built in 1825 as a place of worship for British officers and soldiers when the town, then spelled as Tannah or Thana, was the headquarters of a large district in the Bombay Province. The restoration work on the church building is expected to continue for six months, but the jubilee will be celebrated on July 25. Rev Rajendra Bhosale, the priest-in-charge, noted that the church is in what was then the civil lines, where the offices of the district collector, the court, police headquarters, jail, post office, and other divisions of the colonial administration are located. Thane also hosted a military outpost to watch for pirates in the Thane and Vasai creeks. "There was a Catholic church in the area, the Portuguese-era St John the Baptist Church. However, the British officers needed a Protestant church," said Bhosale. The church was an Anglican institution under the jurisdiction of the Church of England. It is now a part of the Church of North India, the local counterpart of the English Church. After the British worshippers left, the church was largely administered by Anglo-Indians, whose numbers declined in the decades after independence. A majority of the thousand-odd worshippers are Marathi speakers, mostly Nagar Christians who originate from Ahmednagar, now Ahilyanagar. The church is one of the largest Marathi-speaking Protestant congregations in the region. The church also holds religious services in English for non-Marathis and young members. The church building represents an architectural style that can be classical, said conservation architect Vikas Dilawari, who is restoring the roof and the spire. It is older than other Anglican places of worship, such as the Afghan Church in Colaba, officially St John the Evangelist Church, and Christ Church, Byculla. "It is older than most churches in Mumbai. Its bell tower, span, and trusses are among the very few examples of mid-eighteenth-century and earlier nineteenth-century architecture," said Dilawari, who added that the architecture resembles that of buildings in Kolkata. Like most protestant churches, the interior of St James is relatively sparse and devoid of decorations, except for the coloured glass window above the communion table. The restoration of the building was challenging as conservationists had to undo many additions made in the last two decades, like the asbestos roof, said Dilawari. There were very few reference documents to guide the conservationists, except for a 1960s-era photograph sourced from historian Fleur D'Souza, former head of history at St Xavier's College, Mumbai. The parapets that were dismantled to accommodate corrugated metal sheets have been restored, and the roof is being redone with Mangalore tiles. "As conservation architects, we see how the building speaks to us. You then put your conjecture," said Dilawari. "It is amazing that the building is celebrating two centuries," Dilawari added.

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