Catholics in Sri Lanka attended mass for the first time since the Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed 158 people and injured a further 500.

Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, who called all the churches to close their doors the past three weeks due to security threats conducted mass at St. Theresa’s Church at the heart of Colombo under tight security.

While armed military and Special Forces squads wielding guns stood guard, every person entering the church was searched for weapons and explosives.

The church’s large car park was empty as no vehicles were allowed to park inside. Church regulars were stationed at the gates of all churches around Colombo to identify parishioners and look for suspicious individuals.

Parishioners were also instructed not to carry backpacks and to keep their personal prayers short.

Seven suicide bombers carrying backpacks with explosives struck two Catholic churches and one Protestant church, as well as three luxury hotels, on Easter Sunday last month.

Many churches outside Colombo resumed regular services from last week under tight security provided by the police and military.

Regular services were cancelled across all churches soon after the deadly suicide attacks. Cardinal Ranjith however conducted private services on Sundays that were broadcast live on national television.

View photos Women light candles as they pray in the street near St Anthony's Shrine Credit: Carl Court More

For most of the staunch Sri Lankan Catholics in Sri Lanka, the opening the doors of their churches on Sunday was an emotional moment.

“It was very emotional,” said one parishioner who attended the packed service at St. Theresas’s.

“The priest who started the service started crying and there wasn’t a single dry eye through the entire service. It was a sad, but happy moment. It was like coming back home.”

At the St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya where a bomber killed over a hundred people including children, the first Sunday mass since the attacks was a “somber one” said parishioners. The mass was held with over around 1,000 men, women and children in the Sunday school premises adjoining the bombed church that is still undergoing renovation.

Like in most Catholic churches around the island, the sermon surrounded the message of peace and hope. “We lost a lot of lives, but we should not lose hope,” said the chief priest, Father Shiral Fonseka during the sermon.

Survivors of the attacks, including a large number of men and women recovering from injuries attended the mass at St. Sebastian’s Church. At one point, the entire congregation was in tears as the priest prayed for the lives lost, the children orphaned and the widows and parents left behind.

“We thought we had run out of tears, but we cried again today,” Luxman Perera, the church carpenter, who witnessed the bomber detonating himself told The Telegraph. “Most of us were shivering throughout the service,” he said. Relatives of victims who died in the attack also came back to church for the first time since the bombing.

“It was very, very difficult to come back,” said the husband (who didn’t want to be identified) of a 34-year-old woman who died listening to the vote of thanks on the church pew on Easter Sunday.

View photos Sri Lankan security personnel stand guard after the clashes erupted between the two communities in Negombo near Colombo, Sri Lanka Credit: REX More

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