“Through the Years, the Carol Still Rings” - The XVIIIth Thomian Carol Service Celebrating 175 Years of Faith, Tradition and Fellowship
There are traditions we remember. There are traditions we inherit. And then there are those rare traditions which, handed reverently from one generation to another, become part of who we are.
In this historic 175th Anniversary year of S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia, Old Thomians, their families, friends and the wider community in Australia will gather once again in Sydney for one of the most cherished expressions of that inheritance, The Thomian Carol Service, “A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols”
This year's service will be the XVIIIth Sydney celebration, presented by the Thomian Choir of the S. Thomas’ College Old Boys’ Association NSW/ACT at All Saints Church, Parramatta. But in 2026, it carries a significance beyond the numbering of another year. For somewhere between the familiar words of Scripture, the soaring harmonies of the choir and the timeless Christmas carols lies a story stretching across 175 years, two hemispheres and generations of Thomians. It is the story of a school founded for the Glory of God. It is the story of S. Thomas’ College.
On 3 February 1851, the College of Saint Thomas the Apostle opened at Mutwal under the vision of the first Anglican Bishop of Colombo, the Rt Rev’d James Chapman. Its purpose reached beyond conventional schooling: the College was intended both to train clergy and to form young men through education grounded in the Christian faith. S. Thomas' College Mount Lavinia, even before the College opened, Bishop Chapman had spoken words which seem remarkably prophetic 175 years later, “Enduring works are often of humble beginning.” Endure it did.
After 66 years at Mutwal, the College was transplanted under Warden Reverend W. A. Stone to Mount Lavinia, opening there in 1918, on the site by the sea which generations simply came to know as “College.”
Through colonial Ceylon, independence, social and political upheaval, war and extraordinary national change, the Blue, Black and Blue has endured. Its sons have gone into the Church, public service, medicine, law, academia, science, commerce, the arts, sport and virtually every sphere of national and international life. Yet the College's own description of its purpose captures something deeper: the formation of “men and gentlemen always”, imbued with that elusive but unmistakable quality generations have called the Thomian Spirit. And over it all remains Chapman's blessing, Esto Perpetua.
Be Thou Forever. The College records that the motto was introduced by Bishop Chapman, himself an Etonian.
The Chapel, the Choir and Christmas at College
For generations of Thomians, some of the most enduring memories of College were formed not in a classroom or on a playing field, but within the Chapel of the Transfiguration. Morning Chapel. Hymns sung by hundreds of boys. Scripture. Prayer. The organ. The choir. And, as another College year drew towards its close, the Carol Service. The College Choir itself has roots reaching extraordinarily far back: its debut is recorded at the dedication of Christ Church Cathedral, Mutwal, on St Matthew's Day in 1854.
The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at S. Thomas' began much later, in 1947, when the Rev’d Bowyer Yin, who had previously been an Assistant Chaplain at King’s College, Cambridge, introduced the form of service to Mount Lavinia. And what a natural home S. Thomas’ proved to be for it.
The famous King’s College, Cambridge service dates from Christmas Eve 1918, when Dean Eric Milner-White adapted an earlier form originating at Truro Cathedral. Since 1919 it has traditionally begun with “Once in Royal David’s City”, while its essential framework of Scripture, prayer and carol has remained remarkably constant.
Nine lessons lead the congregation through the great sweep of the Christian story, from humanity's fall and the promise of redemption to the mystery and joy of the Incarnation. It is not, therefore, simply a concert of Christmas music. It is the Christmas story proclaimed through Word and song.
From the Chapel by the sea to a church in Sydney
Migration may change where we live. It need not erase what formed us. And perhaps that explains why, in 2009, a group of Old Thomians in Sydney began recreating this beloved College tradition in Australia.
Under the musical leadership associated particularly with David Sansoni and Vasantha Weerakoon, both with roots in the Mount Lavinia choral tradition, the Sydney Thomian Choir developed into a remarkable fellowship of voices. Through the years distinguished clergy have delivered the Christmas message, among them the Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Rev’d Kanishka Raffel, and former Archbishop Dr Glenn Davies.
The service has become something much more than an alumni occasion. At All Saints Church, Parramatta, Thomians and non-Thomians, Christians of many traditions, Sri Lankans and Australians, families and friends gather as one congregation. And when the opening notes are heard, distance seems somehow to disappear. For an Old Thomian, perhaps the mind travels momentarily back across the Indian Ocean, to the Chapel, the Quadrangle, familiar faces, familiar voices and Christmases long past.
Yet the purpose is not nostalgia. The purpose remains worship.
175 Years and a very special homecoming
That distinction gives the 2026 Thomian Carol Service its particular poignancy. In this anniversary year, Sydney will welcome a figure intimately connected with the recent history and spiritual life of College:
The Reverend Marc Billimoria , 19th Warden of S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia. An Old Thomian himself, priest, teacher, former Headmaster of S. Thomas’ College Gurutalawa, former Sub-Warden and ultimately Warden of Mount Lavinia, the Rev’d Marc Billimoria served as Warden from 2015 to 2024.
His return to the Thomian community in Sydney to deliver the Christmas Message during the College's 175th Anniversary year therefore carries a symbolism difficult to manufacture. He comes not merely as a former head of the school.
He comes as one who has taught within it, worshipped within it, served its Chapel, shepherded its community and occupied an office stretching back to the earliest years of its Anglican foundation.
For many Old Thomians in the congregation, he will represent a living bridge between the College they remember and the College that continues.
The Lessons, generations speaking with one voice
There will be another feature unique to this anniversary service. The Nine Lessons will be read by Old Thomians drawn from different batches and decades at College. That simple act may become one of the most moving moments of the evening. Different generations. Different eras. Boys who walked those corridors at different moments in the long Thomian story. Men whose lives subsequently carried them along very different paths, and eventually to Australia. Yet on this evening they will stand successively before one congregation and read from the same Scriptures. It will be, in a sense, 175 years compressed into nine voices. The faces change. The generations pass. The Word remains. And perhaps there could be no more appropriate expression of “Esto Perpetua”
Listen again to the old, old story
Christmas comes to us every year amid increasing noise. There are lights, celebrations, gifts and gatherings. All have their place. But the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols asks us, for an hour or two, to hear something older and infinitely greater. To hear again of promise. Of darkness and light. Of angels and shepherds. Of Bethlehem. Of a Child. Of Emmanuel, God with us.
That is why the Festival has endured from Truro to Cambridge, from Cambridge to the Chapel of the Transfiguration, and from Mount Lavinia to Sydney. The King’s tradition itself was conceived as a form of imaginative Christian worship; today its Christmas Eve service reaches millions around the world.
And it is why, eighteen Sydney services later, the Thomian Choir continues to sing. Not merely to preserve a tradition. But to proclaim the reason for it.
A night when Mount Lavinia comes to Sydney
So come. Come if you are a Thomian who remembers standing beneath the great Chapel roof.
Come if your College days belong to another generation. Come if you have never set foot inside S. Thomas’ College. Come with your family. Come with a friend. Come simply because, amid the rush of another Christmas season, you would like to sit within a beautiful church and allow Scripture, organ and human voices to lead you once more towards Bethlehem.
In the 175th year of S. Thomas’ College, the XVIIIth Thomian Carol Service promises to be more than another date in the OBA calendar. It will be an act of thanksgiving for what has been; an affirmation of what endures; and an expression of Christian hope in what is still to come. For one evening in Parramatta, the generations will meet. The Lessons will be read. The organ will sound. The Thomian Choir will sing. And an old College by the sea, thousands of miles away, will somehow seem very near.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, To the greater glory of God. Pro Deo et Ecclesia. For God and Church.
And across 175 extraordinary years, the Founder's prayer continues, Esto Perpetua.
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
All Saints Church, Parramatta
6.30 pm | 28 November 2026
Christmas Message: The Reverend Marc Billimoria, Former Warden, S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia
The Thomian Choir conducted by: David Sansoni
Organist: Nicholas Morley
All are welcome.
