Bastiampillai Deogupillai

Right Reverend Jacob Bastiampillai Deogupillai (9 April 1917 – 25 April 2003) was a Ceylon Tamil priest and Roman Catholic Bishop of Jaffna.

Early life and family Deogupillai was born on 9 April 1917 in Karampon on the island of Velanaitivu in northern Ceylon. He was educated at St Anthony's College, Kayts, and at St Patrick's College, Jaffna. He then studied at the Propaganda College.

Being a historian and an educationist for a greater part of his life, he encouraged his clergy to study the history of the Church as well as of the tradition and cultures of the Tamil People. He had already imbibed from his family a preferential love for the arts and cultures. He went a long way to promote the initiatives of Rev.Fr.N.M Saverimuthu through his center for performing arts and others who tried to preserve Tamil drama.

Besides the harm done to the Catholic children the Catholic Teachers were also affected by the "Schools Take Over". One of his moves to streamline the Catechetical center was to bring Catholic teachers Under it aegis and to organize regular retreats and performance enhancing seminars and updating study programs.

The ethnic situation and the questionable safety of Tamil students in Kandy hastened his vision for the future and made him establish the Philosophate in Jaffna in 1981, which later becomes St. Francis Xavier Seminary, affiliated to the Urban University in Rome.