The history of the Panadura church dates back to Portuguese times with the start of the Church of Mary Magdalene. After the capture by the Dutch and the persecution of the faithful, the church was re-established in the time of the British. “In 1864, a church devoted to the Mother of Sorrows was established in the Main Street, currently called the Old Galle road.

Initially under the Moratuwa parish it was changed later to the Wadduwa parish. The church formed its own Panadura parish together with St. Anne’s church in Sarikkamulla and the Church of the Holy Rosary in Arukkgoda in 1938. Later Fr. Joseph Jayasuriya, seeing the large number of devotees in the area, built another church for the parish, St. Joseph’s church in Wattalpola.”