In 2018 the research project Oratorians in Ceylon: Survey of the Oratorian churches with Portuguese influence in Sri Lanka begun, funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and developed at the ARTIS-IHA/FLUL; the project team included researchers from several universities from various countries.

When the project was beginning, it was clear that the heritage built by a group of priests from Goa, affiliated to the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, and with the particularity of being Goan Brahmin priests, was vanishing fast. Their aim was, following Saint Joseph Vaz's actions, to provide spiritual assistance to the Catholics of Ceylon and to evangelise the people of the island. For more than a century and a half Goan Oratorian missions were sent to the island, until the extinction of the religious orders in 1834.

The project Oratorians in Ceylon made possible to uncover, survey and make known this almost unknown heritage and, more importantly, allowed to develop a series of actions to raise awareness for the safeguarding of this unique heritage. These actions turned possible not only to stop the process of demolition, distortion or ruin that were threatening the former Oratorian churches, but even raised the possibility of their classification as national heritage.

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