Rev Thiruchilluvai Joseph was born in 1862 and by the beginning of 1900 was one of the pastors of the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission (LELM) which has its origin in Germany. This mission was in charge of the Lutheran Mission work in South India before the formation of the present Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (TELC).
The LELM missionaries had been visiting Penang and Singapore in the late 1870s and by 1900 found about 315 Lutherans in Penang and Singapore. It is likely that in 1901 Rev T. Joseph, together with the LELM missionaries, also visited Kuala Lumpur on one of the survey visits and found 365 Lutherans there. In 1902 when an LELM missionary visited Malaya at the invitation of the Methodist Bishop, the Bishop had suggested that the LELM should send someone to celebrate the sacraments with the Lutherans once a year. However, it was only in 1906 that the mission decided to station a Lutheran pastor in Malaya.
Accordingly, Rev Joseph was stationed in Kuala Lumpur on November 11, 1906. He soon gathered the Lutheran members in Kuala Lumpur and on January 30, 1907 and held the first regular worship service in a rented shop house on Scott Road in Brickfield, Kuala Lumpur. Rev Joseph, by then, had also organised the congregation to choose the elders to form a stewards committee to meet regularly and make the important decisions for the church. The first meeting was held soon after the first service under the guidance of Rev Joseph.
In the subsequent meetings, they decided to nominate a pastor to work in Malaya and to contribute towards his salary. To meet these expenses, two per cent of the members' income was to be given to the church, and later in 1908 to be given to purchase land for a church building. Through a $2,900 loan obtained from the Home Mission Board in Germany, the committee bought the land (No. 21, Jalan Sultan Abdul Samad, and where the Zion Cathedral now stands) on June 2, 1909. Soon a building committee was formed to raise funds for the building but it was only more than a decade later that the church building came into existence.
In 1908, a German missionary, Rev Herman Matthes, was stationed in Penang to strengthen the Lutheran Church in Malaya. He was taking care of the work around the Penang and Ipoh areas and was president of the building committee. However, due to some immigration problems, his travel was restricted and his ministry in Malaya ended quickly. Rev Joseph took over as president of the building committee and the pastoral duties for the northern areas. In 1913 another German missionary, Traugott Ruger, was stationed in Penang and took charge of the building committee and the ministry in the northern areas including Kedah. However, he had to leave Malaya in 1915 due to the outbreak of World War l.
Again Rev Joseph had to take charge of the Penang and Kuala Lumpur ministries with the additional help of a catechist. The task of caring for more than 650 Lutheran members scattered throughout the country was exhausting and a request was made by the stewards committee for another missionary in 1916. However, the help did not arrive and Rev Joseph had to continue his difficult ministry alone.
After the war, in 1918, Rev Joseph together with one of the prominent lay leaders and congregation secretary, Mr A.A. Peter, were jointly appointed as the trustees of church properties.
Meanwhile, the Church in India was preparing to become an independent church, the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (TELC), in January 1919 so the Lutheran church in Malaya agreed to adopt the rules of the mother Lutheran Church in India with some modifications to suit the local situation. However, this was not finalised until 1936 and the work in Malaya continued to be under the LELM Mission Council.
The renewed request for another pastor for Malaya was not entertained by the mission so Rev Joseph had to continue his ministry alone until 1921 when he returned to India after serving in Malaya for 15 years. It was only after his departure to India that another pastor, Rev S. Muthusamy, was stationed in Kuala Lumpur on November 11, 1921 to continue the work started by Rev Joseph in 1907.
On his return to India, Rev Joseph continued to serve in the newly formed TELC. He was the pastor of the New Jerusalem Church in Tranquebar, South India until his retirement in 1925. After his retirement, he returned to Malaya to live with his children who were already residents of Malaya.
Rev T. Joseph passed away in 1929 and was buried at the Cheras Christian Cemetery in Kuala Lumpur.