Christian Church

Excerpted from Chapter 1: Churches

Canadian Churches is divided into chapters covering Atlantic Canada, Québec, Ontario, the West and North and a final chapter entitled "Changes." Within those chapters the material is organized chronologically, thematically or geographically. We have made deliberate efforts to include famous churches alongside less well-known buildings: St. Paul's, Halifax, is juxtaposed with the less well-known but contemporary work of the Moravian Brethren in Labrador; the concrete structure of the Oratoire Saint-Joseph in Montréal is compared with 1950s and 60s concrete-shell churches in Saguenay-Lac Saint-Jean; Toronto's famous Group of Seven art in St. Anne's (Anglican) sits alongside icons by Mount Athos monks in St. George's (Greek Orthodox), also in Toronto; Manitoba's Cathédrale Saint-Boniface is compared with Saskatchewan's often overlooked Silton Chapel.

The challenge was always to limit the number of churches. Lists grew and shrank, grew and shrank again and eventually stabilized. Decisions were rethought. Yet many churches we hoped to include had to be left out because of lack of space, not lack of enthusiasm.

Some denominations may seem over-represented, some under-represented and, regrettably, others not represented at all. There are several reasons for this. Church buildings are not distributed across the country in a balanced way. The different historical, social and religious conditions under which the various parts of the country developed means that Québec is dominantly Roman Catholic while Ontario is strongly Protestant and the Prairies are especially rich in Ukrainian churches. Some ecclesiastical traditions have pursued architectural excellence more consistently and more creatively as they have built for their spiritual needs. Two examples of such creative activity are the important 19th-century developments within the Anglican Church and the late 20th-century implementation of the Second Vatican Council's reforms within Roman Catholicism.

Authorial preferences, of course, have also skewed the selection. Still, we have aimed to present a representative group of somewhat more than 250 churches, without attempting to shoehorn all denominations into the table of contents. The book reflects different periods, regions, denominations and styles. Our comments are driven by the architecture of the buildings -- this is "an architectural history" -- but we comment on historical, social, religious, theological and artistic issues as they seem relevant to understanding the buildings as places of worship.

Architecture matters in two fundamental and complementary ways. What architects fashion, and this is especially true of church buildings, both shapes and is shaped. There is a reflexive relationship between a building and its users, between a church and the congregation. On the one hand, a building gives visual form to what is important to a particular religious group and underscores that group's values and priorities. Architecture speaks directly to the relationship between an organization and the society within which it plays its role. To put it the other way around, society and the social order shapes the building. Architecture shapes the values, attitudes and outlooks of the persons who use the buildings. Buildings impose themselves subtly on their users, influencing their emotions, shaping their behaviours and affecting the quality of the activities and relationships within the structure. Each influences the other dynamically and reciprocally.