Church member chronicles cathedral’s story

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/07/2020 (2279 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Still standing after several floods, financial mismanagement, and shifting foundations, Winnipeg’s oldest Anglican parish will survive cancelling its bicentennial plans, says the dean of St. John’s Anglican Cathedral.

Poised to celebrate 200 years of Anglicanism in Western Canada with concerts, an international conference and even a bicentennial anthem, Rev. Paul Johnson says more than half of their events have been cancelled due to the global pandemic.

“We had something going every month starting in October 2019,” says the dean of the North End cathedral.

“We wanted to have a year of events.”

Johnson says cancellations include the anthem competition, a conference of 75 deans of Anglican cathedrals from across Canada and the United States, and a two-day celebration in October involving Anglican bishops from across Western Canada and a worship service for 1,400 people.

The cathedral will hold a scaled-back celebration in October instead, says Johnson.

What hasn’t been cancelled is telling the cathedral’s story through short accounts researched and written by church member Terry Moore and published in the church bulletin every Sunday since October 2018.

“I was curious about who the people of St. John’s were and what they did in the church and the community,” the former Free Press editorial writer and editor says about his research.

After three years of weekly visits to the cathedral’s archives, Moore transcribed a book of vestry minutes recorded between 1860 and 1903 and hit up libraries and diocesan archives to fill in the blanks.

Deciphering the handwritten minutes, some recorded in watered down ink when writing materials were scarce, proved to be a challenge forcing Moore to puzzle out some abbreviations and check spellings of surnames against cathedral cemetery records.

That research resulted in 104 paragraphs conveying some of the highs and lows of the parish’s history.

Sometimes those were exactly the same, such as the excitement for a new church to replace one sinking into the Manitoba clay soil, and then having the same structural issues emerge in the new building. Constructed in 1926, the current cathedral is the fourth building on the site, replacing two previous churches with foundation issues. Fifteen years after completion, the congregation was forced to sink more money into their new cathedral to prevent a similar bad ending.

That decision to rebuild on the same location was born both out of optimism and frugality, says Moore, who also documented a campaign by some Anglicans living in the south end of the city to move the cathedral downtown.

“It became a hallowed site,” he says of the continued presence on Anderson Avenue, east of Main Street.

“It was hallowed by continued occupation as a house of worship.”

Moore discovered some metaphorical cracks in the foundation of the church, including significant financial mismanagement by the bishop’s nephew in early 20th century, which resulted in the cathedral parish selling off assets from its original land grant measuring two lots wide by two miles (3.2 km) long.

Anglican missionary priest John West arrived in the Red River settlement in 1820, founding the first Anglican parish in Western Canada and establishing an Anglican presence which grew to include schools, a college (now St. John’s College at University of Manitoba) and many other Anglican churches in Winnipeg.

“We are now worshipping on the last remaining vestige of what was once a great church compound,” explains Moore of the cathedral and its cemetery, occupying 4.7 acres.

“It was the great engine powering the Anglicans of Western Canada.”

At times that engine misfired, says Moore, citing West’s sometimes embarrassing journal entries about his encounters with Indigenous people. After two centuries of Anglican history, including running Indian residential schools, Moore believes Anglicans have finally opened their eyes and ears to their colonial past.

“It’s taken the settlers a long time to learn they should shut up and listen,” says Moore, pointing to a recent national Anglican service marking National Indigenous Day.

“That has been a hard thing for Anglicans to learn and it’s happening before our eyes.”

After unrolling the cathedral’s story for nearly two years, Moore has compiled some of the vignettes into longer chapters but hasn’t committed to writing a history book.

“I’m just pursuing the good stories,” says the lifelong journalist and editor.

“I’m a retired guy in lockdown and I have the opportunity to work at it.”

Intended as a prelude to a big party, Johnson says Moore’s work has grown to become a weekly celebration of the life of a parish and its influence on the growth of the city and province.

“Starting it two years ahead of time was intended to build anticipation and for people to know their own story,” he says.

brenda@suderman.com

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