The circumstances of Saint Matthias’s being built had a particular context. Saint Matthew’s in the Glebe went ahead with its large new church despite the onset of the Depression. Saint Matthias parishioners were more cautious. They opted instead to make do with their functional ‘basement church’ until better days would allow them to build the ambitious house of worship they had in mind. The only indication in this view that the congregation had been in place at this site for a decade are the trees surrounding the site, betraying half a generation’s growth since the ‘basement church’ opened for worship.

Planning for this large house of worship started under Bishop John Charles Roper in the 1930s. The design for the completed church was prepared by his son, the architect John Bethune Roper. His watercolour elevation of the west façade can be seen in the Diocesan Archives.

This photograph does not adquately convey the size of the new church, perhaps because it is blown up from a snapshot measuring two by three inches. But Saint Matthias’s Church was very big, and it is believed to be the first Anglican house of worship in the diocese to make use of iron girders in its construction. Churches as large as Saint Matthias had been built before, such as Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Ottawa, but their structures, like the European cathedrals of 700 years earlier, had relied on massive timbers and gravity to hold them together. 

We see the iron I-beam skeleton here, but that was not the only feature soon to be hidden behind cut grey Gloucester limestone rock-faced walls.  This photograph also shows the cinder-block construction behind the cut stone façade, and it even shows the poured concrete form underlying the massive flight of steps leading up to the main door fronting on Parkdale Avenue.  

Saint Matthias’s would not be the last new church with pointed arches to be built in the diocese in the 20th Century. The new Saint John’s Church, Iroquois and the new Holy Trinity Church, Riverside Heights, built in the 1950s, featured pointed arches but they deliberately were designed to recapture the feeling of churches dating from the late Victorian era that were threatened by Saint Lawrence Seaway flooding. In the design of Saint Matthias’s Church, a battle was taking place between the pointed arches of the Gothic Revival and a newer look of Art Deco as revealed in the accent lines and volumes provided by the Ohio freestone trim.  

In the distance (far left), we see a house across the railway corridor that Saint Matthias’s was built beside. The site of six city lots was part of a larger plan to provide room for a rectory to be built beside the church. Almost another generation would pass by, after this photograph was taken, before the railway corridor beside the church would reopen as the Queensway as part of Ontario superhighway No. 417.  Saint Matthias’s Church was secularized in 2016. 

If you would like to help the Archives preserve the records of the Diocese and its parishes, why not become a Friend of the Archives?  Your $20 membership brings you three issues of the lively, informative Newsletter, and you will receive a tax receipt for further donations above that amount.   

The post Saint Matthias, Ottawa — Ottawa West Deanery appeared first on Perspective.

I like to spend some time in Lent reading familiar books that have helped shape my spiritual life and that have given me insights into how Christ is present in my life. I have always had a deep love and devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist, and while sorting through the cards and letters that accumulate on my desk I found a lovely card from Fr. James Koester, Superior of the Society of St. John The Evangelist, a religious community with a long history in Canada but now based in Cambridge Mass. The following quote on the card, from the writings of the founder of SSJE, Fr. Richard Benson, caused me to pause:

“Each communion should be, as it were,

Adding some fresh point to the image of Christ within our souls.

As each touch of the artist adds some fresh feature

To the painting, so each communion is a touch of Christ, 

Which should develop some fresh feature of His own perfect likeness within us.”

This wonderful image is a simple but profound insight into the beauty and gift of the Eucharist that Christ has given to His Church. 

One of the fruits of the liturgical renewal in the Church over the last 40 years is the return of the Eucharist as the focus of our life as parish communities. It is a rare event in the Church that is now not gathered around the altar or that is finding inspiration in the themes of the Eucharist. This development brings both joys and difficulties to our spiritual lives. The frequency of the celebration of the Eucharist and receiving of Holy Communion can lead to a loss of a deep sense of wonder at encountering Christ in such an intimate and personal way. 

Fr. Benson’s image of Christ as the artist who in Holy Communion brings forth the beauty and goodness that is our life in the Risen Christ is key to renewing our love of the Eucharist. 

The Eucharist is both the intimate communion of the individual soul with Christ but also of drawing the Body of Christ into one: “We, being many, are one body for we all share in the one bread.”(BAS p.212) The Body refers not to just to the local community at a particular time and place, but of the whole Communion of Saints on earth and in heaven. The prayer “therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven…” attempts to capture the truth that the Eucharist is in time and out of time, of earth and of heaven. In light of the breadth and depth of the Eucharist, we do well to prepare ourselves to receive such a gift as St. Paul writes: “Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” (I Corth.11:27) To receive unworthily means without due consideration of what we are sharing in, of the awe and wonder at God’s grace be offered to all of us, of not coming with an open heart and mind to hear Christ as he speaks to us as individuals and as parish communities.

I too often have been guilty of rushing in and finding a pew at the last minute, without making time to be still before God and acknowledging my need for healing, forgiveness and renewal. There is only great benefit to our souls if we carve out a little time in preparation as we come to worship the living God and to be nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ. 

We can help others by creating a peaceful space in our Church before the services, by avoiding unnecessary chat until the coffee time after the service. Reading over the scripture lessons of the day or praying over the prayer requests in the bulletin are only a couple of ways to intentionally create an atmosphere of prayer and peace.

I pray that this Lent, all of us may deepen our faith and trust in Jesus Christ and find fresh joy each time we receive Him in our Holy Communions.

The post Holy Communion is a joyous gift appeared first on Perspective.

Getting started and knowing where to start is the hardest part of many endeavors, but the team working on the Action Plan for Contextual Mission and New Worshipping Communities spoke with people who have started new worshipping communities and planted churches and heard repeatedly that this work must begin with prayer.

They launched “A Time of Prayer — Listening for Divine Sparks in our Midst,’ at Synod. “We believe that God is calling us to proclaim the good news in our time and place, and that our engagement in contextual mission and the creation of New Worshipping Communities needs to be Spirit-led and rooted in prayer,” team lead Archdeacon Mark Whittall explained. 

The team has also created resources to help parishes get started praying and listening for those divine sparks of inspiration. https://ottawa.anglican.ca/resources/a-time-of-prayer/  

Each month, new resources are posted on the Time of Prayer page on the diocesan website: https://ottawa.anglican.ca/resources/a-time-of-prayer/monthly-resources/  They are divided into four sections: Pray, Listen, Consider and Inspire.

Pray: “Individuals and parishes are asked to pray for God’s wisdom as we listen for how God calls us to engage in the world,” and a sample prayer is offered.

Listen: “A Time of Prayer is a Spirit-led time of listening to how God is calling our diocesan church and parishes to cooperate with God’s loving action in the world. The bible study guide and accompanying slides present a Lectio Divina approach to animate reflection. Lectio Divina is an ancient practice in the church which combines an attentive reading and praying of a Scripture passage with periods of silence to create space for the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts.î

Consider: Ideas from relevant books and other sources are introduced with questions to stimulate discussion.

Inspire: This section provides examples of ways that other parishes and diocese have approached contextual mission and created new worshipping communities.

The guide and Powerpoint slides contain opening and closing prayers, the scripture passage, reflection questions to stimulate discussion and links to some brief commentaries on the passage. The slides can be downloaded and edited, so that different parishes or groups can adapt them to be most relevant for their context.

“Our hope is that prayer groups will form across our diocese and use these prayer resources to discern God’s call for their parish to engage in contextual mission,” Whittall told Crosstalk. 

In addition to parish prayer groups, the team plans to have a facilitated diocesan-wide prayer group meeting every three months. The first of these is planned as an online meeting for March 20 at 7 p.m. 

“The idea behind that meeting is really to give people examples of how they can use the materials, have a few testimonials of how people have used it in their contexts, and then actually pray through the April set of materials,” said team member the Rev. Simone Hurkmans. She added that they hope it will help those who participate feel comfortable to go back to their parish or group and lead a similar session. — Leigh Anne Williams

The post New Time of Prayer resources added online each month appeared first on Perspective.

This year, the need was greater than ever. The Dempsey shelter went from housing 60 women last year to housing 90 women in 2023.  We were also informed that many more women were staying at a new shelter recently opened at the Heron Community Centre, which added up to more than 200 women at the two shelters.

The two churches stepped up to prepare 90 gift bags for the Dempsey shelter. Along with parishioners, other community members joined in with donations of items such as winter hats, scarves, gloves, socks, toiletries, chocolate, pens and pencils. The generosity was so great that, although we could not prepare gift bags for the women at the Heron Centre, we were able to make donations of needed items to share with them.  City councillor Marty Carr’s office helped with the distribution of these items at the Heron Centre.

Many thanks to all who participated in this outreach project.

The post St. Aidan’s and St. Thomas send gifts to Dempsey women’s shelter appeared first on Perspective.

I had the privilege of interviewing her about her ministry for an article in the Anglican Journal in 2014, which we have excerpted here with permission in tribute to her important contributions to the church and women:

Ordained as a deacon in 1979, and as a priest in the diocese of Toronto in 1980, Medcof was one of the pioneers breaking ground, and in some cases ice, with those in the church who had not yet accepted the idea that women could serve as priests.

She began by taking divinity courses at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College part-time. She would see her two children off to school, drive downtown to take a course in the morning, race home to give her children lunch and then return to the college to attend more classes in the afternoon. At the time, she was also worshipping and singing in the choir at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto. The priest, Fr. M. Hutt, was one of the people who had written a manifesto against the ordination of women. Medcof thought it best to tell him what she was doing before he heard it through the “clergy grapevine,” she said. “There was nothing we could do but sit at opposite sides of the table and cry, because at this point, he, my pastor, was totally opposed to what I might become.”

She worked as an assistant curate at St. Paul’s Lorne Park in Mississauga, Ont. “We had to publish in the bulletin who was celebrating which service so people could [decide whether to] come,” she said.

Medcof says she did have strong support from a group of male priests, including Cyril Powles and Kenneth Fung, who sought out jobs for her; in fact, they found four possible positions. When she asked a pastoral professor at Trinity College for advice about which one to choose, she says he told her, “Alice, you don’t have a political bone in your body, but it is time you grew some…You go to Christ Church Deer Park because they have five members of diocesan synod and if you can convert them, just think what good you’ll do for the rest of the women.”

Later, she was appointed to her first position as an incumbent at Church of the Epiphany, Scarborough, which had, ironically, just become vacant when the Rev. Michael Bedford Jones, another one of the authors of the manifesto against the ordination of women, moved to another parish. The search committee had rejected three male priests whom they interviewed, and when the bishop told them there was no one else, a female warden, Virginia Finlay, who worked at the diocesan centre, said, “Yes, there is. There’s Alice Medcof.” Once hired, Medcof says, she found little resistance from parishioners, as long as she provided the 9 a.m. congregation with the full high-church service to which they were accustomed and the very different 11 a.m. congregation with a sermon that “preached the word” in 25 minutes.

In 1996, Medcof became one of the founders of the International Anglican Women’s Network, an official body of the Anglican Communion that reports to the Anglican Consultative Council on women’s issues. In 2003, she began what would be two terms as chair of the network, during which time she annually accompanied Canadian groups to UN headquarters in New York to participate in the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Their work contributed to votes by the Anglican Consultative Council, in both 2009 and 2012, to make the elimination of gender-based violence a priority. 

In recognition of her outstanding leadership in the Diocese of Toronto, she was named a Canon of St. James Cathedral in 1997, and in 2013, she received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Trinity College in Toronto, In later years, she worked on a campaign to raise awareness about human trafficking around the world.

The post Remembering the Rev. Canon Dr. Alice Medcof appeared first on Perspective.

Canadian women helped create IAWN, as you can read in our tribute to the late Rev. Canon Alice Medcof (below), but in recent years, involvement had waned.

The first big project Hill got started with was a survey of women’s leadership in the Anglican Church of Canada. She and Dr. Andrea Mann, director of global relations for the Anglican Church of Canada proposed the survey and the Rev. Dr. Neil Elliot, statistics and research officer for General Synod, designed it. 

Conducted in 2022, it was “intended to offer a reflection of women’s leadership and authority in the Anglican Church of Canada in 2022 as the Church approaches the 50th anniversary of women’s ordination (2026).” It was not intended as an exhaustive examination of the subject, but a snapshot “to stir the curiosity of people of all genders as they consider the contributions of women to the leadership of the church in recent years, as well as where, in working toward gender equity, we still need to encourage and welcome women’s gifts.”

The report noted that research on gender identity and gender equity needs to be considered anew and carefully. The team consulted with the Rev. Dr. Wendy Fletcher, principal of Renison College, to discuss whether research about women per se was still relevant. After some discussion, Fletcher said it is still important use the word “women” in a survey such as this: “Being a woman does mean something,” she said. Indeed, what it means to be a woman in the church remains an important question.”

Twenty dioceses (67%) responded to the survey. As promised, statistics for individual dioceses were kept confidential, but the national averages in diocesan ministry were: 

55% of central diocesan leadership groups were women (lay and ordained)

41% of bishops were women

35% of priests were women

60% of deacons were women

The proportion of paid and unpaid clergy is similar between women and men. There are significant variations across both rural and urban dioceses.

In its analysis of the results, the team wrote: “It is clear that the Anglican Church of Canada has much to celebrate. From sea to sea to sea women are being called to ministry and authority in the church. Not only do women comprise 55% of diocesan leadership, over forty percent of our bishops today are women. …However, the results also make it clear that we cannot remain complacent. It is a concern that only 35% of priests in dioceses are women. In addition, there are regional variations in diocesan results that reflect that women’s leadership is not well-accepted in every diocese.”

In her work as the IAWN link for Canada, Hill said the goals are broad—celebrating women’s ministries, both lay and ordained; seeking an end to violence against women; and achieving equity.

An interactive webinar on Feb. 26 (8 am to 10 am Pacific Time) will honour the 30th anniversary of the episcopal ordination of Bishop Victoria Matthews, the first woman to be ordained bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada. Panelists will be:

Bishop Victoria Matthews, episcopal administrator with the Diocese of Moosonee, who has served as suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Toronto, as Bishop of Edmonton in Alberta and as Bishop of Christchurch in New Zealand

Bishop Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London, England

Bishop Riscylla Shaw, suffragan bishop, Diocese of Toronto

Archbishop Kay Goldsworthy, Archbishop of Perth, Anglican Church of Australia

For more information visit: https://www.anglican.ca/primate/30th/

The post Celebrating women’s leadership in the church appeared first on Perspective.

Promised Land? 1833-1880

Two years ago, the Rev. Canon Hilary Murray proposed an exhibit to celebrate Black Anglicans in the Diocese of Ottawa each Black History Month at the Diocesan Archives. At that time a series of five exhibits was proposed over five years. The 242 years that Anglicans have resided in this region were divided into five time periods:

1784-1832; 1833-1880; 1881-1928; 1929-1977; 1978-2026.

The fourth time period (1929-1977) was covered in 2022, focusing on the ordination of the Rev. Blair Allison Dixon, the first time period (1784-1832) was detailed in 2023, and this year we cover the years of struggle between 1833 and 1880. 

Between 1783 and 1867, four groups of American Blacks migrated to Canada, mostly fugitive former enslaved persons. They were without wealth or power or social rank. The legacy of slavery in Canada dating back to the earliest days of New France consigned the Black migrants to labour and service roles.

It is difficult to say how many of the 40,000 Blacks in Ontario by 1867 resided in what later became the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, as the numbers reported in printed census volumes vary wildly. The 1851 census reported 7 “Coloured persons,” the 1861 census enumerated 137, while the 1871 census counted 110 “People of African Origin” in the region that later came to be known as the diocese of Ottawa. This likely reflects the massive bias from south of the border that did not allow people taking the census to enumerate Blacks before 1870, regardless of whether they resided in slave states or free.

The frequency of Black entries in the Trinity, Cornwall parish register from the beginning of settlement indicates the massive under-reporting in the earliest printed census volumes.

Nevertheless, the years 1833  to 1880 appeared to offer promise, beginning with Britain abolishing the enslavement of Blacks in 1833 (40 years after Upper Canada proposed legislating the gradual abolition of slavery, in 1793).

Freedom from enslavement drew former slaves and free Blacks from the United States to Canada, but the numbers arriving by way of the Underground Railroad (1834-1865) increased following the United States Fugitive Slave Act (1850) that emboldened slave owners to capture slaves who fled to free soil states. Relatively few travelling on the Underground Railroad came to eastern Ontario and western Quebec. They ended up instead in southwestern Ontario.

The American Civil War (1861-1865) held out the promise of emancipation. It prompted Blacks from 1862 to sign up with Union forces, although they were enlisted in racially segregated units such as Company E. Fourth Colored Infantry at Fort Lincoln.

In Canada, Blacks were exploited in their desperation, and they accepted wages far below those demanded by white workers. This practice attracted the enmity of white labourers, who tended to blame the former slaves for their own problems. Marginal, segregated, and dependent, the free Black group constituted a distinct caste which ranked beneath the lowest class whites.  

It was their background as former slaves that was the basis for their consequent poor status in a highly status-conscious society. Ontario’s Common School Act of 1850 permitted the establishment of separate schools for Blacks. Even where such schools did not exist, Black children could be forced to attend class at separate times from whites, or to occupy segregated benches.       

The post Archives exhibit for Black History Month 2024 appeared first on Perspective.

On the second Monday of each month, the Rev. Canon Allen Box celebrates the Eucharist in the hospital’s beautiful chapel, assisted by a team of Anglican volunteers led by Sheila Ruban and Tom Delsey who bring the patients to and from their rooms for the service, in wheelchairs or on gurneys. A choir led by Frances Macdonnell leads the congregation in singing four hymns and a psalm and all the service music by Merbecke; the choir also sings a choral prelude to the service as the patients are gathering.

As well as celebrating the monthly Eucharist, Canon Allen visits all the Anglican patients weekly, as do some of the volunteers. In these days in which more and more elderly people live in long-term care, this year-round Anglican ministry is of enormous value.

On Monday, Jan. 8 in the chapel, a particularly special service took place, since as well as celebrating the Epiphany, we were also celebrating the 60 years which Garth Hampson, Ottawa’s favourite bass-baritone, has spent volunteering at St. Vincent’s Hospital. When Garth first came to Ottawa in 1964 as the bass soloist with the RCMP Band, he joined the Cathedral Choir and started leading the music at the Anglican service at St. Vincent’s Hospital—and has continued doing that for 60 years, an unmatched period of service! In the last dozen years, this volunteer choir has been singing along with him—but Garth has been there faithfully every month since 1964!

For all his many kinds of  volunteer work, Garth has also been awarded the Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteerism, the Queen’s Silver, Gold, and Diamond Jubilee Medals, and the Governor General’s Commendation for Volunteerism.

At this special service, Canon Box was joined by Bishop Peter Coffin who has long been involved with the Anglican ministry at SVH, and we were thrilled to see Sister Louise Charbonneau return from retirement; she was the last of the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity, the original founders of SVH, to serve in the chapel.

During the service, Garth sang the solo part in The Lord of the Dance, the choir and congregation joining happily in the chorus after each verse. Sheila Ruban had kindly organized a celebratory luncheon after the service, and many of Garth’s extended family and friends were there.

Fr Allen Box spoke during the service of Garth’s lifetime of volunteerism, and in his remarks at the luncheon, Bishop Peter thanked Garth and also Garth’s wife Eleanor for all her years of support.

Lacking a 60-year-volunteer-service pin, Rebekah Hackbusch, manager of spiritual care at SVH, presented Garth with two 30-year-volunteer-service pins!

Canon Box’s ministry at SVH is funded through the Prayer Book Society, Ottawa Branch, and is supported by several parishes such as All Saints, Greely, St. Mary the Virgin, Blackburn, and St. Barnabas, Ottawa, as well as by many individuals. All donations are tax-receiptable; cheques payable to “PBSC Ottawa Branch” can be sent to Frances Macdonnell, 303-3099 Carling Avenue, Ottawa K2H 5A6.

The post St. Vincent’s Hospital celebrates Garth Hampson’s 60 years of volunteering appeared first on Perspective.

Then they brought their culinary finds to nearby St. Mark’s Anglican Church, partnering in the initiative by donating the use of the church hall. Everyone arranged the feast as a buffet on a long table. Some of the dishes are already popular among many Canadians — sushi, pork and shrimp dumplings, General Tso chicken, but many others were entirely new to most participants, such as unagi (marinated eel), thinly sliced pork tongue, and seaweed salad.

The Rev. John Holgate from St. Helen’s is trained as a facilitator and made the bold choice to bring a plate of “five cold appetizers” that were not labelled with any other information. 

The Rev. Chung Yan Lam, the co-ordinator for Community Conversations, immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong as a child and graciously served as a cultural guide, explaining some of the customs and special dishes for the upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations. Many of the packages of food were labelled with the word for blessing in Chinese characters, but she noted that often the word will be turned upside down because people wish for the blessings to be poured out. She also explained what some of the unfamiliar foods were. (The cold appetizers included mushrooms, a different type of fungi, as well as marinated chicken’s feet and spicy duck gizzard.)

After a prayer of blessing, everyone filled their plates with varying degrees of daring and sat down in smaller table groups to enjoy the food and talk about what they were sampling.

As the meal progressed to the desserts, Lam offered a bit of food for thought, encouraging some deeper discussions at each table.  “Did you notice any stereotypes that you came in with before you went to T&T?” she asked, offering some examples of things she has heard or been asked as an Asian Canadian: “’Do you eat cats? Am I going to find a dog in there? Am I going to find bugs like what I saw when I Googled Chinese food… Is it really clean because they just came out of COVID and we all know where COVID came from,” she said. “There are certain things that you might come with. I want to let you know it’s not wrong or right, it’s just what we come with.”  The aim is to encounter what is unfamiliar, break down barriers, be able to ask those questions in a safe space and see from a new perspective. The trip to the market gave everyone a first-hand view: there were no cats. “It’s just roast pork and ducks,” she said.

The encounter may also help people to “imagine what is the experience on the other side,” said Lam. She mentioned that during the pandemic when Asian Canadians faced increased racism, she found that T&T was the only grocery store where she felt comfortable letting her two kids roam around without worrying that they would get a hostile look from people.

In an interview prior to the event, Lam told Crosstalk that Community Conversations is intended to be an ongoing series because anti-racism work and education is always ongoing. “We found that relationship building is the most important, and that’s why it’s called Community Conversations,” she explained.  This first part uses food as a way to connect with other cultures, but the hope is to follow with other series based on music and film as ways to start conversations. 

“Our own sense of familiarity and unfamiliarity comes from our own assumptions and presumptions of the other,” she said.

“Food and Culture will be a series of cultural encounters, where all of us will take the risk to go somewhere we haven’t been to…. The only criteria is to be willing to try. You can certainly spit it out if you like, but to take a risk with the community is safer than by yourself,” she said. “I’m hoping to do this once a month on the last Friday of every month.  The next one may be to the Mid-East market on St Laurent. 

Organizers hope to involve nearby churches as a location for the meal and also a way to encourage engagement from those parishes. “That naturally creates an opportunity for a partnership and if they want to participate, if they’re curious enough, they don’t have to go to someone else’s church,” said Lam.

She encouraged those who attended this dinner to bring their family and friends next time. “They don’t have to be Anglican,” she said. All are welcome.

The post Cultural field trips stimulate appetites and conversation appeared first on Perspective.