The Latest? A massive 4-alarm fire at St. Anne’s Anglican Church in Toronto. This comes after more than 100 churches in Canada have been burned down or otherwise vandalized in recent years, a crime wave that would have the entire far-left political class outraged if the attacks were targeted agaisnt Islamic mosques.
Trudeau’s CBC state broadcaster was quick to announce that there was nothing suspicious about the fire, and it definitely wasn’t Islamic terrorism or some sort of anti-Christian hate crime. But how would they know that, if the investigation wasn’t complete?
I knew that church once upon a time – it turns out that as a college and university student plus co-op work-student in 1981-1991, I didn’t live that far away from it (10 to 15-minute walk) – but didn’t realise its actual artistic worth as well as the importance it once must have had for the locality and beyond. [Even during those years, one could feel that the area was in decline: several homes and churches were already looking quite dilapidated and “seedy.”]
However, I didn’t realise its significance until that ONE time I ended up visiting it haphazardly in late February 1988 while in the midst of a winter’s walk – and in those days, I walked quite energetically (as much as a whole hour each way from home then). That’s when I noticed its unique status both overall and also relative to the area: both its art collection (noting “the Group of Seven” paintings) AND what for that area was a surprisingly-large 4-manual Casavant Frères pipe-organ. [I even got to play it for a couple of hours on that Saturday mid-morning: alas, the caretaker bawled me out very angrily for not getting official permission to do so!] It turned out to be in the midst of a rebuilding and enlargement process that wasn’t finished until 1994 or so: many of its stops including a complete Positive division were missing, even though others were functioning quite well in the Anglo-French Late-Romantic style Casavant was very renowned for in that time-period 1878-1950. A fair amount of upper-work including mixtures and a climax-reed in addition to a brand-new console (quite good!!) were in the process of being added to the Late-Romantic core of the organ, necessitating its enlargement from 3 to 4 manuals in addition to an enlarged Pedal division. [I thus never got to hear or try it out when it was finished.]
Either way: I’m VERY saddened about its truly-irreparable loss architecturally, artistically and musically (apparently it was a hive of classical concert-activity)!!!! [It’s worth noting that in Toronto, most churches gravitate towards imitation-Gothic or imitation-Romanesque – this one was in Byzantine style with its central dome covering a LARGE part of the congregation’s gathering-area,] Given the timing of the fire (early morning): while it’s not impossible that an electrical fault could have been responsible, I’m QUITE SURE that ARSON is very probable…
Ah, the poor people who believed in the Christian cause and who contributed to this edifice’s building plus everything else – all in vain!!!! May their souls have peace in the midst of this SEVERE loss to the extended locality – and May God Almighty (in the Last Judgement if not earlier) Judge the miscreants if not MONSTERS who perpetrated this crime. RIP to the church, to the people of the community (including that caretaker), and those who believed in the Anglican branch of Christianity…
It’s the usual suspects.
Just going to state that regressive leftists and the frequently overlapping aboriginal racial separatists were responsible for this one.
looked forward to a Canadian opinion on what could be the problem but don’t even see a guess … have they surrendered ?
YES and it dont surprize me at all. Here in europe the politics give our churches away freely and with a smile, shit they even give land and pay the bill for the new super mosque. The church here in germany has turned against its followers like in the big war, same game other outcome.