From here:
A discussion on the potential destruction of a landmark 1950s church in Windsor has been postponed until next month.
St. Barnabas Church at 2115 Chilver Rd. is the subject of a demolition request by the Anglican Church of Canada’s Diocese of Huron, who own the property.
The stated intent of the demolition is to make way for construction of a drugstore.
There is nothing particularly surprising about that, since it follows the received ACoC survival strategy of Deconsecrate, Demolish and Trade (DDT). What makes this a little different is what happened to the congregation:
The church’s congregation relocated and merged with the congregation of St. Aidan’s last year, forming the new congregation of St. Augustine of Canterbury at 5145 Wyandotte St. East.
The building situated at 5145 Wyandotte St. East used to belong to St. Aidan’s congregation, a congregation that voted to join ANiC in 2008. The congregation was sued by the diocese of Huron for possession of the building; the diocese won and promptly locked the congregation out of the building. 165 people left and about 12 remained, so to claim that St. Barnabas and St. Aidan’s “merged” is misleading: the diocesan version of St. Aidan’s was taken over – replaced – with the congregation of St. Barnabas, leaving St. Barnabas empty.
Why would the diocese do this? For the diocese to maintain the fiction that it needed St. Aidan’s building, it could not sell it shortly after winning a thoroughly nasty court battle. Instead, the diocese moved another congregation into St. Aidan’s and sold the building that belonged to the moved congregation.
This is what, in church parlance, is called being missional; or is it incarnational – I forget.
You are correct in your assessment that the Diocese of Huron is in a ‘dis-sing’ mode.
The only two anglo catholic churches within the Diocese, one in Brantford, Ontario the other in Windsor, Ontario are slated for closure within the year. No surprise really. Old poorly maintained buildings are not what folk who might be interested in the Catholic expression of Anglicanism are looking for. Personally, take the Catholic expression out of Anglicanism out and just what is the point. In my lifetime, the ACoC will be known as the Luthercan Church of Canada. Yet again another totally Protestant church. Sigh.
There is no vision , no sense of what it is to ‘do church’. And it all starts at ‘the top’.
This all looks like a “shell game”.
This is simply the result of an apostate church with an apostate Primate and an apostate bishop who have rejected the gospel. Their designed intention is to continue to steal properties from orthodox Christians so they can sell the properties.
I imagine St Aidans is in better repair as well. But not for long!
To paraphrase Joni Mitchell:
‘Don’t it always seem to go
St.Gay Paradise
puts up a parking lot.’