Tag Archives: All Saint’s Sandy Hill

All Saints Sandy Hill Ottawa now a mosque on Fridays

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When St. Alban’s voted to join ANiC in 2008, one of the consequences, as Justin Welby might call it, was that the Diocese of Ottawa acquired the church building and the congregation had to find a new home.

To fill the empty pews and created the illusion that the diocese had a use for the building, the congregation of All Saints Sandy Hill was imported into St. Alban’s.

This, of course, had the unfortunate consequence of setting All Saints adrift as an Anglican Marie Celeste. I expect the diocese hoped no-one would notice.

Now All Saints is being rented out as “the kind of space that reflects Canada’s fabric today”. That means that on Fridays, it is a mosque.

From here:

On the December day they took possession of a 115-year-old church in Sandy Hill, Leanne Moussa and some others climbed up a spiral staircase and rang the church bells.

Those tolling bells, which at least one person mistook for a call to worship, represented both the joy they felt for saving All Saints church and their excitement about its new life as a multi-use community centre. The former Anglican church is now home to several different religious congregations, a small café, artists’ studios, event space for classes and conferences, and there are plans for future redevelopment that could add offices for NGOs and new housing units.

[….]

The deconsecrated nave will soon serve many functions — mosque on Fridays, synagogue on Saturdays and the spiritual home of two different Christian groups on Sundays. The 300-seat space can also be used for weddings, concerts, book launches and lectures, Moussa said.

All Saints Anglican Church in Ottawa sold

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From here:

The historic All Saints Anglican Church in Sandy Hill has been sold, and will gradually be developed as a mixed-use building for meetings, weddings and neighbourhood-scale businesses.

The Gothic Revival church on Laurier Avenue between Chapel Street and Blackburn Avenue was listed for sale at $1.7 million. The purchase price hasn’t been disclosed.

What makes this interesting is that, in 2011, the Diocese of Ottawa moved the congregation of All Saints into St. Alban’s, a church which had been vacated by an ANiC congregation as part of a negotiated settlement with the Diocese of Ottawa. The diocese, having ejected the ANiC  congregation, were eager to create the impression that they had a use for St. Alban’s, so they announced:

This has left All Saints without a viable congregation, so it has been sold.

The faux-new St. Alban’s congregation takes pride in not defining doctrine in a single confession, in encompassing a diversity of views  –  other than the diverse view that Christians who set a high value on a diversity of views have lost the thread – and in – Pride.

Here are a few of them, along with their rector, in the Ottawa Pride March:

All Saints Sandy Hill, Ottawa may be for the chopping block

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From here:

July 16, 2011 — All Saints Sandy Hill is a parish of about 120 people, more than half of whom you will find worshipping together in our lovely sanctuary on a Sunday morning, and nearly half of whom are regular, generous, identifiable financial supporters.

Now, in 2011, we are nearing a tipping point.

The responsibility to maintain and improve our century-old building and hall, constructed for a congregation twice our size, is beyond the capacity of the congregation. Engineers tell us millions of dollars will be needed over the next decade to conserve our buildings.

Meanwhile, the desire to get on with our mission as an inspired and active Christian community in the heart of Ottawa has never been stronger. Therefore, the people of All Saints Sandy Hill are in an active state of discernment.

[….]

Even in the face of these uncertainties, you may rest assured that it will be worship and action as usual at All Saints until Christmas, and possibly until
Easter 2012.

Funnily enough, The Sandy hill congregation are currently meeting in the recently vacated St. Alban’s, left more or less empty by the ANiC congregation’s recent departure – the result of an offer they couldn’t refuse.

Without the All Saints influx, the diocese has a lot less than 120 people with which to convince onlookers that they really needed the St. Alban’s building, yet the building in danger of closing is All Saints, not St. Alban’s.

Perhaps Face Saving has become the sixth mark of mission.

Anglican Potemkin congregation alert

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The Diocese of Ottawa’s version of St. Alban’s in Ottawa is obviously having a little difficulty placing bodies in the pews now that the ANiC congregation has vacated the premises.

To create the illusion of an active parish, the diocese is importing the congregation from All Saints’ Sandy Hill – and closing it for part of the summer:

 

Enquiries on this Anglican congregation shell game may be directed to what appears to be an abbreviated email address: assh@on.aibn.com.