Wed, Jun 17 2009 - ROM Walk: Sacred Stones and Steeples (View Original Event Details)
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It rained throughout our walk but we are, after all, an outdoor club! So we had our umbrellas and raingear ready (thanks to Pete and Mariana for offering their umbrellas and making do with their rain jackets).
This walk started at St. James Cathedral at Church and King Sts. It is the most important Anglican church in Toronto, as it is the seat of the Bishop. St. James' was the church of the establishment in early Toronto. The present Gothic Revival building dates from 1853, and is on the site of the original wooden church (1807) and a later Neo-Classical building (1833) that burnt down. A cemetery once surrounded the church, and many bodies still lie under the ground.
Our next stop was the Metropolitan United Church at Queen and Church Sts. The present structure, another Gothic Revival building, dates from 1868 (although it was renovated after a fire in 1928) and was originally the Metropolitan Wesleyan Methodist Church, the centre of Methodist worship in Toronto. The United Church was the result of an amalgamation in 1925 between the Methodists, Congregationalists and 2/3 of the Presbyterians, and thus the church was renamed. We actually got to go inside the building to see the beautiful stained glass windows, historical photos, and the original carillon module (a device for playing the church bells).
Just north of Metropolitan United Church, at Bond and Shuter Sts., is St. Michael's Cathedral, the principal Roman Catholic church in Toronto and the seat of the Archbishop of Toronto. It was consecrated in 1848. One of the stained glass windows was designed by the same French artist who created much of the glass in Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral. St. Michael's is also the home of the St. Michael's Choir School for boys and is associated with St. Michael's Hospital.
As we walked up Bond St., our guide pointed out Mackenzie House (the home of William Lyon Mackenzie) and the Downtown Mosque, which is an example of a community religious centre just starting out. It's located on the second floor of a commercial building.
Further up Bond St., we stopped outside the First Evangelical Lutheran Church. The present building was finished in 1898 and replaces an earlier wooden building on the site since 1857. The architectural style has been referred to as "Alpine Gothic". Services are offered in German and English.
Across from the Lutheran church is St. George's Greek Orthodox Church. It is the "mother church" of this religion in Canada. The building dates from 1897 and was originally a synagogue. In 1937, it was purchased by the parish of St. George's and dedicated as a church. The building was extensively renovated in the 1980s. There is a beautiful guilded painting of St. George slaying the dragon on the pediment over the entrance. We only saw photos of the interior, but all of its paintings were done by two famous monks from Mt. Athos in Greece.
We ended our tour at Ryerson University, where our guide told us about Rev. Egerton Ryerson (the most prominent Methodist minister of his time) and his education reforms, which contributed largely to the public education system in Canada. After that, most of us went for coffee on Yonge St. and enjoyed a discussion that covered not only the history we had just learned about but also current South American politics and the origins of language!
This evening was well worth getting a bit wet!
Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Erik Sonstenes at photos@torontooutdoorclub.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.