Christ Church Cathedral (Ottawa)
Christ Church Cathedral is the Anglican cathedral in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The church is located at 414 Sparks Street in the northwest section of the city's downtown at the western end of Sparks Street on top of a promontory looking down to the Ottawa River.[1]
Christ Church Cathedral Ottawa
Doug Richards
Beth Bretzlaff
James Calkin
History[edit]
Beginnings[edit]
Philemon Wright, a native of Woburn, Massachusetts, came to Canada in 1800. Making his way up the Ottawa River, and looking for a satisfactory place to settle, he finally came to the Chaudière Falls, and was pleased with the character of the land on the north side of the river, so he decided to settle there. In later years, the flourishing settlement of Wrightstown would become the village, then later the City of Hull, and finally the City of Gatineau. Following the War of 1812, the Township of March was set aside for retired military officers and men. It was situated further up river on the south side. In 1824, Nicholas Sparks crossed the river from then Hull and carved a home for himself out of the heavy timber on the high cliffs of the south shore. In doing so, he became the first citizen of what would later become Bytown, and much later, the City of Ottawa. Colonel John By and the Royal Engineers arrived two years later to build the Rideau Canal, connecting the Ottawa River with Lake Ontario.
Early church[edit]
In 1824, the Reverend Amos Ansley, a native Canadian and the son of a United Empire Loyalist, arrived in Hull from England. Sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, his mission included the Township of March, and in later years, Bytown. Services were held in a schoolhouse in Hull, which proved to be very small and inconvenient. Through the generosity of Philemon Wright, a little stone church was built, and opened on the first of October 1826. From his headquarters in Hull, Reverend Ansley served the Church population of fourteen townships bordering on the Ottawa River. By 1827, he was serving eleven preaching stations in Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario), visiting most places by water in bark canoes.
Call[edit]
In 1828, the Bishop of Quebec, the Right Reverend and Honourable Charles James Stewart, paid a visit to Bytown. Later that same year, the Venerable and Honourable John Strachan, an archdeacon and later the first Bishop of Toronto, also visited Bytown. The diaries of both these clergy record the fact that the Presbyterians, Roman Catholics and Methodists of Bytown were able to lay claim to small but significant places of worship to call their own; but those of the faith of the Church of England did not, "...yet (were) sufficient to deserve the attention of a missionary." Archdeacon Strachan and the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada paid a visit to the home of Colonel By, situated in what is now called Major's Hill Park. There, they discussed the problems of funding the building of the canal, and need for a place of worship for the large Protestant following in Bytown. Later, on October 6, 1828, Dr. Strachan was able to draw up a subscription list for the proposed church building. It was not until early 1832, after it was announced at a meeting in Bytown that Nicholas Sparks had donated a site for the church. He had already given land for the building of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, as well as for the Methodist church. The original church building was to be fifty feet by thirty feet in breadth, the inside wall twenty feet high from the level of the beams to the top of the wall plate, and a tower erected at the west end of the church.
The Dean of Ottawa is also Rector of Christ Church. An incomplete list of deans includes: