One of Canada's oldest Anglican parishes has endured fire and fury, building, rebuilding and building again.
THE STORY OF the Anglican Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, in St. John's, is a story of the faith required to sustain one of the oldest Anglican parishes in Canada. At least six wooden churches rose and fell on or near the site where the cathedral now stands, destroyed in battle or by fire. In fact, fire is such a common thread that parishioners would be forgiven for wondering if Lucifer himself wasn't sending forth the flames to test them as they journeyed on the road to establishing their cathedral.
In 1696, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and his French troops sailed the Atlantic coast, from Maine to Newfoundland, seizing English forts and sinking English ships. In his campaign to defeat the British and destroy their fishing interests in Newfoundland, d'Iberville laid siege to Fort William in St. John's. After its surrender, he and his men set fire to the fort, destroying a small military chapel that was St. John's first Anglican church. Three years later, in 1699, the town's Anglican residents petitioned the Bishop of London to help rebuild their church.
Nearly a century and a half later, in 1846, fire struck again during construction of St. John's first cathedral. A cathedral is the bishop's seat, and Newfoundland's first Anglican bishop, Dr. Aubrey Spencer, had laid the cornerstone in 1843. But during the fire, the limestone that had been imported from Ireland and was to be used during construction was reduced to dust. In poor health, Dr. Spencer resigned.
The following year, Dr. Spencer's successor, Bishop Edward Feild, commissioned Sir George Gilbert Scott, England's celebrated Gothic Revival architect, to design the cathedral. Scott's design, based on the Christian cross, was put into effect by Halifax builder William Hay. The nave, where the congregation gathers, was completed in 1850. It served as the entire church until 1885, when the chancel, sanctuary and transepts, where the clergy conducts services, were completed.
Tragically, the Great Fire of 1892, which reduced much of St. John's to smoldering ash, consumed much of the cathedral, too. The fire began on July 8, with a lit pipe or match dropped in Timothy O'Brien's stable on Freshwater Road. Residents quickly realized that the fire would not be contained and, believing the stone walls would withstand the flames, many families filled the cathedral's nave and transepts with their valuables. But the roof timbers caught fire, the roof fell in, and the exterior walls crumbled. Everything was lost.
Eyewitness W.J. Kent described how "with one fearful rush the demon of fire seized upon the doomed cathedral, and sooner than tongue could tell the immense edifice, a gem of Gothic architecture…and the pride of every Newfoundlander, was a seething mass of flame.... The result of the labours and offerings of generous thousands for many years vanished in a cloud of smoke and dust."
Although the fire melted the lead in the stained glass windows, one survived. The three-paneled Resurrection Window, in the Sacristy, depicts the risen Christ, various saints, and Mary Magdalene at the tomb. The molten lead left flecks of tears on Mary's face and a line down Christ's face. The window also depicts a phoenix rising from the ashes.
Restoration of the cathedral began a year later, and by 1895 the transepts and chancel had been rebuilt. The new nave was completed in 1905. The cathedral is still incomplete, though, because the tower that Scott designed was too expensive to build. Nevertheless, the cathedral is one of the finest examples of ecclesiastical Gothic Revival architecture on the continent, with characteristics of the style that include slate shingles, round and lancet windows (which are tall, narrow and pointed), sculptures and statuary. The cathedral's solitary gargoyle, which once watched over St. Augustine's Cathedral in Bristol, England, is believed to be a thousand years old.
Typical of Gothic Revival architecture, each of the nave's 12 pillars has a different capital, a disparity that symbolizes the variation in the natural world. Also, the south transept clerestory windows and arches differ from those of the north, and some mouldings are plain while others are scalloped.
New stained glass was commissioned from C.E. Kempe, a renowned figure in the 19th century British decorative arts movement. Kempe chose to create stained glass for churches because a speech impediment had kept him from becoming a priest, and he vowed that if he was not permitted to minister in the Sanctuary, he would use his talents to adorn it. The cathedral has one of the largest collection of Kempe windows in the country.
Additions to the church in the 20th century included a 3,500-pipe organ, and a church museum with items such as a copy of the 1699 document founding the St. John's parish, pieces of stonework, and a headstone belonging to Mary Stow, who died prior to 1752. The death's-head skull on headstones such as Mary's suggests the Puritan emphasis on mortality, rather than eternal life.
The cathedral is home to the Burying Ground, the oldest consecrated cemetery in the city. Although there are only an estimated 2,000 burial records, the best guess is that closer to 6,000 people have been buried there. People of other faiths wanted their loved ones buried in consecrated soil, and, before 1809, this was the only consecrated cemetery in St. John's. However, not wanting an Anglican priest to say funeral rites over their dead, they buried them under cover of night, in unmarked graves. The actual number of burials at this site was in part substantiated a few years ago when a section of the Burying Ground was excavated in order to repair a leaky underground oil tank.
The parishioners and clergy of the Anglican Cathedral of St. John the Baptist have never given up, despite battle after battle, fire after fire. There is even a fleeting hope that one day they will be able to build the spire originally envisioned by Sir George Gilbert Scott and Bishop Edward Feild in 1847. While the cost remains prohibitively high, there is wishful talk of lottery wins and generous bequests-another testament to the determination of generations of St. John's residents who have sought to be part of something larger than themselves.