Etching of St. Paul’s and the Grand Parade, Halifax, N.S. in 1759. Image: Richard Short (military artist), public domain
Halifax’s oldest building and Canada’s oldest Protestant church, St. Paul’s Anglican Church kicked off its 275th anniversary year Sept. 15 with a special service—featuring a homily by departing primate Archbishop Linda Nicholls on her last day in active ordained ministry.
Nicholls said the anniversary of St. Paul’s, designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1981, provided an opportunity for thankfulness and self-reflection. In the course of its history, Nicholls said, St. Paul’s had seen a variety of transitions, passing from European colonial empire-building to repentance and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples; and moving through rapid technological advances from the Industrial Revolution onwards.
“Through it all, there has been a community of faith here, loving God and loving their neighbour,” Nicholls said.
The history of St. Paul’s is closely intertwined with the history of Halifax and Nova Scotia.
“St. Paul’s is an extremely important church in the history of Halifax because it was founded in 1749, which was the year in which Halifax was founded,” says Henry Roper, a retired humanities professor at the University of King’s College and St. Paul’s parishioner since 2021.
Scottish architect James Gibbs based St. Paul’s on another church he had designed, St. Peter, Vere Street in London. Both reflected the Georgian architectural style prevalent in English-speaking countries between 1714 and 1830—characterized by a focus on balance and proportion that drew upon the influence of classical Greek and Roman buildings.
“Originally, it was a fairly simple Georgian structure,” Roper says of St. Paul’s. The building underwent significant modifications in the 19th century with the addition of a vestibule and steeple in 1812, side wings in 1868 and a chancel in 1872.
Alison Kitt-Grainger, a St. Paul’s parishioner and co-author of the book St. Paul’s Church at 275, finds the blend of different elements characteristic of the church.
“I find it interesting how it’s developed over the years,” Kitt-Grainger says. “The building itself has had multiple expansions put on … It has so many different styles sort of wrapped up in it. Every single stained-glass window is in a slightly different style.”
On Sundays, she says, the church will alternate between traditional and non-traditional services, the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) and the Book of Alternative Services (BAS), organ and piano. The parish’s history shows the typically Anglican tensions between high and low church, Kitt-Grainger says; over the years, it has evolved from the more evangelical “low-church” tradition that prevailed at its inception to embracing a broader range of worship styles. She points to old letters in which rectors debate whether to show credence tables—small tables used during the Eucharist in Roman Catholic and “high-church” Anglo-Catholic traditions.
For St. Paul’s Church at 275, which Roper co-edited, Kitt-Grainger and coauthor Aidan Ingalls wrote a series of essays recounting different episodes of the church’s history. They describe the influx of Loyalists into Canada after the U.S. War of Independence, which swelled the population of Halifax as well as the congregation at St. Paul’s.
One such Loyalist was Sampson Salter Blowers, who became attorney general and then chief justice of Nova Scotia and gained renown for his efforts to free enslaved Black Nova Scotians. Blowers—who is buried in the crypt at St. Paul’s—frequently ruled in favour of slaves at a time when the legal status of slavery in many of England’s overseas colonies was uncertain. By putting the onus on slaveowners to demonstrate they had a legal right to purchase human beings, Blowers contributed to the decline of slavery in the province.
Other episodes from the church’s past are its establishment of Chinese Sunday schools to teach adult Chinese immigrants; its loss of cathedral status in 1864 to the parish church of St. Luke’s (which later burned down and was succeeded as cathedral by All Saints, the present cathedral, construction of which was completed in 1910); and the role of its women’s auxiliary in mission work and helping the poor.
In December 1917, St. Paul’s served as an emergency hospital in the wake of the Halifax Explosion, which killed at least 1,782 people and injured approximately 9,000. As detailed in a church pamphlet produced for the 100th anniversary of the disaster, St. Paul’s and the Great War: “The Halifax Explosion”, the church provided a location for doctors and nurses to treat the wounded. About 100 parishioners volunteered to help at the hospital as St. Paul’s received bedding, clothes, food and medical supplies for the injured and those needing shelter.
More than a century later, parishioners still describe a thriving congregation at St. Paul’s. Rector the Rev. Paul Friesen estimates anywhere between 80 and 120 people attend worship on a typical Sunday, encompassing many families and multiple generations. The rector connects this attendance to high population growth in Halifax, which Statistics Canada reported was the second fastest-growing city in the country in 2022.
“We don’t yet have a situation where St. Paul’s is a downtown church that’s hollowed out,” Friesen says. People who attend may come to St. Paul’s for a variety of reasons, he adds. Some walking through downtown Halifax simply wander in. Others are attracted to the congregation’s youth and children’s programs.
Many historic churches across Canada face challenges in maintaining their buildings, as detailed in a recent Anglican Journal report. Friesen says building maintenance is an ongoing project and regular item of discussion at parish council meetings. While St. Paul’s has a sprinkler system and insurance coverage, Friesen says, “It’s costing us more to take care of the building for sure.”
At the same time, he adds, “There’s no sense of despair and there’s every sense that if we have the property, we have to take care of it—remembering that it’s the congregation that’s the church, not the building… It’s more that it’s an inheritance to us … and it’s actively used.