St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church (Toronto)

History

St Bartholomew's was founded in 1873 as a mission of All Saints, Sherbourne Street, and, until 1910, stood at the end of Beech Street (now Dundas Street East) on the east side of River Street. The parish of St Matthew's, Riverdale, in its turn, began life as a mission of St Bartholomew's in 1874. A second mission church, St Augustine's, was established on the corner of Spruce and Parliament streets in Cabbagetown in 1888. It became and independent parish in 1905 and was destroyed by fire in 1931.

The parish church was moved to its present location on the corner of Dundas and Regent Streets in 1910 to make way for the Dundas Street bridge. While numbers and finances declined just before and during the First World War, two lay guilds, the St Bartholomew's Association (a parish society for the advancement of the spiritual life) and a chapter of the Brotherhood of St Andrew, appear to have flourished.

Unlike certain other Toronto parishes of the same era, such as St Mary Magdalene's, St Thomas's, Huron Street, and St Matthias, Bellwoods, St Bart's was not an Anglo-Catholic foundation. The first Anglo-Catholic rector of St Bartholomew's was Father Charles Fredrick Pashler. A veteran of the First World War, who had been severely wounded at Monchy in August of 1918, Father Pashler was influenced not only by the Tractarian and Ritualist movements of the Church of England, but also by the simple Roman Catholic piety he had witnessed in rural France: "the kindliness and unaffected piety of the people, the natural practice of their religion, the soutane-clad figures of their pastors in the village streets and country lanes" were all to have their influence on his ministry. Pashler was "unique among Toronto priests" of his generation "inasmuch as he always and everywhere wore his cassock, in and out of season" (a common practice on the Continent and in Anglo-Catholic parishes in England at the time).

In the face of some opposition – especially from members of the nearby Jarvis Street Baptist Church – Father Pashler was able to introduce weekly, and very soon daily, celebrations, early on in his incumbency. The use of Eucharistic Vestments, altar candles, and incense were all soon to follow. Father Pashler's Anglo-Catholic principles were both simple and clear: "We do not think of ourselves as a foreign, alien group on the edge of Anglicanism, but as believing, teaching, and doing those things which the Church herself intends. We do not believe that Roman Catholics are the only Catholics, but that Anglicans are Catholics too. From that, all those things which puzzle some people – the beauty of our worship, our teaching about the seven sacraments, our love and reverence for our Lord’s Mother and the Saints – all these stem from our conviction that when in the creeds we assert our belief in the Catholic Church, our prayer book means exactly what it says."

Father Pashler died suddenly in 1959. The love of his people for him can be gauged by the City of Toronto's renaming of the street on which the Clergy House stood as 'Pashler Avenue'. Celebrants from other Anglo-Catholic parishes and Trinity College ensured that the daily Mass continued until his successor was appointed.

In the fall of 1959, Father Donald F. Bellway, who had been an assistant priest at St James, Vancouver, arrived as the new rector. The years of his incumbency were dominated by the emerging social problems of the newly-built Regent Park public housing project. A series of consultations took place to investigate the possibility of the Anglican Diocese, the parish, other Christian denominations, and secular groups might co-operate in finding solutions. Father Bellway was the prime mover in these discussions, which paved the way for much church and community co-operation for the next quarter of a century.

Father Bellway was succeeded, in 1977, by Father Robert Greene. A former tank gunner of the Italian Campaign, whose great heroes were the Ritualist slum priests of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Father Greene carried on the work of inner city co-operation between church and community that Father Bellway had begun. As social problems became more acute through the 1970s and '80s, several new initiatives were undertaken. A food bank was run out of the basement of the rectory (as it was now being called); two breakfast soup kitchens were set up with the collaboration of a local police sergeant and a staff of volunteers from the parish and St James Cathedral. An indefatigable visitor, Father Greene continuously visited his way through the parish list and around Regent Park; he also undertook a visitation ministry to the Don Jail. In June 1986, Father Greene's work was recognised by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who visited the rectory and toured Regent Park with the rector.

Today St Bartholomew's stands in the midst of a major urban revitalisation project. In 2012, the then-Dean of St James Cathedral, the Very Rev'd Douglas Stoute, suggested to the Archbishop of Toronto, the Most Rev'd Colin R. Johnson, that the Cathedral and Diocese should support St Bartholomew's, to help insure that the parish might re-engage with their community in a time of transition. The parish remains a ministry in collaboration with St James Cathedral.

Liturgy

St Bartholomew's is an Anglo-Catholic parish and follows the Rite of the 1959 Canadian revision of the Book of Common Prayer with additions from Anglo-Catholic service books such as the Plainchant Gradual, the English Gradual, the Anglican Missal, and the Monastic Diurnal Noted. The ceremonial is that of the Western Rite. A Solemn or Sung Mass preceded by the Asperges and followed by the Angelus is celebrated every Sunday of the year. A Solemn Mass with Procession is sung on many major Feast Days. Low Mass is celebrated daily from Tuesday to Saturday. From Tuesday through Friday, Morning and Evening Prayer are recited in the Lady Chapel according to the 1959 Canadian Book of Common Prayer. Solemn Evensong, followed by Benediction or the Rosary, is sung weekly on Saturday evenings.

Music

Healey Willan was a frequent visitor to the Clergy House at St Bartholomew's during the tenure of his student, Alex Shaw (1929–63), as Choir Master. After the death of Father Pashler, Shaw became Organist and Choir Master of All Hallows', Main Street.

Shaw's successor, Walter Barnes (1963–84), had been a protégé of Willan's student, Walter McNutt, Choir Master at St Thomas's, Huron Street. During Barnes's tenure, the well-known St Bart's Boys' Choir toured widely, including performances at Expo 67, and recorded two long play records on the Arc label.

The parish's current Cantrix and Choir Director, Katherine Hill, is a mediaevalist, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, who performs with the Toronto Consort. The parish organist, Sebastian Moreno, is a student of Stephanie Martin and John Tuttle, former organists of the Church of St Mary Magdalene and St Thomas's, Huron Street, respectively.

Catholic Devotion at St Bartholomew's

St Bartholomew's has many regular corporate devotions. A Holy Hour (Eucharistic Adoration) is held weekly on Friday evenings (Thursdays in Lent). The Stations of the Cross are held weekly in Lent and more often during Holy Week. The Holy Rosary is recited twice weekly throughout the year.

While St Bartholomew's currently houses no Catholic Devotional Societies, the parish once had a cell of the Society of the Holy House at Walsingham, as well as a parish ward of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. Some current parishioners regularly attend meetings of the Toronto Ward of the Society of Mary. St Bartholomew's holds an annual May Procession, Solemn Mass of Our Lady, and May Crowning as part of the Society of Mary's May Festival.

Confessions are currently heard weekly, after Saturday Evensong, and by appointment.

Parish Outreach Programmes

The parish has three major outreach programmes, all of which are fundamentally food ministries:

Children's Centre

The St Bartholomew's Chidren's Centre operates from the parish hall. The Centre has programmes "designed for a multicultural community, enabling children to experience" Regent Park's "rich cultures" and to "develop the social skills that will make them successful in life and help them to excel in school."

Parish Priests of St Bartholomew's

Services