THE NIAGARA ANGLICAN ARTICLE ABOUT ST. MARK'S

ALAN HAYES

THE ITINERANT CHURCHGOER

St. Mark’s, Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL), is the most historic church in our diocese, and it has the extra advantage of being located in one of the loveliest and most charming towns in Canada.    Odd, that it’s only now in my 47th column that I’m talking about the very first Anglican church in Niagara. It’s not that I haven’t spent time there. In fact, St. Mark’s was the first church in Niagara that I visited. That was in 1976, thanks to a hospitable invitation from the then rector, Hugh Maclean, who loved church history as much as I did, and liked nothing better than to explore the past dramas and scandals of his parish. (He sure found lots of both.)

New parish history

Happily, two retired teachers from Niagara College have written a history of St. Mark’s that is both handsome to look at and enjoyable to read. Donald Combe and Fred Habermehl’s “St. Mark’s: Persons of Hopeful Piety” was launched in December 2006.The parish archives committee recently contributed a copy to the Graham Library of Trinity and Wycliffe Colleges, and the theological librarian, Tom Power, a parishioner of St. John’s, Hamilton, let me know immediately. You can get ordering information at www.stmarks1792.com.The pre history of St Mark’s begins in 1790 with John Butler, who was the area’s most prominent citizen at the time. An Indian agent and trader, he was the military leader of “Butler’s Rangers” on the British side during the American Revolution. He and many of his soldiers settled in the area after the war, and created Butlersburg, the predecessor of NOTL. The population was over 3000, and Butler wrote the S.P.G, the mission society of the Church of England, to ask for a priest. He and his friends promised a salary of £100 a year.

Robert Addison

The S.P.G. sent Robert Addison. He was 37 years old, with an M.A. from Trinity College, Cambridge, and several years of pastoral experience. He came over with his two young daughters, his sister, and his wonderful theological library of over a thousand volumes. Contemporaries described him as having kindly manners, an intellectual countenance, an exquisite wit, a delicate constitution, and, when he led worship, a “finished style of reading.”     He began holding services in the court house, the Indian Council house, or the Masonic lodge, until the town got around to building a church. St. Mark’s began as a small but, in the circumstances, “commodious” stone church, rectangular except for a squared apse, and furnished with a pulpit, communion table, and reading desk. It was partly burned down when the Americans torched the town during the War of 1812, and had to be rebuilt.

Addison’s travels

Addison also regularly visited every settlement between Fort Erie and London, and took a special interest in the Mohawk church at the Grand River. For many of  our Anglican. churches, including Fort Erie, Chippawa, Queenston, St. Catharines, Jordan, and Grimsby, he was the first priest.

His parishioners in NOTL never coughed up his salary of £100. They felt bad about this, though, and tried to make up for it by helping him secure land grants. Combe and Habermehl estimate that Addison wound up owning 18,000 acres of land around Niagara.

He ministered in Niagara for 37 years. Then his assistant, Thomas Creen, succeeded him. Creen established a school, developed the government of the parish, and enlarged the church building.

In the 1850s, unfortunately, Creen was drinking too much, and was writing some unfortunate letters to married women. As happens so often in Anglican history, churchwardens were “the sheet anchors to hold the church steady,” in Hugh Maclean’s worthy phrase Creen’s friends persuaded Bishop Strachan that the rector was suffering from a medical condition, which qualified him for a full pension.

Early women’s groups

In the 1880s a number of women’s groups began to flourish, including the Ladies Guild and the Women’s Auxiliary. In fact, women• were admitted to the councils of parish government at least as early as 1885.

The authors are candid and probably a little controversial about the time of troubles in the 1980s. The division and hurt in the congregation became so great that a reconciliation committee had to be appointed and a pastoral• worker hired. In the episode that garnered the most press at the time, one rector unloaded and the next rector bought back one of the gems of the parish, Robert Addison’s library, the oldest collection of books in Ontario.

   A happier section of the book concerns Ian Dingwall’s rectorship in the l990s. Among other things, Ian gave impressive leadership in setting up the church’s splendid lectureship. The names of the annual peakers are an honour roll of internationally prominent theologians and Bible scholars.

The next two will be Stanley Hauerwas (Oct. 24-25, 2008) and Walter Brueggemann (June 12-13, 2009). Count me in!

Cherry festival

 I always find an outing to St. Mark’s enjoyable. Last year I took my family, including my new granddaughter, to the annual Cherry Festival in July. It was a treat to be part of the buzzing activity in the church’s lovely gated garden under a blue sky in the fresh air. At one side were the barbecues and baked goods and jams; at another side were children’s games; in between there was a big yard sale; inside there were some very tempting items on offer in a silent auction and you could tour the historic church and grounds.

And on the Sunday before last Easter, which I’m supposed to call the Sunday of the Passion but which I still really want to call Palm Sunday, I joined the congregation for worship. We began in the parish hall, then processed behind a real live donkey across the yard to the church, which was great fun for the kids, and not only for them.

I needn’t describe the church, which you can tour online at www.stmarksl792.com. I’ll just tell you that it was a thrill to sit among the cool stones and warm woods and elegant furnishings, and to sense the company of many generations of saints.

Beautiful reading

Jennifer Phipps, one of the finest actors in the Shaw Festival, read a lesson that morning. In some churches scripture readings are assigned to, well, whoever, but it’s absolutely transporting to hear the Bible read by someone who totally grasps and fully expresses its meaning and beauty and drama.

The rector showed his extraordinary gift for teaching. He spoke engagingly and comfortably and warmly, and his homily brought Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to life in its social, political, and theological context. He helped me understand why Jesus was, and remains, so compelling.

And the rector clearly keeps up with his reading, without, however, being taken in by modern authors. He was right on when he said that one Irish-American biblical scholar (he meant John Dominic Crossan) is inclined to read the conflicts of modern Ulster back into first-century Jerusalem. How blessed our diocese is that St. Mark’s is part of our cornucopia of Christian life, thought, art, worship and witness.