A church that has stood on Ste-Catherine St. overlooking downtown for over 155 years is getting a much-needed face lift thanks to $1 million in funding from the Quebec Ministry of Culture.
“The steeple, unfortunately, is corroding from the inside and that’s the really urgent part of what we need to do,” interim priest-in-charge of Christ Church Cathedral, Donald Boisvert, told CTV Montreal.
That aluminum steeple dates back to the 1920s, when it replaced the original stone that weighed a whopping 1.6 million kilograms, when it threatened the foundation of the building.
The Quebec government is funding the repairs to the steeple, but there are still many other things the church needs modernized, according to Boisvert.
The masonry and stone work on the outside of the church is crumbling in some places, while the roof has sprung several leaks. The pews are also the original ones installed during building from 1857 to 1860, and need some refurbishing, as does the flooring beneath them.
“We’ll undertake a fundraising to sort of raise money for the rest of the work that has to be done at the cathedral,” Boisvert explained.
Boisvert calls the Christ Church "a spiritual oasis in the heart of the city."
“It’s a Montreal landmark in many ways and it’s right smack in the heart of the city,” he said. “When it was first built, it was actually outside the sort of mainstream of the city, it was sort of in the country as it were. But the city grew up around it which is really quite wonderful.”
Indeed, in 1999, it was named National Historic Site of Canada.
—with files from CTV Reporter Derek Conlon