Anglican Diocese of Qu'Appelle
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The Diocese of Qu’Appelle in the Anglican Church of Canada lies in the southern third of the civil province of Saskatchewan and contains within its geographical boundaries some 50% of the province's population of one million.
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[edit] History
The diocese was established by the Synod of the Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert's Land in 1884 at the beginning of European settlement on the Canadian prairies beyond the vicinity of Winnipeg; it geographically corresponds to the District of Assiniboia in the then Northwest Territories: indeed, until the 1970s it precisely so-corresponded, and included a strip of territory lying over the Alberta provincial boundary. This was ceded to the Diocese of Calgary. Today approximately one-half of the civil Province of Saskatchewan’s one million residents live within the diocesan boundaries of Qu’Appelle. However, only some 10,000 of these 500,000-odd people identify as Anglican. Immigration patterns at the outset of settlement determined that the majority of Southern Saskatchewan’s people would be German Catholics and Lutherans, Scotch and Scottish Presbyterians and Catholics, English and American Methodists, Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholic, to name only some of the denominations and ethnicities that constitute the vast non-Anglican majority.
At the beginning of settlement it was unclear where the District headquarters and territorial capital would be; the diocese selected the then-burgeoning village of Qu’Appelle (then Troy), some 30 miles east of present-day Regina as the cathedral city (with the original Bishop's Court in nearby Indian Head): it is in a verdant rolling parkland immediately adjacent to the Qu’Appelle Valley, amply treed with aspen and birch groves, with spring-fed creeks in lush coulees and plentiful local supplies of water. Owing to some fairly astonishing corruption by latter day standards, another site was chosen instead. The Lieutenant-Governor of the Northwest Territories, Edgar Dewdney, had purchased substantial landholdings adjacent to the future route of the Canadian Pacific Railway at what he then designated to be the site of the Territorial headquarters: what became the town of Regina, on a particularly disobliging tract of land, featureless, treeless and waterless.
The first pro-Cathedral was St Peter’s, in the village of Qu’Appelle, which in the 20th century subsided into insignificance. It became apparent very early that Qu’Appelle was not going to be an important urban centre and the diocese acquired a substantial property in Regina on College Avenue east of Broad Street which has now been sold to the provincial government; the diocesan offices, the former St Chad's Qu'Appelle Diocesan School, the former bishop’s palace, an old people's home and other diocesan structures remain, now leased from the provincial crown.
Of special interest is the intended cathedral site laid out at the corner of Broad Street and College Avenue, outlined in caragana hedges. Meanwhile, the now-St. Paul's Cathedral (Regina) was designated the pro-cathedral in 1944.
By 1973 it was clear that the diocese would never be self-supporting — it had been a mission field of the English diocese of Lichfield but this had long since become unrealistic — other than by alienating its only substantial real estate and that the original ambition to build a sizeable cathedral in Regina could never be realised. St Paul's was then upgraded to cathedral status and a satisfactory 2-manual Casavant pipe organ built in it in 1974, and the diocesan property was sold.
The diocese has historically been somewhat high church, with significant early input by religious orders including the Sisters of St John the Divine who operated the long-defunct St Chad’s Qu’Appelle Diocesan School.
[edit] The Diocese today
[edit] Parishes
The diocese consists of 44 parishes and 109 congregations with 50 full-time, part-time, non-stipendiary and retired clergy. Urban parishes average about 300 members; rural parishes about 150 members with two to six congregations.
[edit] Women
Women have always played a significant role in ministry and leadership; when the Anglican Church of Canada finally began ordaining women to the priesthood in 1974 there were already many women deacons occupying the role of parish minister -- particularly in aboriginal parishes -- although unable to celebrate Holy Communion and perform various other functions reserved to priests, and these women were immediately ordained and became the priests of their parishes. Women have held the posts of archdeacon, regional dean and honorary Canon of the Cathedral.
[edit] "The English church"
In the past the Anglican Church on the prairies had a profile, for better or worse and with greater or lesser legitimacy, of being somewhat exclusive. This was never wholly accurate. In any case, nowadays parishes in the diocese of Qu’Appelle engage in substantial co-operation with Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and United Church of Canada congregations to maintain a significant Christian presence in the community and there are numerous joint endeavours. It is anticipated that as time goes on — particularly now that there is institutional intercommunion with the Lutherans, with whom there has always been a great deal in common institutionally and liturgically — this will increase and, vis-à-vis the Lutherans, will complement the historic social identification of Anglicans with their ethnically identical kin in the United Church.
[edit] Aboriginal Anglicans
The diocese is approximately 15% aboriginal, a somewhat higher figure than in the population at large: the Anglican Church has always had a substantial role in ministry to aboriginal people.
The diocese was very nearly forced into bankruptcy in the 1990s by litigation on behalf of former students at aboriginal residential schools operated by the church who had credibly brought claims of abuse against them. The claims were ultimately settled nationally — Roman Catholic religious orders and dioceses were also defendants together with the federal crown, on whose behalf churches had managed such schools — and the Diocese of Qu'Appelle remains a distinctly inclusivist institution, with substantial participation by aboriginal clergy and laypeople in its life one of its proudest distinctions.
[edit] Prominent Qu'Appelle Anglicans
Michael Peers, a former dean, bishop and archbishop of Qu'Appelle, was Anglican Primate of Canada from 1986 to 2004.
[edit] See also
- Anglican Church of Canada
- Regina
- Saskatchewan
- Northwest Territories
- Qu'Appelle (original see city)
- Indian Head (original location of bishop's palace)
[edit] External links
- Diocese of Qu'Appelle website http://diocse.sasktelwebsite.net/
- Anglicans Online http://anglicansonline.org/
- Anglican Church of Canada official site http://www.anglican.ca/index.htm
- University of Saskatchewan postcard views of Qu'Appelle and Indian Head inter alia (including early Anglican buildings), turn of the 20th century http://library.usask.ca/spcoll/postcardsquappelle/quappelle.html
