A Special Piece of Morinville
I have found all my information on the HistoricPlaces.ca website.
Before I start, I want to say, all the photos of the inside of this church is by the St. Albert Photography Club. Friends of mine who gave them to me to add to my scrapbook. I want to say to them specifically a HUGE THANK YOU! This means a lot and I hope you don’t mind that I share them to help share the story about this amazing church. All inside photos are credited to the St. Albert Photography Club and their members.
This post is a little more harder to write because it means a lot to me but it also means a lot to my community. I am going to tell you about a church that once stood in Morinville, Alberta until it was taken from us. To do so, I have to tell you a little about Morinville and the Church’s history. So let me start from the beginning
Morinville was and in a way still is a small French and German farming community. There was a small chapel that was the communities first place of worship was constructed the same time as Fr. Jean-Baptiste’s arrival and before the St Jean-Baptiste Parish was built.
The heritage value of the St. Jean Baptiste Church and Rectory lies in their association with French religious culture in the province and their connection with the majestic architectural traditions of Quebec.
In 1891, Father Jean-Baptiste Morin led several francophone families to the Morinville area from Quebec. Father Morin had founded the new community that is now called Morinville and the new community was part of a colonization plan to encourage francophone settlement in the vast lands of Western Canada. The rapid development of ecclesiastical infrastructure testifies to the centrality of the Roman Catholic Church in the new town.
In 1907, the community completed work on the majestic St. Jean-Baptiste Parish Church and the first mass was held on January 1, 1908. What a great way to ring in the new year.
Now I personally never got a chance to photograph the inside of the church that was part of my faith. I wish I did and I feel I have been greatly missed out on the chance. Of course I could have always just asked and they would have been more than happy to let me. That is just the type of community I live in. Now, you will see photos of the inside of this church but they are not my own. In fact they are from friends of mine in the St. Albert Photography Club who got a chance to photograph the inside before the Church was burned to the ground. I will share that shortly. First I want to explain my love for this church that was greatly a part of me and that will lead to the feature of this blog.
The St. Jean-Baptiste Church stood enormously tall in the community that it became a great feature. When I mean enormously tall, I mean you can see the steeple raising above all the trees and buildings of the community from highway 2. Not only that, you could be half way down the highway and still see the tip of this church. It became a focal point that welcomed you into the town. In a way, it was like the main statue that resembled the town of Morinville and its community. Needless to say you would never lose sight of it. Every time I would be arriving home as a child from a day out in the city, I would always scream, “LOOK I CAN SEE THE CHURCH!” It was a way of knowing we were almost home. I would always scream it with a big smile on my face. As I got older and even though I still reside in the community of Morinville, every day when arriving home from work, I would look for this church on the horizon. Every time I spotted I would smile and say, “I am home,” with a sigh of love and relief. After a long day, this church always brought me a smile. How do I miss it now.
The mass in this church was so warming that you felt it in your core. It didn’t matter if it was just a regular Sunday morning mass at 9am or the midnight mass of Christmas. Mass on a regular Sunday maybe gathered around 200 people at 9am and 11am but when it came to holidays, every pew was full in this church. St. Jean-Baptiste Parish had a second floor balcony where those who couldn’t find a seat on the main floor would end up having to seat in the balcony. On occasion I got a chance to sit in this balcony with my parents as a kid and when I got to, I never had to go to Sunday School as much. It felt special and was much more…I don’t know, freeing in some way. People from all over the community and the surrounding area came out at Christmas time and Easter and took part in the celebration of the holiday in this church.
Palm Sunday, my church always gave out actual palm leaves and I believe I still have some of these from over the years that my mum and I created into a craft. Whenever I was a child, I never had enough attention span to actually pay attention to the mass. To keep my attention, I would either doodle on our pamphlet that was handed out to everyone at each mass, trace my fingers across the wall designs, watch the sunlight come through the stained glass and colour the walls, or just admire the artwork that was in this church. The statues were absolutely amazing but it was the ceiling art that was breathtaking.
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St. Jean Baptiste Church is one of the most elaborate and ornate Roman Catholic churches in Alberta and reflects the nineteenth century French-Canadian ecclesiastical style associated with architect Thomas Baillairge. Marrying traditional French-Canadian church design with eighteenth century British and French classicism, Baillairge’s architectural style was embodied in numerous Alberta churches.”
The St. Jean Baptiste Church's tall central spire, layout and ornately carved interior elements all express dimensions of traditional French-Canadian church design. When I say this, I mean this whole church was a piece of artwork to God. It was like an showing of faith to the creator and I remember everyone who was just simply visiting, saying that it was the most stunning art you saw. Not many churches now-a-days have painted ceilings like St. Jean-Baptiste did. Classicist ideas are evident in the pediment, the Romanesque Revival window arches, and the arrangement of the triple tower scheme. This foundational template is supplemented with High Victorian Gothic features, including the layered striping, geometric patterning, and dramatic polychromatic design of the exterior.
As a kid, I didn’t like getting up early on a Sunday to simply go to church or have to leave my grandma’s on Christmas Eve to attend the late Christmas Mass. I won’t lie, a few times I have fell asleep in the pew during Christmas Mass when it ran to long. Christmas Mass used to be actually at Midnight and would run for two or three hours. Over the years, it started being pushed back to earlier times, 9PM now being the earliest and maybe runs now an hour and a half. I took those times for granted as I look back on it now, I wish that I could attend at least one more Christmas Mass, one more Easter Mass, on more Sunday Mass in this church. I miss the beauty, the connection, the community that this church brings. I am glad the community part and the connection didn’t die with the church when it burned down.
The pews of this church, well the pews have a story. So the pews in the St. Jean-Baptiste Church in Morinville always ended on a even number and always skipped a number. I don’t know the real reason why but it always brought a good conversation between my parents and I. I know that there is an official historical reason and once I knew but now don’t remember but we always thought that maybe they couldn’t count. Now looking into history, it was a way to possibly keep record keeping of those who attended the church in the community.
These pews were solid wood and I mean SOLID wood. Having to sit there for an hour as a kid, it became uncomfortable. As an adult, it got a little better as your legs and feet could now touch the ground. There was a padded kneeling rest for those attending to kneel on after receiving communion. We did it also when we had to pray but if we were standing, we only had to bow our heads. Let me tell you, the cushions on that kneeling bench was much more comfortable than the pews as a kid. Sometimes I sat on that and doodled on some paper instead when I attended mass as a child.
Now the St. Jean-Baptiste Church had an enormous bell tower, an enormous Gallery for a choir (that I never saw used) and an enormous pipe organ. I wish I had pictures of the pipe organ and even though it has now been four or five years, I can still hear its sound today. It was beautiful and would steel your breath away every time you hear it. The sound just vibrated down into your core. I loved hearing the hymns played every mass on this pipe organ, Here I Am Lord being a favourite between my mum and I.
“Here I am, Lord
Is it I, Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night
I will go, Lord
If You lead me
I will hold Your people in my heart”
I am saddened that I won’t be able to photograph this historic building ever again and you never know when you would be taking the last photo until it is your last. If that makes sense. It is like you don’t know when you will be saying goodbye for the last time until it is the last time. It sneaks up on you and can hit you like a ton of bricks.
The last photos I got of this church were with my friend Colette when we did a impromptu photoshoot in front of it one spring. These photos are still one of my favourites and I treasure them a little more knowing that it was the last time we were going to take photos in front of this church.
It was a bright and hot spring day in 2021 and the middle of covid. We still wanted to get together so we did for a quick photoshoot outside so that we can spend some time together. The photos you will be seeing now, are the last of this church that I ever got before I share my most favourite photo the outside. Before I share the feature photo.
After our quick spontaneous photoshoot, we headed across to Higher Grounds for some coffee. I wish we did more in the park beside it now but you never know when it is your last. The park is still there and still with it’s original stuff so one day I will have to do another spontaneous adventure with my friend there.
Now in 2021, a sad day happened when in the early morning there was a fire the engulfed this 113yr old historic church. This is when there was a series of church burnings happening in Canada due to the Residential Schools. Residential Schools have been gone for a very long time but the Canadian Government was bringing light to it for the Truth And Reconciliation Day. Citizens of Canada were upset with the dark spot in Canadian history, blaming the Catholic church and religion for the wrong doing. Now I am not saying it wasn’t wrong, it was wrong what was done and as a Catholic, I was even saddened that my religion did this. It is history and you cannot change or rewrite history but you can learn from it. Some people took it to far.
I remember getting the call at six in the morning from my mum. Still groggy-eyed with sleep I answer and I hear, “the church is on fire.”
I respond then in return, “Church? What church?”
Now it may be easy to say, the church of Morinville but there is more than one in Morinville. In fact there was one that was recently brought from St Albert and to the Heritage Lake. That was the church that I thought she meant as it was so recently moved. Not once did I think my church. So my mum responded, “What do you mean what church? Our Church!”
When she said those words I sat bolt upright in bed and nearly dropped the phone. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I didn’t want to believe it. After getting off the phone with my mum, I grab my dog and hear leash and we head out. I was able to see the flames from my place and the grief I felt was strong. I nearly dropped to my knees. A piece of my history, of my childhood, and giant piece of our community - Gone!
The grief shook the whole town and the surrounding area. No one could believe what they were hearing, what they were seeing even with their own two eyes. I finished walking my dog and headed home to watch the news to see what happened. This fire to this day is considered suspicious and intentionally set. That saddens me that someone was so angry that they would do something like this. Those who were not part of this church, or who didn’t believe, or even just moved to the community even felt it to their core. Friends and Family of mine who attended the church as kids or even never attended told me how grief stricken and shocked they were. It goes to show that you don’t have to believe or attend church to feel something so strongly. God is with you no matter what and he won’t abandon you even if you do. The stories I saw people posting on the fence as a memorial to this church was warming. I don’t know why but it comforted me and to see the whole town and the surrounding communities come together, that was something even more spiritual than I can ever believe. It was magical to witness seeing the town of Morinville come together in times of hardship.
My church and I, we want to move on and rebuild the church of our community. We don’t want to lay blame. What happened happened and it is time to move on. It is in the past, it is part of this towns history, and it is something we all can grow from. As I took pictures of the community coming together, I got to hear their stories. It wasn’t just people from around the town of Morinville but I got to hear stories from people who came from around Canada. One person I met, he doesn’t live near Morinville but has visited this church many times. He loved the artwork inside, the community, and has visited other churches in Canada. When I was talking with him, he said this is still one of the biggest and gorgeous churches he has ever been grateful to visit and that he was saddened to see it destroyed.
People for months came and paid respects to this historic building after they heard the news. It was wonderful to see and it warmed my heart to see my community healing as one. I am so happy that we didn’t let this dark moment taint the rest of our belief or the rest of the community. The bells of this church before I wrap this up, used to ring every hour on the hour. Then only every six hours, 6AM, 12PM, 6PM, Midnight. The bells will ring again.
Now you are probably wondering why I decided to share this on Easter. It is the story behind how this church brought the community together even when someone tried to take it away. Like the Who’s in whoville, and like when Christ died on the Cross for us. The who’s still gathered when the Grinch took their tree and tried to take their Christmas. The followers of Christ never stopped believing and still gathered. The community of Morinville has never stopped believing, has never lost their faith and belief in God, and has come together even in the darkest of times. I have never stopped believing in my faith and I have never lost faith in my community. I feel my community has grown stronger just like I have grown stronger. So now I leave you with my favourite photo of this historical site. I was trying to get the full building in the photo and as Morinville is close to the Edmonton Canadian Forces Base, we have military trucks travelling through regularly. As I got the shot of the church, one of the Military Jeeps was passing by and I ended up getting this shot and I love it to this day.
