Parishioners in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, are mourning the loss of their long-time spiritual home after a fire tore through All Saints Orthodox Church Wednesday night.
The church was gutted by the blaze on September 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. No injuries were reported, and the cause remains under investigation.
“It is with tremendous sorrow that we inform you all that our beloved All Saints parish burned in a fire last night,” the church said in a statement.
“No one was hurt, for which we are immensely thankful.”
Photos from the scene show the roof destroyed and the church’s interior burned out.
The building would have turned 70 in 2028, according to parishioner Kent Vidal.
“It’s been there for a long time, been lovingly cared for by people for decades and decades,” Vidal told meadowlakeNOW. “It’s just a shame to see that all go up like that.”
Numerous pieces of artwork, religious icons and stained-glass windows were also lost, many of which Vidal said will be difficult, if not impossible, to replace.
“This is a big loss for our group, but we have a hope that goes beyond the four walls of the building,” he said.
All Saints is a small, parishioner-run congregation where regular services draw roughly two dozen worshippers, with attendance increasing during major religious holidays.
Vidal said the congregation had recently seen growing interest in Orthodox Christianity.
“We’re starting to see a bit of an uptick in people interested in Orthodoxy and coming to attend the church and appreciate the beauty of the services,” he said.
“So, it’s a real shame that this happened at this time.”
The fire comes amid heightened scrutiny of church fires across Canada since 2021, when potential unmarked burial sites were announced at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
Juno News, which has tracked the incidents, has found that well over 130 churches have since been burned, vandalized or desecrated. The tally includes incidents with differing causes and circumstances, and not all have been determined to be arson.
Northwestern Saskatchewan has experienced other church fires in recent years.
In 2022, Meadow Lake RCMP investigated a church fire on Waterhen Lake First Nation, roughly 60 kilometres north of the city, that was deemed suspicious.
Two years later, St. George Anglican Church in Loon Lake, built in 1939, burned to the ground. A man was subsequently charged with arson.
There is currently no publicly established evidence that the All Saints fire was deliberately set or connected to Truth and Reconciliation Day. The cause remains under investigation.
All Saints has longstanding roots in Meadow Lake’s Orthodox community. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada lists the congregation as part of its Central Eparchy’s North Battleford Region.
For now, the congregation will not hold services this weekend as parishioners consider what comes next.
“We have a group of people that are committed and dedicated and want to see things continue,” Vidal said.
“So hopefully we will find some solutions, but this is just kind of the beginning steps for now.”
Burned churches are the truth. Where is the reconcilliation?