[Anglican Church of Canada] Parishioners at St. Jude’s Cathedral in Iqaluit, Canada, are in danger of losing their place of worship if the congregation and the Diocese of the Arctic cannot find solutions to several pressing financial problems, Bishop Alexander Pryor said. An outstanding tax bill with the City of Iqaluit, rising insurance rates, high operational costs and the by-now familiar problem of congregational decline — each exacerbated by the unique challenges of life in Northern Canada — have combined to threaten the parish’s ownership of the cathedral.
“I think we are at the point right now where if something doesn’t change with the finances, we could end up losing the building,” Pryor said.
St. Jude’s is the cathedral church of the diocese of the Arctic. The original building, designed by architect Ron Thom in the 1970s to resemble an igloo and built by volunteers, was severely damaged by arson in 2005. The parish demolished what was left and rebuilt the structure to match its original appearance with the help of fundraising by parishioners and donations from across Canada, the United States and Europe. It took until 2012 to finish rebuilding the cathedral and until 2018 to finish paying off the costs of the construction.
The City of Iqaluit has now warned the parish St. Jude’s could end up on a list of properties for auction over an overdue property tax bill, Pryor says. The bill was accrued under a city bylaw which came into effect in 2023 requiring religious institutions to pay tax on land used for places of worship. Former Iqaluit mayor Kenny Bell originally announced the bylaw in 2021, in response to an announcement that ground-penetrating radar had shown potential unmarked burial sites near a Saskatchewan residential school.
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