[Anglican Church of Canada] The destruction by fire of St. Anne’s Anglican Church in Toronto last June underscores risks faced by aging churches across Canada, an architectural historian says — and the country could face significant loss of cultural heritage in the years to come.
Peter Coffman, a Carleton University art and architectural history professor who specializes in Canadian Gothic Revival buildings, says many churches are in danger of being destroyed or collapsing. As their congregations shrink, so does the money to pay for their maintenance and preservation.
Canada’s loss of its historic churches is likely to be a protracted process, he says. “I doubt there’s going to be a wave,” Coffman says. The danger, he says, is that it will be “more of a constant trickle — drip, drip, drip — until there’s little or nothing left.”
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