The traditional festive season that churns up as the Winter Solstice approaches has become increasingly secular over the years.
There is even some confusion over the etiquette behind calling it the “Christmas Season” at all, with the more inclusive “Holiday Season” having gained popularity out of politeness.
Nevertheless, about 65 per cent of the Canadian population identifies as Christian, and this time of the year is celebrated by adherents to the faith as the birth time of Jesus Christ.
For them, the church – the actual structure of it, the strength and majesty of it, the spirit of community it represents – is at the heart of this celebratory and deeply spiritual time of year.
Guelph has a long, fascinating, and quite complicated church history that dates back to the community’s very beginnings in the early 19th century. From the start, or at least a few years into the start of the town, great limestone churches were constructed as houses of worship for a variety of congregations. Many of the churches in the city’s downtown core are now about a century and a half old.
The Roman Catholics and Anglicans, the Baptists and Methodists, the Presbyterians and United Church devotees, all had their architecturally splendid churches from the earlier day.
Perhaps the most visually splendid of them all, Church of Our Lady Immaculate, now known as Basilica of Our Lady, towers atop the highest point of land in the heart of the community, and stands as Guelph’s defining landmark.
But down and around the hill, many of the city’s great churches – a number of them having changed hands, or having been repurposed for contemporary uses – stand as a testament to the valued place the Christian church holds in Guelph’s heritage and its present day life.
This photo gallery pays tribute to the central place the church holds, both architecturally and spiritually, and is a glimpse of the exterior magnificence of these storied buildings.
