By Nicole Hunt
As the leaders of the final service at Erskine church proceeded through the church and out the doors for the last time on Oct. 21, the solemn notes of Amazing Grace, played by a single bagpiper, followed them outside into the night air.
The 200 or so people who had gathered inside to witness the closure of the century-old Presbyterian church at 343 Bronson Ave. remained in place, softly singing or humming the melody when the bagpipes were no longer audible. Many wept quietly, knowing they would never again worship in the building where they were married and have prayed most of their lives.
When they finally moved outside and the doors of Erskine Church were closed, Rev. William J. Ball delivered a short benediction. With that, the celebration to mark the closure of Erskine Church was over. But many long-time worshippers remained in front of the church, not wanting to leave Erskine for the last time.
“I’m feeling devastated,” said Doreen MacDougall, clerk of session for the church, who has been a member of the congregation since 1940. “I am absolutely broken-hearted.”
The service also marked the amalgamation of Erskine church with Westminster church, a sister congregation in Westboro headed by Rev. Ball.
The amalgamation comes after more than a year of debate at Erskine, where an aging congregation, declining attendance and the cost of maintenance for the old building had brought the church’s financial sustainability into question. Following exhaustive consultations with both congregations, the two churches submitted a proposal for amalgamation to the Presbytery of Ottawa in September.
“It is the belief of the members of Erskine and Westminster that as one Christian entity, rather than two, we will gain the strength in numbers to overcome both current and future challenges facing our Christian communities,” the proposal reads.
Dwindling attendance and high maintenance costs proved especially tough for the Erskine community. The congregation has had difficulty attracting new, younger members, and the church has been without a minister of its own since Rev. Cedric Pettigrew retired in 2006, following 15 years of service. Pettigrew expressed mixed feelings about the closing after Erskine’s doors had closed.
“Nobody likes to see a church come to an end,” he said. “But I do take comfort out of the fact that the congregation is moving on and will continue as part of Westminster church.”
When Erskine members agreed to close the church, they began looking at west-end churches for amalgamation. According to Ball, the majority of Erskine’s congregation already live in the west-end, and had been travelling to Erskine because of the ties they felt to the church. They decided on Westminster, a congregation of about 100 people with a strong youth membership and focus on community and ministry development. Erskine was welcomed with open arms.
“There is a group of people coming into our midst with specific needs,” says Ball. “They are grieving. They are in mourning over the loss of their building and everything that went on there. We need to reach out and make them feel they are a part of this church.”
To help integrate the Erskine community, all worshippers wore name tags on Oct. 28 when the first amalgamated service was held at Westminster. Prior to amalgamation, there were worship exchanges, pot-luck dinners and other social events meant to help the congregations get to know each other.
During the service, the Bible and cross that were brought from the sanctuary at Erskine after the final service were laid on the communion table at Westminster.
“We wanted to say, ‘This is your home,’” Ball says.
Erskine’s congregation can be traced back to a group of six men who began praying together in 1870, officially becoming a part of the Canada Presbyterian Church in 1875. As the congregation grew in the late 19th century, two church buildings were erected to accommodate the swelling numbers. The second building, at the corner of Elm and Preston streets, was destroyed in the great fire of Ottawa in April 1900.
The current Erskine church, with its impressive sanctuary and beautiful stained-glass windows, was rebuilt in 1905.
Many members of the Erskine congregation were married in the church on Bronson, and had their children baptized there or were even baptized there themselves.
Rev. Tom Sherwood, ecumenical chaplain at Carleton University and an ordained minister in the United Church, says he understands the emotional attachments to sacred spaces and rites of passage.
However, he says that the recent church closures are sensible, and indicate a shift in demographics more than an overall decline in church attendance.
Several churches have been shut down in the past year leading up to the Erskine closure. St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church on St. Patrick Street was ordered closed and deconsecrated in September, after parishioners determined to keep it open lost a legal battle with the Archdiocese.
The 184-year-old St. James Anglican Church in Hull, considered to be the oldest church in the Ottawa Valley, was deconsecrated in March after attendance dwindled to fewer than a dozen patrons each week.
And last year, First United Church, one of the country’s oldest congregations, sold its building on Kent Street to the Ottawa Chinese Heritage Foundation and moved in with the All Saints Anglican Church in Westboro.
Sherwood points out that the churches being forced to close because of low attendance numbers and high maintenance costs are old buildings in the downtown core, while congregations in the suburbs are exploding, even having to erect new buildings to house their worshippers.
“The buildings are in the wrong place – the people are out there,” Sherwood says. “There has been a demographic shift out of the inner city and into the suburbs. The infrastructure of the nineteenth and twentieth century needs to go up for sale; there are no young people there to continue it. It’s not just decline.”
Both Sherwood and Ball say church closures are reasonable in the spirit of stewardship – the rational use of resources to maximize the work the church can do.
“When new churches are built, they don’t build something like Erskine,” Ball reasons. “They build a space that is multi-purpose and multi-functional. Erskine is awe-inspiring, but the cost of upkeep is substantial. Even a larger congregation wouldn’t build something like that now. So we need to think, is this a good use of the church money, paying to maintain these old buildings?”
The Presbytery of Ottawa has yet to decide what to do with Erskine church, and says a decision will take time. There has been speculation that other congregations may want to purchase the building.
So far, the amalgamation of the two congregations has been successful. Though it will take time, Ball says that they will not be two separate groups forever.
“There will be a point where we will be united,” he says. “In spite of huge changes in their lives, we are seeing smiles. People are overwhelmed and delighted to find there is a place for them here.”