ABOUT US

We are the Christian Episcopal Church of Canada.  In our Constitution and our Canons, our Church is described as being a “national Catholic and Apostolic Church of the Anglican tradition”.  And that is exactly what we are.

We are a Canadian Church.  Since the social, cultural, and political foundations of Canada are British, most of our people are British in their ethnicity, being that either their forebears or they themselves have come from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.  And because the Church of England was at one time the legally established and official Church in many parts of Canada and the British Empire, and has been established in this country since the first recorded ministration of the Holy Eucharist according to the Book of Common Prayer took place at Frobisher Bay in 1578, there are many of us who are also of Native and Metis descent.  Likewise, since the years following the First World War saw many new immigrants coming to Canada from Europe and other parts of the world outside the old British Empire, many of our members are also of European, Asian, and African descent as well.  And as our British heritage well mixed with racial and ethnic diversity makes up the Canadian mosaic today, so the membership of our Church is also basically British, but also mixed and diverse.

We are a Catholic and Apostolic Church.  This means that we are a living and integral part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.  We profess, believe, and uphold the One Faith given to us by Our Lord and His Apostles within the One Church which is the Body of Christ and the whole company of baptised Christian faithful – the Faith set forth for us in the Bible, the Creeds, and the Definitions of the undisputed Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church.  The Faith believed and the Religion practised by us is the Faith and Religion of the Apostles and the early Christians, and which was held and practised by the whole Church until the great divisions began with the Great Schism.  Whatever was professed, believed, held and practised by the undivided Church from the beginning is what we in the Christian Episcopal Church of Canada profess, believe, hold and practise today.

And we are an Anglican Church.  That is to say, we are a Church which has descended and which has derived its identity from the Church of England.  The Church of England was first established by Saint Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, in 597.  Later, at the Synod of Whitby held in 664, the Church of England was united with the ancient British Church which had been brought to the Roman Province of Britain in Apostolic times and had been established until the Anglo-Saxon invasions had driven the British Christians out of their own country and into Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and Ireland.  The Church of England, or what in Latin is described as the Ecclesia Anglicana or Anglican Church , is and always has been the national Church of the English people.  In 1570, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First, the ancient Anglican Church became separated from the Church of Rome.  During the years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the Bible and the Services of the Church were translated into the English language, the Clergy were allowed to marry, the Cup of the Lord at the Holy Communion was returned to the people, and superstitious abuses and idolatry were banished from the Church.  The Anglican Church was duly reformed and purified, and was restored to the Faith and Religion of the early Catholic and Apostolic Church, and was established by law as the state Church in 1662.

So that is who we are.  We are a Canadian Church, a Catholic and Apostolic Church, and a Church of the Anglican tradition.  And now that you know about us, you are very welcome to join us, and to be a part of our communion and fellowship, as we come together to worship God, and to have a closer and deeper relationship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ, and one with another in Him.

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