It rests there, survivor of several massive earthquakes, Latin Crusaders and the capture in the 15th century by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror who made it his imperial mosque. Arguably the greatest church in Christendom, Hagia Sophia, representative of Orthodox Christianity and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, dominating the skyline of Istanbul, surrounded by four minarets, is a museum. Ataturk, father of modern Turkey, ordered the designation in 1934.
Nearly 70 years later, the government of Ontario was poised to follow in Ataturk's footsteps, proposing legislation to give the province power to designate any building a heritage site and force upkeep on the owner. The bill was before a committee prior to final reading when the churches were alerted. An ecumenical delegation made a presentation and persuaded the government to discuss the situation with the churches.
Ontario's churches are collectively its largest private landlords, but it is merely an historical aside indicating how incidental Christianity is to contemporary government and society that they weren't consulted over this legislation. Indeed, the most telling indication of how society views churches is comments made by Catherine Nasmith, an architect and long-time crusader for protection of heritage property. "Churches don't have the title to the building," she told the Record. "It belongs to everyone who helped build it." This, she opined, includes architects, masons, donors and parishioners. "These buildings cannot be taken down. They're too symbolically loaded and have too much of our collective emotions built into them."
Ms. Nasmith's observations are, at one level, both risible and offensive. In fact, churches do have title to their buildings. And they no more belong to everybody who helped build them than any other building, old or modern. "Symbolically loaded"? Well, yes, every church, whether a grass hut in Africa or Hagia Sophia is symbolically loaded as the special dwelling place of God. Christians, and Jews before them, have always marked holy places for worshipping the immanent divine.
What Ms. Nasmith's comments do is beg the question: "What is the purpose of churches?" And the answer from Christians has always been that they are built to the glory of God as a place for worship, prayer and ministry.
Denominations do not build churches as secular community centres. A church may become the center of the community—in some sense, the people who built it hope it does become the center of worship and spirituality, a place where people encounter Christ and come to know the love of God. And Ms. Nasmith is all too right in noting that many churches have too much collective emotion built into them. Just try closing a dying congregation to see how much emotion there is.
But as the country's demographics shift, as people continue to move from the country to the city and as immigrants from many cultural and religious backgrounds flood into Toronto and other major cities, churches that were once at the heart of thriving communities can find themselves bereft of members. Stone, brick and wood require upkeep, and there comes a point where it is reasonable for a congregation and presbytery to consider if keeping a particular building is in the best interests of the church's overall mission.
The most ready source of cash in many cases will be a developer. Now, no one who moves to Upper Canada can fail to be struck by the paucity of historic structures. Ottawa has little more than the Parliament buildings, Toronto but a collection of unmemorable modern steel and concrete. Heritage buildings have been razed to make way for office structures that are a testament to worship of money. So one can have some sympathy for Ms. Nasmith's position.
But one also has to consider the churches' position. If places of worship are to be designated as heritage buildings, if, in other words, they are deemed to be part of the fabric of the community, and if they no longer serve a viable group of worshippers, then it is the community who should be obliged to pay the church fair market value for the building. If the original purpose for which any building was built disappears, its owners, who do hold title (this not being a communist country), have the right to be compensated for their investment in the property.
A church is built for a worshipping congregation. Its ownership is controlled by the denomination. Ontario's government is to be lauded if it brings in legislation to preserve important historic sites. It must not do it, though, on the backs of Christians or any other people of faith. If society values a spent church building so highly, society should buy it. Perhaps turn it into a museum. Churches, though, are not in the museum business.
