Canada's Phoenix Basilica
Penny Johnston on a campaign to rebuild a historic Canadian church.
A campaign has been extended across Canada this year to raise $2.6 million towards the cost of rebuilding St George's Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a Canadian history treasure destroyed by fire in June 1994. It is hoped that the rebuilding of the church – which will take four years at a cost of $6 million – will begin at the end of this year.
Built in 1800 and described by Elizabeth Pacey, author of Georgian Halifax, as of 'great beauty and individuality', deserving the 'highest status in the annals of North American architecture', about a third of the building was destroyed in the Eire – the work of boys playing with matches. The interior was reduced to charred rubble. Its distinctive cupola bell tower was lost, as was the dome that had been topped by a comet-shaped weathervane.
The devastation is all the more poignant as St George's is the only historical church in Canada to be built in the round, resembling a Byzantine basilica. It is also of historical significance having had an unusual patron in the form of Queen Victoria's father, Prince Edward of Kent.
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