(Staff)  CLOSING AND SELLING 19 churches on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands is part of a strategy of “transforming and regenerating” the Diocese of British Columbia “in a post-Christian society.” Another five churches have been selected to be renamed and reconfigured as “hub” churches to welcome Anglicans from closed parishes.

Photo: Diocese of British ColumbiaAlmost 2,000 Anglicans in the Capital Region of Victoria will lose their churches, should recommendations by the Diocese be approved by the regional synod March 5-7.

(Despite its name, the Diocese of British Columbia only covers Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.)

The Diocesan Report recommends that a congregation of at least 150 people is needed for a church to be viable in urban areas, though that number cannot be attained in rural communities. The Diocese Transformation Team Report is the result of over 5 years of research and consultations which began with Bishop James Cowan’s charge in 2004.  

The Anglican Church of Canada has shrunk from 1.3 million members in 1961 to less than half that number today. Some estimate that there are only 125,000 worshippers on any given Sunday in an ACC church. On Vancouver Island attendance shrank 11 percent to 4,955 between 2003 and 2007.

Many mainline protestant churches are declining but the ACC’s decline is aggravated by an internal battle, largely over whether to bless same-sex unions. Four of the largest dioceses have already voted in favour of such unions and the issue is expected to be debated in June at the church’s national synod.

“(The church) has to deal with this issue,” the Rev. Gary Nicolosi, charged with reinvigorating parishes on Vancouver Island, told the Victoria Times. “The culture has decided, ‘we’re going to move forward,’ -- the church has to move forward too,” he said.

Not all agree. In March 2009, the Rev. Ron Corcoran left Victoria’s St. Matthias church along with 95 percent of the congregation and together they joined the more theologically conservative Anglican Network and formed Christ the King Anglican Church. In Metchosin, 86 percent of the parish voted to leave St. Mary’s and formed The Open Gate Church in Langford, also part of the Anglican Network.

Churches recommended for closure & sale:

St. Philip, Oak Bay

St. Saviour, Victoria West

St. Martin in the Fields, Saanich

St. Columba, Strawberry Vale

All Saints, View Royal

St. Mary, Metchosin

St. David, Cordova Bay

St. Peter, Saanich

St. Stephen, South Saanich

St. Peter, Lakehill

St. Andrew, Cowichan Station

St. James, Manson’s Landing

Brentwood Chapel, Brentwood Bay

Good Shepherd, South Pender Island 

St. Mary, Saltspring Island 

St Mark, Saltspring Island

All Saints, Crofton (closed December, 2009)

New hub churches to be renamed and rededicated:

St. Paul’s in Esquimalt

St. Dunstan in Gordon Head

St. Mary in Saanichton

Mergers to form new hub churches:

Holy Trinity in North Saanich and St. Andrew in Sidney would merge to create a new hub church for North Saanich.

St. Philip and St. Mary would merge to form a new hub church in Saanichton.

Last April two churches in Nanaimo, St James and St Philip’s, voted to merge. Then in July St. Alban the Martyr in Victoria was closed after almost 75 years of service. Last September the Diocese closed Camp Columbia on Thetis Island and terminated all 5 staff. It had been founded in 1947 but had accumulated 500,000 in debt.

Brentwood Chapel is known as an evangelical congregation with the highest tithing per capita in the Diocese but closure is probably being recommended because it is sitting on extremely valuable waterfront property.

The first recommendation under Evangelism in the Report is to “use funeral services to draw families in.”