St. Paul's Anglican Church Vancouver BC

Whoever you are and wherever you find yourself on the journey of faith, you are welcome here.

For over a hundred years, St. Paul’s Anglican Church has been a symbol of the presence of God in the heart of the West End. In our Church, we worship God and serve the world for which Christ died and rose again.

We are building a Christian community welcoming, reflecting, and embracing the diversity of our unique neighbourhood. We proclaim the Gospel and share the Sacrament of our Lord’s Body and Blood. Our worship is inclusive, participatory and full of life. We are a dynamic parish committed to prayer and discernment of God’s presence as we grow and change.

 

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Download Priest-in-Charge Rev.James Duckett vCard

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https://www.stpaulsanglican.bc.ca  

 

 

No. 6 Bus  

street parking along Davie Street

parkade before the Independent Grocer in Davie Street  

Support Groups
Dance, Yoga Classes
Choir Rehearsals and Concerts
Recovery Group  

Tax Clinic
Labyrinth Walks  

Disabled Ramp and Toilet;
Chairlift to go to the lower level  

When the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in Vancouver, the railway workers moved from their old centre at Yale on the Fraser River to a new district which they called Yaletown. Their new homes fell within the boundaries of the Parish of St James and it was the Reverend Henry Fiennes-Clinton, Rector of St James, who addressed their spiritual needs. The first Anglican service in what was to become the present-day Parish of St Paul was held in 1889 in a mission room located on Seymour Street. Meanwhile two lots were purchased from the Canadian Pacific Railway at 1222 Hornby Street where a hotel now stands. A church was built and the first Eucharist in the parish was celebrated there on 24 March 1889. In 1890 the Reverend Ernest Flewelling took the place of Father Clinton as priest-in-charge, and then became rector when, in 1891, the Parish of St Paul was formally separated from the mother Parish of St James. His incumbency was succeeded by the short-lived terms of the Reverend Thomas Outerbridge (1894-1895) and the Reverend Henry Bowers (1895-1896). The parish included the downtown peninsula south of Nelson Street, and Fairview on the south side of False Creek. This proved unsatisfactory to parishioners living in Fairview and in 1898 they separated from St Pauls, which meant that the church was no longer at the geographical centre of the parish. At the same time the West End was being developed as a residential district while Yaletown was given over principally to industry. In 1896, the Reverend Harold Underhill became the fourth rector and during his incumbency the parishioners decided to move the church to a location closer to the centre of the growing residential population in the West End. The building, which, photographs show, had been built with a small spire, had by now acquired a more substantial square tower. In 1898 it was placed on skids and winched up Davie Street, then only a clearing in the bush. The building was placed on Jervis Street at the corner of Pendrell Street. The new location was presumably more convenient but the 250 square-metre church was too small for the expanding membership. The adjacent lot lying east of the church, on Pendrell Street, was purchased and the old church was moved again, to the southern half of the double lot, leaving the northern half clear for the new church. To build a new, permanent church, St Paul’s Church Building Company Ltd was founded with a capital of $50,000. The architect William Archer proposed either a frame-and-stone building seating 420 worshippers at a price of $8,000 or a stone building seating some 550 worshippers at a price of $18,000. The former proposal was adopted. The architect’s plan included a tower with a tall spire at the north-west corner, but lack of funds prevented its construction. The new church was built in classic Gothic style with pointed-arch windows and doors and a well-proportioned interior.

In 1905, the cornerstone of the existing church was laid by the Bishop of New Westminster of that time, and the church was finished ready for use that same year. Now, fourteen years into its independent life, the parish was fully ready to play its role in the life of the West End. For a few years, the new and old churches stood alongside each other, with the old church used as a church hall (also called the parish hall). Nothing of it is known to remain except five windows taken from the old church and installed in the new church: the Bagnall Window in the west wall, the Red-cross Window in the south lobby, the Victoria Window in the south sacristy (the Queen Victoria Room), the Henry III glass in the south transept, and the Crucifix glass in the north sacristy.

Canon Underhill resigned the incumbency in 1908, and his was followed by the relatively brief incumbencies of the Reverend Abram de Pencier (1908-1910) and the Reverend Frederick Chadwick (1910-1913). Then came the thirty-year incumbency of the seventh rector, Canon Harold King (1914-1944). In 1976 the City of Vancouver designated the church a heritage building.