St. John's Church in Lunenburg (Nova Scotia, Canada)

 

At first, I didn't intend to write about St. John's Church in Lunenburg at all, because the church is very new, but then I heard the sad story, and on top of that, I happened to be able to visit the interior because an event had just ended. That immediately changed my mind. The sad story could be "St. John's Tears", and we'll come back to that in a moment. Stephen King [2] could have written a horror story about the "Castle on the Hill" [1]; perhaps "Charred Promises." A story like "The Scarlet Letter" [3] could have been set in the town itself, which used to be black and white and not as beautifully colorful as it is now. But let's get to the sad story. The church burned down in 2001, but I've already told you too much.

St. John's Anglican Church (correct name) has been established in 1753 and is “the second Church of England built in Nova Scotia, and is the second oldest continuous Protestant church in present-day Canada” [4]. The church building has been completed in 1754. The parish is part of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in the Anglican Church of Canada.

On 1 November 2001, St. John's church suffered significant damage by fire and hasn't been completely destroyed as I had been told on the spot; though about 50% is significant. There's a remarkable article about the reconstruction by Joe O'Connor [5], who interviewed Terry Conrad, the former chief of the fire department. They couldn't get into the burning church via doors or roof and had to break windows – brokenhearted, though. All in all it took 147 volunteer firefighters from nearby towns and 15 hours to put out the fire. There hadn't been enough fresh water, so sea water had to be used. The tears of St. John's refer to the salt water saturated with ashes flowing downhill Lunenburg.

I'm very interested in stained-glass windows and have written intensely about church windows around where I live. The stained-glass artisans (Helga and Norbert Sattler), who helped to restore the windows, were originally from Germany. “Using photographs of the original windows as a guide, the couple spent 18 months piecing 27 jigsaw puzzles back together again.”

There is a remarkable star scene above the apse, which has been reconstructed with the help of a computer and software to picture the night sky on the first Christmas (some 2 millennia ago) as seen from Lunenburg. I remember how impressed I've been as a boy seeing this done in a planetarium. A mystery still remains -: how did the original artist do so without the help of a computer.

If you visit Lunenburg, be sure to try to come to St. John's Anglican Church, it's worth it.

 

Links and Annotations:
[1] Lunenburg - Castle on the Hill (Nova Scotia, Canada) / More on Lunenburg!
https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2025/09/lunenburg-castle-on-hill-nova-scotia.html
[2] Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, in 1947, and Maine borders Nova Scotia, apart from the sea. I particularly like his commitment against Donald Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King
[3] The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is a historical novel by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_Anglican_Church_(Lunenburg)
[5] By Joe O'Connor: Holy jigsaw puzzle: After a fire gutted a historic church, N.S. town began an incredible reconstruction. 
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/holy-jigsaw-puzzle-after-a-fire-gutted-a-historic-church-n-s-town-began-an-incredible-reconstruction

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