St. Jude’s Cathedral construction to begin in Iqaluit

Donations needed to complete building’s interior

Parishioners of St. Jude’s Anglican Cathedral gathered at the site of their future cathedral for the blessing of the site and the building’s construction. Interim rector Brian Burrows and retired Diocese of the Arctic bishop Paul Idlout administered the blessing, witnessed by retired Anglican minister Mike Gardner and dozens of parishioners.

Iqaluit’s Anglican community eagerly looks forward to the grand opening of a rebuilt St. Jude’s Cathedral this fall, but there isn’t enough cash to make the building useable.

Interim rector Brian Burrows explained that the congregation’s present cash flow is enough to build the building exterior and install insulation, but parishioners can’t afford certain essentials which are necessary before the church can become a working house of worship.

“Unless a miracle happens, we’re not going to be able to [worship in the building],” Burrows said.

Such essentials include drywall to cover the insulation on the shell’s interior, a heating system, lighting and furnishings.

“We are going on faith with this, that the outer shell will be completed, and the interior will depend entirely on what donations will come in,” Burrows continued.

The congregation is looking for donations locally as well as nationally from the Anglican Church.

But even so, Burrows said the new church will never be able to reproduce some of the valuable items that were lost in the November 2005 fire that destroyed the old St. Jude’s.

These include tapestries from every community in Nunavut, and carvings painstakingly crafted in the 1950s and 60s, before power tools became common.

However, some valuable material had been salvaged from the previous St. Jude’s,  including the silver font bowl donated by Queen Elizabeth II, also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Burrows said.

The two narwhal tusks that formed the old church’s cross were recovered, but were too damaged by the fire to be useable.

Burrows said they’ve already received two new tusks to use as the church’s new cross.

The outer shell of the building should be complete by October because the congregation decided to fly building materials in to Iqaluit so construction could begin as soon as possible rather than wait for the sealift to arrive.

The oculus, the small steeple above the igloo-shaped hall, is being custom-manufactured and should arrive on the sealift in October.

Without a church since 2005, Iqaluit’s Anglican congregation has worshipped in their parish hall, which becomes crowded during major weddings and funerals.

Last summer members of the congregation discovered that the company contracted to build the new cathedral had gone bankrupt, leaving piles of building materials on site which remain there to this day.

The original plan for the new cathedral would have assembled blocks of wood similarly to the snow bricks of a real igloo, but the plans now call for the new structure will be built in a different manner.