Our History
Anglicans have been worshipping on Gabriola since the late 1800's.
In the early 1900's, the Anglican Church on Gabriola was a mission church, with a number of Anglican ministers providing any services they could for the next forty years. In the late 30's and 40's, the Anglicans, led by Reverend J. Cooper, held services at both north and south schools, as Reverend G. W. Taylor had in 1896. In the late 40's and early 50's, Mrs. F.M. Boulton arranged for the use of the United Church, for worship on a monthly basis.
Subsequently, the Anglicans negotiated a lease of the old school house on the site where the Community Hall now stands. Eric Boulton, Len Dobinson, Dr. Stokes, and Frank Holland helped build pews and Bill McCall built an altar. Mrs. Boulton and the Stokes provided linens and other necessary articles for worship. The old school had been transformed into a Church, and was called St. Martin. Lay people took most of the services using Morning Prayer, only having a Eucharist if a priest happened to be available.
Beginning in 1954, Reverend Dixon of Cassidy, led many of these services. Mrs. H. Cross was church secretary for ten years and Mrs. Haddock and Mrs. Ann Hill played the organ for the services. In 1971, when the Reverend Peter Horsfield came to live on Gabriola, he was invited to take charge. He decided to make the services more ecumenical, closing the church and beginning his ministry at the Women's Institute Hall. The church building eventually burned down.
A retired Pentecostal minister, Mr. Alpheus Bowden, who invited and encouraged Roman Catholics to participate in this ecumenical venture, assisted Mr. Horsfield. They devised their own liturgy, based on scripture and prayer. From time to time, other ministers took part, including a Baptist minister. The Sunday services were held at 10 a.m. in the Women's Institute Hall, but summer services were held in the Log Church on Sunday evenings. On some occasions when the Women's Institute Hall was too small, the Agi Hall was used.
In 1983, a Roman Catholic Priest together with the Reverend Peter Horsfield jointly celebrated a Baptism and Communion. In 1981 when Mr. Bowden died, Mr. Peter Hodge became assistant to Mr. Horsfield. Mr. Horsfield left the Island in 1984, and thereafter, lay members gave leadership in worship.
In 1986, all services ceased and the church closed because of declining attendance, but the community continued to hold meetings until new leadership could be found to restart public services. In April of 1988 Peter Hodge died, and in September, worship services began again, but in a new format. The time was changed from Sunday morning to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday. This allowed priests in both Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions to come from Nanaimo. Services moved from the W.I. Hall, first to the United Church, then in November 1989, to the renovated Log Church.
This ecumenical group met successfully for a number of years, with Donald Gordon, Terry Allen, Barbara Huston and Linda St. Clair leading the Anglican services.
In 2005, when St Martin of Tours became an independent parish the Rev. Dr. Linda St. Clair assumed the role of Priest-In-Charge, and we began worshipping at the Gabriola Commons, and then later moving to the Theatre Centre on Peterson Road where we continue to worship.