St. Peter's Church - is it time for a new strategy?
30 Nov 2021 EWR Online
I recently read commentary about the rationale for selling St. Peter's Church (Peetri Kirik) in addition to discussion about whether it made economic sense to keep this edifice in the Estonian community. As with all smaller congregation churches, attendance has fallen off dramatically in past years. I have been attending, with no regularity I must confess, a United Church in a small community. Our congregation has gone through similar angst and argument about preservation and the logic of trying to maintain the physical building in the face of mounting costs and declining attendance. This church found a way to do it without a full time, not even a part time, minister. Guest ministers and qualified members of the congregation preside at the weekly service. It is a huge cost saving and I find it frankly refreshing to hear different points of view and perspectives from the pulpit. So to have one minister for a small congregation church does not make economic sense. Perhaps the number of attendees at Sunday services have fallen dramatically because the freshness of ideas coming from the pulpit have aged. No disrespect to the minister of Peetri kirik, but it might be time to explore the logic of sharing the space with others. I'm a senior and even I want to hear new ideas, fresh perspectives, original interpretations of scripture.
But, one cannot and should not simply apply business variables like efficient use of resources and consolidation of assets and cost benefit analysis when examining viability of any church. That is corporate speak that might resonate with shareholders but has limited place in determining the worthiness of maintaining and preserving places of worship. It is not the framework that should determine whether or not a church should exist. There is a continuity with the past that is critical in a church. When you sit in even a 80% empty church, the feeling spiritually gives one a connectedness with the past and with God. The spiritual connectedness one feels in a space originally built for worship is far superior to any attempt to approximate this in a standard hall with stackable chairs. I understand the soon to be built (?) KESKUS Estonian Centre in Toronto has offered space to the Peetri kiriku congregation should they find themselves in a position of having to sell the Mt. Pleasant church. You cannot approximate worship in a 'real' church with sitting in a low ceiling banquet hall type room buried below street level. The connectedness with God and with your ancestry is worth the price of keeping architectural and spiritual gems, like Toronto's Peetri kirik, alive.
If there is money in abundance to build a new cathedral to commerce and the future of Eestlus like the new KESKUS building on Madison Ave., then surely there can be money found to preserve such a magnificent cathedral of worship like Peetri kirik. The village community United church where I occasionally go for a spiritual uplift, has benefited from bequests, making the dilemma of preservation less of a crisis. There is a ton of money flowing to KESKUS. Is it unreasonable to think some of that money could find its way to instead maintain Peetri kirik?
Yes you can connect with God from anywhere, but knowing that there is always a safe haven and familiar physical space in which to engage with spirits, is something that must not be abandoned. Aside from the fact Peetri kirik is a space that is imbued with decades of spirits and an emotional connection with our Estonian identity, it is also an architectural gem worthy of preservation.
So, build something next to it like affordable rental housing, or even something like the co-op on Queen St. There is land next to the church which surely could be rezoned to some kind of residential or commercial use, thereby providing the congregation cash flow sufficient to meet their operating expenses. There is definitely a way to make it work without outright selling the property. Elagu Peetri kirik!
