The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2006, Qupperneq 6

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 60 #2
Editorial
by Rev. Stefan M. Jonasson
Here we restore ancestral dreams,
Enshrined in floor and wall and beam,
A monument wherein we build
That their high purpose be fulfilled,
A tool to help our children prove
An earth of promise and of love.
- Kenneth L. Patton
For such a visible landmark, the
Unitarian church in Gimli is one of the
town’s best kept secrets. Driving into
town, the sign proclaiming the local
churches’ welcome betrays no evidence
that there is a Unitarian church numbered
among them, while stopping a local citizen
on the street to inquire about its location is
likely to draw a blank expression. Since the
1960s, the building has been better known
for its tenants than for the religious society
that built it in 1905 and which continues to
own it and meet for worship within its hal-
lowed walls. Call it the A-Spire Theatre if
you will, the fact remains that it is a
Unitarian church which traces its history
back to the “Unitarian separation” of 1891,
when hundreds of Icelanders followed Rev.
Magnus Skaptason out of the Lutheran
synod, proclaiming the oneness of God, the
humanity of Jesus and the universality of
salvation. Skaptason’s followers organized
themselves as a Unitarian church, to “pro-
mote liberality in religion and awaken and
preserve, in our congregation, rational liv-
ing and elevated religious conceptions, in
love to God and service to humanity.”
For more than a decade after the split,
Lutherans and Unitarians shared Gimli’s
only church until the early years of the
twentieth century, when each congregation
erected its own building. The Unitarian
church was dedicated with much fanfare on
October 29, 1905. Architecturally, the
church was about as ostentatious as such a
small building could possibly be, with its
high steeple, gothic windows, vaulted ceil-
ing, raised chancel, and a choir loft which
allowed choristers to look straight into the
eyes of congregants seated across from
them on the balcony. The sun shone in
through leaded glass windows, the bevels
of which glistened with the colours of the
rainbow.
Located right in the centre of town, the
church and its parish hall, which had been
added in the 1920s, were the town’s gather-
ing place for decades. As the only multi-
purpose facility in town, the parish hall was
the natural venue for countless dances,
concerts, receptions and political meetings.
The Red Cross used it for blood donor
clinics and the Greenbergs rented it to
show motion pictures before the Gimli
Theatre was built next door. Even the
Lutheran Ladies Aid rented the Unitarian
hall for some of its events! The magis-
trate’s court met on the campus of the
Unitarian church, although it’s not certain
from the records whether the proceedings
were held in the sanctuary or the parish
hall. Either way, it can be said that one
could be tried, convicted, sentenced - and
presumably forgiven - all at the Unitarian
church! In 1960, the parish hall was sold
and the church, which had hitherto been on
the corner of Centre Street and Second
Avenue, was moved northward, closer to
the middle of the block.
By the 1950s, the congregation was in
serious decline. It’s a complicated story,
involving the “usual suspects” - conflicting
opinions, internal politics, external pres-
sures, demographic changes, leadership
inertia and even a little sex - but that’s
another story. It’s enough to note here that
membership declined, services became
increasingly sporadic and, in time, the con-
gregation ceased to meet on a regular basis.
After the retirement of the last permanent
minister, Rev. Eyjolfur Melan, in 1953, the