An aerial view of the fire-damaged St. Anne’s Anglican Church, in Toronto, June 10, 2024.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
The fire that destroyed St. Anne’s Church in Toronto, a national historic site beloved for its murals painted by members of the Group of Seven, is now being treated as a suspected arson, police and church officials say.
The four-alarm fire broke out in June, 2024, gutting the century-old church and damaging or destroying its artworks, including elaborate frescoes considered among the few religious works by the collective famed for their Canadian landscape paintings.
At the time, police said the fire did not appear to have been intentionally set. But church officials said a Toronto Police Service detective visited them Sunday and informed the congregation that arson is now suspected.
The revelation hit the congregation hard, said Rev. Hannah Johnston, the priest-in-charge of St. Anne’s, an Anglican church in Toronto’s west end.
“It was a great shock and a surprise to many of our parishioners, and obviously upsetting news to hear,” she said.
The detective told the parishioners that the fire appears to have had multiple starting points, Ms. Johnston said.
“That was the main piece of evidence they were able to share,” she said. “And from that they are treating it as a case of suspected arson.”
The church was famed for its Byzantine-style dome and Group of Seven wall paintings, some of which are visible here in this March, 2012, photo, more than a decade before the fire.Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
Shari Ellis, who is a rector’s warden and sings in the church choir, said that it was not a surprise to learn that arson is suspected, considering how big the fire was and how quickly it grew.
“It’s still horrible to think that somebody would deliberately burn down such a beautiful place,” she said.
Even though many others in the congregation have also wondered about arson since the day of the fire, Sunday’s news dealt an emotional blow, Ms. Ellis said.
“There was shock, there was tremendous sadness, there were lots of tears,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service confirmed that the Office of the Fire Marshall has concluded its investigation and has deemed the fire a suspected arson.
A spokesperson for the Office of the Fire Marshall said the matter remains under active investigation, and they are not in a position to discuss potential causes or findings at this time.
“We will provide an update once the investigation is complete,” the spokesperson wrote in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail.
Ms. Johnston said it’s unsettling to hear the fire may have been deliberately set.
“It brings a different level of anxiety and additional questions about how or why anybody would do this,” she said.
Bishop Kevin Robertson, who attended the church meeting Sunday along with Ms. Johnston, said the news has been “re-traumatizing” for many in the church community.
“We prayed together and we did what we could to help kind of cushion the blow. But I think it’s going to take some time for folks for this to sink in,” he said.
St. Anne’s was designed in the Byzantine Revival style by architect William Ford Howland and was constructed in 1907-08.
It was designated a national historic site in 1996.
The church contained murals painted by Group of Seven members J.E.H. MacDonald, Frank Carmichael and Frederick H. Varley that decorated the chancel and the dome, which was destroyed in the fire.
On the day of the fire, many people believed all the church’s artworks were destroyed, but several canvases were salvaged.
Alicia Coutts, the director of Toronto Art Restoration, managed to partially restore three canvases from murals inside the church, including one by MacDonald.
“We managed to get back all of the imagery, original colours, even some of the gold leaf,” she said. “It’s kind of a miracle that anything was salvaged.”
With the restoration work nearing completion, the suspected arson must now be factored into questions surrounding the conservation of the artworks, she said.
“Should we remember any of that fire? Is that an important part of it? And how should these murals serve the conversation or the community in general going forward?”
Bishop Robertson said he is “deeply committed” to a continuing Anglican presence and ministry in the neighbourhood, adding that efforts to reimagine the site are ongoing.
Ms. Johnston said the church is working with the diocese and an architecture firm to explore possible designs for a new church building.
“That’s just in its earliest days, but it’s some of the most exciting work that we’ve been doing recently and really has provided the congregation with a real kind of hope and excitement for the future,” she said.