Churches in search of raison d’être get funding boost 

Ruby Pratka

Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph

Local Journalism Initiative 

editor@qctonline.com 

Two iconic Quebec City churches which have been sitting empty for years are one step closer to a new lease on life thanks to a $4-million investment by the Ville de Québec and the Quebec Ministry of Culture and Communications (MCC). 

City councillors Mélissa Coulombe-Leduc and Catherine Vallières-Roland announced $2.48 million in additional funding for Église Très-Saint-Sacrement, half from the city and half from the MCC, and just under $1.5 million from the MCC for Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste. 

The two churches tower over the neighbourhoods which bear their names. 

Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste was deconsecrated in 2015, when the shrinking parish could no longer afford to maintain the massive building. Over the years, heritage advocates and candidates for office pitched proposals to transform it into a genealogy centre, a local history museum, a community centre or a vocational school for artisans. In 2024, a Coptic Orthodox congregation announced plans to buy the church before dropping the idea; later that year, the city bought the building for $175,000 and mandated the Institut canadien de Québec to conduct a “pre-feasibility study” exploring future uses. 

Église Très-Saint-Sacrement has sat empty since 2019, when it was closed and fenced off because its two bell towers were at risk of collapse. In 2022, the MCC designated the deconsecrated church a protected heritage building – against the wishes of the parish, which had hoped to sell the land. The diocese of Quebec created a purpose-built parish to maintain the building. The parish is working with a nonprofit, Espace communautaire Saint-Sacrement, to find a vocation for the church. 

Churchwarden Charles Marceau, a former major projects manager at the Ville de Québec, told the QCT the funding would allow the parish to reinforce the church’s two bell towers with steel frames. Once the bell towers were reinforced, he said the fencing surrounding the church could be removed, allowing the public to access the forecourt, and eventually the basement and former sanctuary. 

“The work will start in two weeks, the contractor has been chosen and the deadline is before the holidays; people will be able to occupy it in winter 2027,” he said. 

As for the church’s future vocation, Marceau said nothing concrete had been decided. He said consultations over the last year had revealed interest for a food-related project, “maybe a café or a public market.”  

“I don’t have a preference for one project over the other, but there need to be activities there. If it’s a café or a food pantry or a market or a yoga studio, so much the better,” he said. Vallières-Roland said the city would like to work with the private sector on the project, although no potential partners have expressed interest yet. 

As for Saint-Jean-Baptiste, an MCC spokesperson said in a statement that the funding would allow the city to make “urgent repairs to a portion of the doors and windows … as part of a building redevelopment project. The restoration of the doors and windows was identified as a priority given their advanced state of disrepair.”

“The city wishes to proceed quickly with urgent repairs to the building’s exterior. Ultimately, the church redevelopment project, led by the city, will have two components: cultural and community-based,” the statement said. Coulombe-Leduc said the city’s “primary objective with regard to Saint-Jean-Baptiste has always been to give the church back to the community,” acknowledging that the city has yet to find a new use for it or a timeline for reopening; a request for federal funding is also pending. 

“Church projects are long, they’re complex, they’re expensive, there are a lot of safety issues, it takes investment, but they are such beautiful places,” said Marceau, the retired project manager. “We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.”