Church condominiums anyone?
Montreal is also called the City of Saints or the City of hundred bell towers due to the high number of churches one can find while strolling down the streets. There must be over four hundred churches in the city only, as you see one each ten blocks.
I remember seeing an article a few years back saying that there were over 200 Catholic churches, over 200 Evangelical ones, less than 100 mosques and also less than 100 synagogues and temples. That's over four hundred places of worship!
During one of his visits to Montreal, Mark Twain said:
“Montreal is a bad boys dream, you can throw a rock blindfolded in any direction and hit a church window”.
Nowadays less and less people go to church for different reasons which inevitably leads to closing down these places of worship. You can imagine the bill for maintenance and repairs for such a building! Try to heat one for Sunday mass in the middle of the winter when the temperature outside is below 20 degrees Celsius!
The Quiet Revolution in the 60's lead to a huge decrease of the influence of the Roman Catholic Church over the French Canadians creating a new society where people became more educated and less religious.
Today more and more of these majestic buildings are assigned a new purpose: serving a useful life in society. In the past ten years I have seen a lot of churches being turned into condos. In order to preserve its architectural heritage, the City decided to make a compromise.
Converting a church into a condo building, subsidized housing or even a gym may sound horrific to some believers. Though this practice prevented having the churches demolished and losing an important part of the heritage.
Although some of the original works are kept, I am sure that during the conversion most of the stained glass church windows are replaced by regular ones!
I always wondered if I'd be able to live in a condo built in a former church. Probably not. Having my bed above the shrine wouldn't improve the quality of my sleep. Would you live in a such condominium or loft?
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Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Please leave your feedback in the comments, I would love to hear your thoughts!
An amazing subject I feel if you cropped tighter and straighten the images you have some amazing photographs (just an opinion) Love the post
Hope the photos look better now ;-) Glad to hear to enjoyed the topic. Thank you for stopping by!
just love these photos! theyre making many churches into condos here in usa and theyre gorgeous. they keep the windows. ty for sharing these lovely photos too.
I am curious if this phenomenon happens in Europe too?! I knew about Canada and the states but seeing how many people lost their interest in Church I am thinking it must happen in other places as well.
@lymepoet oh yes most definitely a lot of loss in the church but i see new ones being built up that is called "live church" wherein you feel the goodness. its hard to describe and theres more singing, live band kind of stuff and people can talk if they want to. people pray over each other and for each other. its pretty amazing. i'm involved in many different spiritualities; buddhism, native american, christian, hindu, etc. i dont prescribe to just one. :)
I think this is great that you learn from all of them and don't see only one as "the real one".
@lymepoet yes definitely im in agreement total
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!STOP!Living in a church can be one of the most Gothic dreams ever.
I guess. Didn't cross my mind ;-)
beautiful photo's!! I love church stain glass windows. Thanks for sharing!!!
You're welcome! Thank you for the read!
Thats a heck of a lot of places of worhsip, I love those stained glass Wondows, such beautiful detail and colors
I read recently there were close to 700 places of warship in Quebec. ;-)
WOW thats an amazing amount
Seems very efficient--think of all the resources saved--plus the heritage. I wouldn't mind living in a converted church--unless it was one with crypts in it:)
Nice pictures!
Crypts would definitely be a big no-no for the buyers I imagine!
:))
LOL
That's funny. And impressive! Always a place to 'hide' then in Montrael. Gorgeous. I love churches although I often only visit them during travels :-) Love all the window work, it's so mesmerizing to look at!
I always liked stained windows. It's the first thing I look at when I enter a church. ;-)