St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Anglican church building in West End district, Vancouver, Canada.
St. Paul's Anglican Church is a Gothic Revival structure in Vancouver's West End featuring pointed-arch windows and ornate stained glass depicting biblical scenes. The interior follows a traditional layout with a chancel where services are held.
A daughter church of St. James was built on a vacant lot in 1889, and the parish was established in 1891. In 1898 the building was placed on skids and moved north-west, away from the Yaletown railway yards and closer to West End parishioners. A larger Gothic Revival church replaced it in 1905, and the old church became the parish hall.
The parish follows a traditional Anglican Sunday pattern of Holy Communion, Morning Prayer and Evensong, and has long sponsored Sunday schools, guilds, scouts and youth groups. Change came slowly: a processional cross in 1931 and women in the choir in 1933 were both contentious. From 1985 the parish opened a ministry to the LGBT community and cooperated with St Paul's Hospital and AIDS Vancouver.
The church stands at the corner of Jervis and Pendrell Streets in the West End, with a wheelchair ramp added in 2002. The site includes a 1973 high-rise apartment building, The Pendrellis, for seniors. Visitors should check service times, as the building primarily serves religious functions.
The Casavant Frères pipe organ, Opus 264 from Québec, is said to be the first built west of the Rockies. Until 1952 the only depiction of Christ in the church was a print showing Jesus as a small boy; nine stained-glass windows portraying Christ followed between 1952 and 1964.
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