McGill University has bought the Anglican Diocesan Theological College for an undisclosed amount.
“The sale price is between us and McGill University,” college principal John Simons said yesterday. “But all things shall one day be revealed.”
The college says it can no longer afford to maintain the century-old neo-Gothic building on University St. north of Sherbrooke St.
It will however, lease the north wing of the building, known as the Principal’s Lodge, from the university, convert it into a seminary and continue to use St. Luke’s chapel in the building’s south wing, which it will share with McGill as a multi-purpose teaching facility.
So another small North American Anglican seminary is forced to sell its building(s) and radically restructure itself in a much smaller, more modest form. That’s three in the U.S. now (Seabury-Western in Evanston, IL; the Rochester campus of Bexley Hall; and EDS in Cambridge, MA), plus this Canadian seminary in Montreal. Four seminaries in four months; quite a strong trend.
“How are the mighty fallen!”
The line that stood out for me in this article had to do with the sharp decline of Anglicanism in French-speaking Montreal. Although Anglicans have always been a minority in Quebec, still they now have virtually disappeared, like the Cheshire cat. “Less than 1%” of the population now. Merely a trace element.
No wonder the seminary has fallen on hard times. The Anglican Church has withered away.
How sad.
David Handy+
Another interesting facet from the West Coast. At a recent diocesan meeting, we were told that the Vancouver School of Theology (the official Anglican seminary) in Vancouver, BC has no Anglicans in its’ MDiv. program this year.
Jim
Another interesting point. The evangelical Regent College in Vancouver has about 28 in its Anglican Studies program. When the students can’t find good books because they are on loan at Regent they report they can always find them in the stacks at the Vancouver School of Theology.
I am certain that this has more to do with a few small buildings than theological (seminary) training. Montreal Diocesan Theological College is (and has been) affiliated with McGill’s School of Theology all along with the Presbyterian seminary College and the United Theological Seminary College. They function with a joint board, which is under the auspices of McGill University. (http://www.mcgill.ca/religiousstudies/joint-board/)
By the way, The front Diocesan College buildings are very historic and beautiful to look at. In the rear are residential units and some administrative offices in-between.
For those not aware of it, McGill University, which is amongst the world’s top rated universities, has a huge Commons which is surrounded by its various “Faculties, Colleges, Faculties, and Schools,” much as you would find at Cambridge and Oxford. This event appears to be McGill merely assuming property owned by Diocese of Montreal. It is in proximity to the McGill School of Theology on Rue (Street) University. As most M.Div course work occurs on the McGill campus, there’s probably no loss of educational space thorough this action.
What this story really speaks about is “post-Bristish colonialism” in Montreal and Quebec. English businesses and Angliphones have been moving to Toronto or Western Canada for decades now. As you might imagine, McGill was certainly an English bastion dating back to 1821. Not anymore!
On a side note, +N.T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham, served as assistant professor of New Testament Studies at McGill in the early to mid 1980’s.