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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@2018 LaviPicu aka The Lyme Poet. All rights reserved.