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St. Paul's Middlechurch just outside of Winnipeg has been serving its community for the past 200 years.
"St. Paul's was originally established by the Church Missionary Society," says the people's warden at St. Paul's, Debbie Pansky. "The building was opened on January 30, 1825. The area was originally called Image Plain. The first church established in the area was St. John's, which is now the cathedral. It was seen that a second church was required so they started up St. Paul's. Later, St. Andrew's on the Red was established. St. Paul's was in the middle and that's how it got its name."
The current building is the third building since its erection. The first two were greatly damaged in two separate floods. The first flood happened just one year after the church started, in 1826. The second was flooded in 1852.
"The building we now have today was built between 1876 and 1880. We did move it onto a basement about 2-300 feet to the east. So now we have it on a basement and that is now our church hall."
The congregation of people today comes from all over the area and is made up of roughly 50 people.
"It's a wonderful group of people that we currently have. We have a new priest, he just arrived from India a year and a half ago [Rev. James Gomez], and we share him with Church of the Ascension in Stonewall. It's a very interesting little group of people. When you ask people why they come, it's because it's a really special place."
A big part of the church's ministry is directly beside the building, their cemetery.
"The first burial in the cemetery comes from July 1851. It was a four-month-old baby," says Pansky. "We now have 1,109 burials. In our cemetery we have a lot of the names of the people that started Manitoba, including the Pritchards and the Spences. We also have an area for people to be buried through the public trustee's office. Those are people who passed who either don't have family or can't afford their burial. In fact, there's a burial happening today."
The church is located at 299 Balderstone Road in West St. Paul. This coming Sunday, Jan. 26, they will be doing a celebration ceremony.
"Our service this Sunday starts at 9:15 a.m. We've invited some dignitaries, people from the local area, our local MLA and some past members who have moved away. There was a tradition of a strawberry tea for probably 80 years at St. Paul's and that went by the wayside prior to COVID. We've decided to bring that back this year and then we had a tradition of fall suppers so we'll have one this September."