Christ the King Catholic Church was built by volunteers in 1934. The location was 522 Fairview Road, home of the present Medici’s Gelateria. The altar and all of the benches were also volunteer made, mostly by Paddy Kelleher. In 1947, the Church was enlarged and at some time in this period, the altar was replaced and updated.
In January of 1965, in compliance with the new guidelines from Vatican II, the altar was remodelled by Urban Gobeil, and for the first time, the priest celebrated Mass while facing the parishioners.
The next altar came from St Martin’s Hospital, which built in 1942 and run for 31 years by the Catholic Sisters of St Ann. When the hospital closed in 1973, the altar that was in the chapel of the hospital was moved to Christ the King. In that altar, as is in many altars in Catholic Churches, was a ‘relic’.
The practice of placing a relic in the ‘table of the Lord’, one of the most sacred spots in the Church, is said to have started when Christians in ancient Rome would meet and celebrate Mass in the catacombs. The catacombs housed the tombs of Christian martyrs and saints, and Mass was celebrated on top of their tombs. Later, keeping a reminder of these martyrs and their relationship to Mass was done by placing something in or on the worship table, the altar, that was associated with a martyr. These reminders are what we now call relics.
The St Martin’s altar was shortened in 1997 to better accommodate other changes in the Fairview Road church, but just before the present day church opened on Spartan Street in 2003, it was elongated to it’s original size. If you look closely at the photos, you can see the seams where the cuts were made, and the bolt holes in the base that held the pillars.
The relic in the altar right now is thought to have come from the Sisters of St Ann, and is thought to have in it something that is associated with St Martin of Tours, the Patron Saint of beggars. The item is sealed inside the marble rectangle and not visible. Another marble stone, likely from another, earlier, altar – maybe Paddy Kelleher’s – has a worn piece of paper on the back with Latin writing, and signed by Colomanus Belopotoczky, a Bishop appointed by Pope Leo X111 in Vienna in 1890. It is dated 1906.
The St Martin’s altar is now being retired and a brand new one, commissioned by the Steger family of Oliver and made of clear fir, is being installed and blessed by Bishop John Corriveau this coming weekend. The relic of St Martin will be moved to the new altar at the same time, and two older ones will also be on display.
Anyone interested is invited to attend the ceremony on Saturday, Nov. 19 at 10 a.m. The new altar and blessing is part of a Homecoming at the Church, which includes a potluck dinner at 5 p.m. on Sunday night, followed by a very interesting documentary on ‘Francis, the Pope from the New World’ at 6:30 p.m.
