Christ Church Cathedral

 

 

 

The Very Reverend Michael J. Pitts

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the cyberspace version of Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal. Here you will find a wide variety of pages, including information about the history and work of our building and community. You can also read many of the sermons preached during our Sunday Choral Eucharists. You can find out about the exciting music we perform as part of the weekly drama of our liturgy.

At the heart of what we stand for and represent, is a living community. It is a community brought into being by the Good News of the risen Jesus. By its life, liturgy and mission each Christian community, empowered by the Holy Spirit, presents the living Jesus to the world, with his love, compassion and renewing power.

Our community is at its most visible form during Sunday worship. In fact we celebrate the life of Christ in our city and in our lives in the Eucharist every day of the week, but on Sunday in particular it is a community of very great diversity, and this we cherish because the Gospels speak of Jesus bringing together a community with no boundaries, no insiders and outsiders. On any Sunday our community, though often small, can consist of people of twenty or more mother languages. Our worshippers come from just about every level of the socio-economic spectrum, and from every age group. Some live in the region around Montreal and are regularly part of the community. Others are visitors from many parts of the world who may be here only once or twice. Through this web site we hope our community can both invite you if you are near, or include you even if you are on the other side of the world.

Our belief in the open, boundary free nature of Christ’s community has led us in recent years to offer a very special welcome to people of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual orientation. We have not only welcomed you, but tried to stand as advocates for your right to be considered as children of God and full partakers of all the ministries and sacraments of the Church. Because ours is an episcopally ordered and synodically governed church, some decisions in these matters are outside the control of an individual community. But we have, for many years, stood at your side in the discussion of the counsels of the church at all levels. By the same token we have also intentionally worked for the full inclusion of women both in our own authority structure, and that of the wider Anglican Church.

So we hope you will feel welcome, in whatever way you can be part of this community, and join in our prayers and efforts for the renewal of the Church in our time and for the Church’s renewed witness in the world.

Michael J. Pitts, Dean and Rector