First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Toronto - History

History

The history of First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Toronto is, above all else an account of a relatively small number of German-speaking immigrants struggling to create and maintain a spiritual home for themselves and successive generations. Not only did those first immigrants accomplish this goal, but in so doing, earned for First Lutheran the designation of the Lutheran mother church of Toronto.

First Lutheran traces its beginnings to 1850 when a small number of German Lutheran families began to meet in their homes for worship. The German population of Toronto was then extremely small, no more than a few hundred, and probably equally represented by Protestants and Roman Catholics.

The formal organisation of the congregation took place on August 9, 1851 when 12 members signed its first constitution. Served by itinerant pastors for the first several years of its existence, the congregation met in a number of temporary locations which included the First Congregational Church, the Crookshank Street public school and the Temperance Hall-all in the heart of what is now downtown Toronto. The first permanent pastor to serve the congregation, the Reverend Gustav Reiche, was appointed in 1855.

It was also in 1855 that the congregation purchased the property on Bond Street on which one year later, the congregation began construction of its first church building, a small simple wood-frame structure, including a parsonage at its western end. The completed structure was consecrated on August 23, 1857.

In its first decade, the congregation was plagued by severe financial difficulties. Due to increases in building costs, the first of the European fundraising efforts took place in 1857 when a trustee of the congregation, G. van der Smissen, went to Germany and collected an amount sufficient to cover the most pressing building debts. As the financial situation had not improved by 1860, his daughter, Elizabeth van der Smissen, undertook a trip to Europe to raise funds. Using testimonials provided by clergy of other denominations in Toronto, specifically Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Congregationalist, Miss van der Smissen traveled to Germany, France, Switzerland, England and Scotland raised sufficient funds to retire the congregation's debt. The fascinating record of these testimonials and of all funds collected is contained in a diary found in the congregation's archives.

The next few decades in the history of the congregation were characterized by a number of short-term tenancies of pastors, very slow growth in the size of congregation, and perennial difficulties in meeting its ongoing financial obligations. During this period and until the late 1920s, the women's group frequently provided funds to cover essential expenses when the financial situation of the congregation became desperate. In 1877, evening services in the English language were introduced for the benefit of the congregation's younger generation and their spouses who were not able to understand German.

In 1889 a fire seriously damaged the church but with the insurance compensation, the damage was repaired. Four years later the parsonage at the western end of the church was rebuilt into a Sunday school hall. By 1895 it was apparent that the original church building was deteriorating and no longer adequate for the congregation which had recently experienced significant growth.

As a result of an ambitious fundraising effort led by Theodore Heinzmann, sufficient funds were raised to construct the present much more substantial building which was consecrated in 1898. Indications are that the early years of the twentieth century were fairly successful ones for First Lutheran, as evidenced by the purchase of a parsonage on Carleton Street in 1902.

Shortly thereafter dissension occurred within the congregation which resulted in a number of members leaving to form St. Paul's English Lutheran Church. This breakaway congregation met for a time at the Broadway Tabernacle at College and Spadina before building its own small church on Glen Morris in 1914. The specific nature of the dissension is not documented in any congregational records of the time that have been passed down to us.

Neither First Lutheran nor St. Paul's ultimately had the resources to remain viable individual congregations over time. By 1927, the membership of both had declined such that dissolution of both congregations was being considered. Under the leadership of the Reverend Albert Grunwald who was called in 1927, a period of renewal of First Lutheran was begun. With the intention of selling the Bond Street structure and building a new church elsewhere in Toronto, a fundraising campaign was embarked upon which met with reasonable success.

In 1930 the almost inevitable merger of First Lutheran and St. Paul's took place. The church on Glen Morris was sold to the Russian-Greek Orthodox Church and the proceeds designated to be used for a new church elsewhere. In 1932 when it became apparent that the Bond Street church could not be sold, the congregation decided to repair and improve the church using the monies accumulated in the building fund. It was at this time that the chancel was outfitted, for the most part, as it remains today. The improvements included: the marble altar, hand-painted mural decoration, reredos, statue of Christ, pulpit and statue canopies, altar rail, offering table, chancel paneling.

The congregation once again experienced renewal with the arrival of the large number of immigrants in the years following the Second World War. Not only did German speaking immigrants find a spiritual home here but First Lutheran provided a temporary home for Lutherans from a number of other countries, specifically the Finns, the Hungarians, the Latvians and the Lithuanians as they came together to establish their own congregations.

In the 1970s, First Lutheran achieved a state of maturity in its ministry as it began to recognize needs and opportunities beyond the immediate Lutheran community. For several years, it supported a number of foster children in Latin America. More recently it has supported urban initiatives such as Covenant House, Fellowship of the Least Coin, Shopping Bag Ladies House and Eva's Place. And it has quite fittingly provided support for a struggling Lutheran congregation in Latin America.

The character of the congregation has changed significantly over recent decades. What was at one time a large and vibrant Sunday School-about a hundred children has diminished to a handful. The youth group is small and likely to remain so. However a large and vibrant seniors group has very closely associated with the congregation for the past twenty years. Both women's and men's continue to meet, serving a definite need for fellowship and to foster spiritual growth.