Dewi Sant Window "Do the Little Things in Life"

Saturday

The Welsh diaspora in Canada is grieving.  On the weekend of June 11 and 12, its southern Ontario branch said “good-bye” to its home located in the Dewi Sant Welsh United Church building located in North Toronto’s Melrose Avenue at Yonge Street.   Several hundred Welsh and their friends gathered over the two days to mark this emotion-filled occasion.  The Toronto congregation  was the last of the Welsh churches of Canada.

 On Saturday, the Toronto Welsh Male Voice Choir, conducted by William Woloschuk and, accompanied as usual by the Church’s gifted musician Matthew Coons, sang a medley of Welsh songs and hymns in a resounding paean of praise confirming the place of vibrant singing as both integral to preserving the Welsh language and to professing the faith.  The Choir regularly practiced at the church.

 The program (of course!) included Cwm Rhondda (Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah) as well as O Gymru (O Wales), Calon Lan (A Pure Heart), and the national anthems of both Canada and Wales, choking up not a few participants.  Commissioned by the congregation for the occasion was a new benediction, Y Fendith (The Blessing) created by Robat Arwyn. 

The (world!) premiere performance of “The Ballad of Dewi Sant: The Journey” a play of words and music created by Minister Emeritus Cerwyn Davies recounted the emotionally laden story of Welsh migration to North America and especially the Toronto region.  Merched Dewi (David’s daughters), the women’s choir of the congregation led by Betty Cullingworth, sang refrains confirming that for many-a Welsh immigrant individual or family settling into the Greater Toronto Area since 1907 “The Welsh Church” congregation served as the “home away from home”.  A gala dinner in the church hall rounded out the afternoon’s festivities.

Sunday

On Sunday, “the final” worship service and social time took place in the building. Two endings marked the day.  First, the ministry of the Rev. Liz Mackenzie was formally concluded. Her role as able pastor and experienced interim minister included helping the congregation to discern and decide on its future.  In her final sermon she recalled that “In the first sermon I preached in this sanctuary, on St. David’s Sunday, 2019, I made this promise to you – ‘I will endeavour to speak and show the hope that is in me and listen and watch as you endeavour to speak and show the hope that is in you, as we discern God’s…hope for us as the people of Dewi Sant Welsh United Church.’” 

That hope evoked the courage to recognize the realities that the congregation was no longer receiving new immigrants from Wales, that the earlier immigrant families had spawned children now well integrated and dispersed throughout Canadian society and beyond, and that the aging congregants were no longer able to continue independently. The congregation expressed its hope by deciding to amalgamate with the congregation of Toronto’s Timothy Eaton Memorial United Church, located on St. Clair Ave. W. near Avenue Road.   That decision culminated in the festive “farewell” weekend bidding the building “adieu” – the second ending.

The "Home"

Since October 16, 1960, the Melrose Avenue church building had been the “home” of the Dewi Sant (St. David) Welsh United Church congregation, formally constituted in 1907 as a Presbyterian congregation.  Previously it had been housed in rented quarters and then in a well-used building on Clinton Street.  Growth of the congregation and need for more spacious accommodation led to the decision to buy property and build.  With the gracious and steady leadership of the Rev. John Humphreys Jones, the congregation’s dream of creating a new, more adequate “home away from home” came true. 

For almost 62 years the building served the Welsh community of the Greater Toronto Area as the centre of Welsh community, worship, music, and service.  Sons and daughters of the congregation had weddings in the church – as did Glenys Huws and I in April of 1970; Good Friday Gymanfa Ganu hymn fests brought together exuberant singers from far and near; lives were celebrated and commended to the eternal care of the Creator; Welsh culture and history were celebrated in competitive poetry and music Eisteddfods and advocated by regular meetings of the St. David’s Society, including St. David’s day (March 1^st) festivities.  Welsh language classes attracted children and grandchildren of Welsh immigrants.

In his “Ballad of Dewi Sant”, Cerwyn Davies gave voice to the congregation’s sentiments about its building:

 To you, our homestead for sixty-two years,

With hearts full of hiraeth and eyes full of tears,

 The time is upon us to say our “goodbyes”,

What future awaits you we can but surmise!

For as of tomorrow we must close your door

And the church here on Melrose will be here no more,

No sermons again from this pulpit we hear

And the sound of the organ will too disappear!

Cwm Rhondda and Rachie will never again

Pulsate through your rafters with joyful refrain!

Alas as a chapel you now come to an end,

We’ll never forget you, our dear faithful friend!

But whatever the shape your future will bear

We’ll raise here a cairn, “Dewi Sant once lived here!”

For ‘service above’, which none can refute,

We throw you a kiss with this one last salute!

 [An Epilogue continued:]

As we face the future when Melrose is gone,

The spirit of Dewi will still lead us on,

Though close be his chapel, his spirit still rings,

“To glorify God and to do little things’.

The Window's New Home 

The spirit of Dewi is captured in the stained glass window which graced the east wall of the “chapel”. It will be removed from the Melrose building and given a prominent place in the TEMC facility. The Welsh community gathers for Sunday worship with TEMC and will hold monthly bilingual Welsh-English worship services in the chapel.  A newly dedicated “Dewi Sant” room will be furnished with some of the Dewi Sant’s stained-glass window, icons, and other historic items communicating the “spirit of Dewi” “to glorify God and to do little things”.

 Except for Indigenous peoples, Canada is an immigrant nation with faith communities that both maintain and move beyond their background cultures and heritage traditions. Experience shows that sustaining a heritage community beyond the third or fourth generation is challenging. The Welsh congregation had a life-span of 115 years. The Dutch immigrant community of which I am a part is also losing its younger generations noticeably.  With few exceptions, the third and fourth generations will lose their mother tongue.

Canada has demonstrated its willingness to foster cultural diversity enabling immigrant communities to persist even beyond the last immigrant wave.  But Euro-based immigrant communities tend toward inclusivity vs exclusivity – building more bridges than walls, often at the expense of the heritage identity.

Amalgamation and ...?

Will the amalgamation with TEMC result in maintaining a sense of Welsh identity and community - integration, or will it become the first step toward eventual assimilation?  Ultimately there is, of course, only one human family.  Some branches of the family in some places will more easily retain their distinct identity, language, and community than others. The Holy One does have a soft spot for the richness of diversity.  A more homogeneous population does run the risk unleashing of Babel hubris (Genesis 11:1-6).

 The two-day festivities ended with tears and hopes that, as Liz Mackenzie wrote to participants, “This weekend is a labour of love and a love song to all that Dewi Sant has been and will continue to be in the hearts of the Dewi Sant faith family.”   

Diolch i Dduw.  Thanks be to God.

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 (Communicate with Dewi Sant community at: TEMC, 230 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto ON M4V 1R5.  Tel. 416 925 5977.  https://temc.ca/)

The first Bilingual/Welsh worship service will be on September 18, 2122 at 2 p.m.