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A Brief History of the Church of Saint Maurice
Saint John's, Newfoundland, Canada
SAINT MENA & SAINT ABRAAM CHURCH, TORONTO
BY FATHER ATHANASIUS ISKANDER
In 1985, while serving in Mississauga, a new service was started for Copts living in the downtown area of Toronto. These people were either new immigrants struggling to find work, who had no car, or seniors who do not drive. Because they depended on public transportation, they were cut off from the two churches serving the area, which were located in the suburbs of Mississauga and Scarborough.
Deacon Samir Matar (currently Fr. Moussa Matar), then serving with me in Mississauga, asked if I could pray a Liturgy with these Copts once in a while. I agreed and asked them to look for a church to rent. A Lebanese church was found with a bus stop in front of it. We decided to rent it twice a month on Saturday. At that time I had two other Saturdays committed to service in remote communities: Halifax, and Sudbury, a Northern Ontario town with four Coptic Families. Servants from both Mississauga and Scarborough volunteered as deacons, and a female servant from Scarborough offered to start a Sunday School class for the “angels”. Others followed and we had a budding Sunday School service.
More families were identified in the downtown core, and by 1989, I had decided to suggest to His Holiness to consider a full time priest for the church of Saint Mena and Abba Abraam.
Unfortunately, when I started my service in Kitchener in September of that year, this important service, which catered to “those who have no one to remember them,” was neglected. In a few short months, sadly, the church of Saint Mena and Abba Abraam ceased to exist.
