In Quebec, a hundred churches converted into libraries, daycares or spas to save them from destruction

Books, children's games or bowling have replaced crucifixes, prayer benches or candlesticks. In Montreal, churches are escaping abandonment by reinventing themselves. “I really like coming here. I like the little church feel, it makes a working atmosphere conducive to concentration,” whispers Alexia Delestre, a master’s student based in the Mordecai-Richler library.

In one of the central and trendy districts of the French-speaking metropolis, this library replaced the pews of an Anglican church, the wooden arches and large stained glass windows are still there, above the hundreds of books. “In general, we do not want to destroy churches if we can preserve them because they are beautiful buildings which clearly mark the urban space. These are important landmarks,” says Justin Bur, 58, member of “Mémoire du Mile-End”, a group specializing in the history of the neighborhood.

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Further north on the island of Montreal, the Sainte-Germaine-Cousin church dating from the 1960s was saved from demolition at the last minute and now houses a daycare, a residence for the elderly and social housing. Its imposing white concrete structure, its high perched cross and an adjacent “S”-shaped building do not go unnoticed in the landscape. Inside, seats and children's toys furnish rooms with atypical geometry with their high ceilings and large windows. “It’s really the Rolls-Royce of daycare centers,” notes Isabelle Juneau, deputy director of the crèche, highlighting the modernist architecture and brightness of the place.

Across the province of Quebec, other churches have been transformed into spas, bowling alleys, basketball courts, climbing centers and cheese factories. But many did not succeed in their transfer and are abandoned in Montreal, once nicknamed “the city of 100 steeples” by the American writer Mark Twain who explained that you could not throw a stone “without breaking a stained glass window ". The repeal of a church maintenance tax in the 1960s and the general disinterest of Quebec society in religious practice contributed to the abandonment and deterioration of many places of worship. “There are no more priests, no more religious practice. Society has moved on to something else,” explains Lucie Morisset, urban heritage researcher. “A few years ago, there were around 2,800 churches in Quebec and this number is falling every day. In Montreal, there were around a thousand churches at the beginning of the 20th century, today there are around 400,” she adds.

The majority of Quebec churches were Catholic and Anglican. Over the last 20 years, around a hundred have been converted, according to the Religious Heritage Council of Quebec. About ten have been demolished, around forty have been transformed or are in the process of being transformed and the rest have changed their religious vocation.

And conversion is not always easy, exacerbated by galloping inflation. Witness the former Saint-Mathias-Apôtre Catholic Church, in a central neighborhood on the island of Montreal. “It cost several hundred thousand dollars to convert the church into a community restaurant: the entire basement was repurposed into a kitchen, the grounds had to be decontaminated…” says Marc-André Simard of the Chic Resto restaurant. Pop. This establishment intended for the disadvantaged population of the neighborhood serves more than 300 meals every day at a low price and offers professional training to unemployed people. All in the middle of the woodwork, the multicolored stained glass windows and the confessionals still in place. For him, it is “essential that the entire religious heritage is not left abandoned” because it can serve as a “community space” and “places of residence.”