Almost two-century-old Vaughan Lutheran church opens this Thanksgiving

The 'very first meeting of the Lutheran Synod of Ontario' took place at the church

Yorkregion.com
October 9, 2020
Dina Al-Shibeeb

A Lutheran Vaughan church known as a “piece of Ontario’s history” wants worshippers for its upcoming Sunday, Oct. 11 Thanksgiving service, says its council’s vice-chair, Wayne McCracken.

It’s the first time that the Zion Lutheran Church, located at 8795 Keele Street in Vaughan, will officially reopen after fixing some “substantial water damage” to one part of the church and celebrating its 175-year anniversary.

Before Ontario declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19 on March 17, the church was getting ready for its worshippers after the revamping, which also included constructing a new electric sign to alert passersby.

McCracken now wants to tell people that “we exist,” “we are live” and “we'd love you to worship.”

Other denominations are more than welcome. “We have several other churches that conduct services here, under license from us,” he added.

PART OF ONTARIO'S HISTORY

The church gives a glimpse of earlier movement within North America, way before Confederation, when the area was known as the Province of Upper Canada -- part of British Canada, established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The “very first meeting of the Lutheran Synod of Ontario” took place at the church, said McCracken, charting the “start of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ontario.”

Its earlier history goes back over two hundred years when, in the 1790s, German settlers arrived in the Vaughan township from Somerset County in southwest Pennsylvania.

“Some of the first pioneers came from Pennsylvania,” said Rita Moore, a longtime member of the church, whose ancestors were also part of pioneering it. After all, the Pennsylvania Ministerium was also the first Lutheran church body in North America.

Moore’s link goes back to the Keffer family.

Jacob and Michael Keffer and Jacob Fischer, and their families, received deeds to lands and established homesteads. Moore is related to the Keffers, and there is currently a road named after them: Jacob Keffer Parkway.

On Aug. 10, 1811, Jacob Keffer also gave a plot of land to the Lutheran congregation. The congregation’s first baptism was recorded at Zion on Jan. 23, 1808.

“This was the first church, period, in the area when it was built,” Moore said; however, “There's an older congregation in Unionville, and one or two in Nova Scotia, I think.”

She added, “Everybody came here because it was the only (Lutheran) church.”

The area around Keele was also quintessentially a countryside area. “Now, (the church), it’s in the middle of an industrial sea,” said McCracken, adding how earlier on the church also served as a place for “social gathering and activities.”

McCracken’s vision was to have the worshippers “line up on Keele,” with the doubling or tripling of its average number of 20 worshippers to 60, he told the Vaughan Citizen at the church, before Ontario declared its state of emergency due to COVID-19.