City again interested in Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste after Coptic parish drops offer

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The future of Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste is up in the air once again.

The historic Catholic church towering above the neighbour- hood which bears its name held its last mass in 2015. Ever since, community groups and successive city administrations have proposed various uses for the massive building, including a centre for French-Canadian genealogy, a training centre for woodcarvers and stained-glass artisans, a community centre and an artists’ workspace.

In January, it appeared the church would become a place of worship again after the Coptic Orthodox congregation of the Virgin Mary, St. Mina and Pope Cyril submitted an offer to buy the building for a symbolic sum.

However, that offer is now off the table, Serge Savaria, president of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste parish assembly, announced July 6.

“On June 27, the Coptic community informed us that they were dropping out of the pro- cess and no longer intended to buy the church,” Savaria said in a statement to members of the parish, which has held mass at Église Saint-Dominique and Église Saints-Martyrs-Canadiens since its flagship church closed. “Consequently, the parish has asked the bishop’s permission to negotiate with the Ville de Québec to come to an agreement on the sale of the church.”

Further details on the city’s plans for the church were not available at press time. However, in 2022, before the planned sale of the church to the Coptic congregation was announced, the Ville de Québec mandated the Institut canadien de Québec, the arm’s-length nonprofit which oversees the city library system, to submit a “pre-feasibility study” for a cultural centre on the site.

The cash-strapped parish council has been responsible for heating and maintaining the empty church and its liturgical objects at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, with an eye to the eventual sale or conversion of the building. The parish council “considers it essential that the sale allows the protection and enhancement of the exceptional religious heritage of Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste, not only for the neighbourhood, for the city, but for all of Quebec,” Savaria wrote.