The Cathedral Church of St. James

In 1796 the first Anglican priest arrived from England to minister to the citizens of York. The following year the Province set aside this piece of land for the building of a church. The present Cathedral, the fourth church erected on this site, opened in 1853, replacing the previous structure destroyed in the Great Fire of 1849. The first Bishop of Toronto, the Right Reverend John Strachan, along with a number of his parishioners, played an important role in the early development of the city and province. Over the years, the cathedral, the Mother Church for Anglicans in the diocese of Toronto, has been a place of worship, prayer and outreach in the heart of a busy community.