{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2016}} {{Infobox church |name = St. Helen's Church |image = St_Helens,_Toronto.JPG |coordinates = {{coord|43.650249|-79.437487|region:CA-ON|display=inline,title}} |location = 1680 Dundas Street West<br />Toronto, Ontario, Canada |denomination = Catholic Church |churchmanship = |website = {{URL|https://sthelensto.archtoronto.org/en/|sthelensto.archtoronto.org}} |founded = {{start date|1875}} |architect = Arthur William Holmes |style = Gothic Revival |years_built = 1908-1909 |archdiocese = Toronto |pastor = The Rev. Willyans Prado Rapozo }} '''St. Helens Catholic Church''' is located in Toronto, Canada.
==History== St. Helen's Parish was established in 1875 in Brockton village, just outside the city of Toronto's western boundaries. The parish was formed from St. Mary's Parish. The first pastor for the church was Rev. Father Shea. St. Helen's Church was original located on the southwest corner of Lansdowne Avenue and Dundas Street West, one block west of its current location.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adam |first1=G. Mercer |title=Toronto Old And New |date=1891 |publisher=The Mail Printing Company |location=Toronto |page=78 |url=https://digital.library.yorku.ca/_flysystem/fedora/2023-07/torontooldnewmem00adam.pdf |access-date=7 February 2025}}</ref> St. Helen's Catholic School was established in the basement of the building, before a school building was built next door.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robertson |first=J. Ross |url=https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.13085/355 |title=Robertson's landmarks of Toronto : a collection of historical sketches of the old town of York from 1792 until 1837, and of Toronto from 1834 to 1904 : also, nearly three hundred engravings of the churches of Toronto embracing the picture of every church obtainable from 1800-1904. |publisher=J. Ross Robertson |year=1904 |location=Toronto |pages=334–335}}</ref>
St. Helen's was the focal point of Catholic life in Toronto's 19th-century western suburbs. In a city dominated by Protestants, many of the streets surrounding the church had Catholic majorities, yet the neighbourhood's Catholics were generally well integrated with the Protestant majority. The parish grew quickly as English-speaking Catholics found work in the neighbourhood's chocolate factories, railway yards, foundries, and industry. As a result, a new St. Helen's Church was built 1909 and the original church was demolished.<ref>{{cite book |last1=McGowan |first1=Mark George |last2=McGowan |first2=Mark George |title=The waning of the green: catholics, the Irish, and identity in Toronto, 1887 - 1922 |date=1999 |publisher=McGill-Queen's Univ. Press |location=Montreal |isbn=0-7735-1790-1 |pages=27–36 |url=https://archive.org/details/waningofgreencat0000mcgo |access-date=7 February 2025}}</ref>
Arthur William Holmes, a prominent ecclesiastical architect, designed the existing Gothic Revival-style church on Dundas Street. The new building was completed in 1909; however, the spire was not erected until 1920.<ref>{{Cite web |title=St. Helen's Roman Catholic Church |url=https://www.acotoronto.ca/building.php?ID=7013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230318125941/https://www.acotoronto.ca/building.php?ID=7013 |archive-date=March 18, 2023 |access-date=February 7, 2025 |website=Architectural Conservancy Ontario}}</ref>
Holmes designed the building in a style typical of large Anglican and Catholic churches in England and Ireland. The front of the church includes a large rose-window above a gothic arch, similar to St. Mary's Church on Bathurst Street. The church's interior design is traditional, reflecting the style of Pope Pius X, who was "implacably hostile to modernizing, liberalizing trends in the Church."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Thomas |first=Christopher A. |date=1985 |title=A Thoroughly Traditional Architect: A. W. Holmes and the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, 1890 ·1940 |url=https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/items/cdd43d02-d24e-4b84-8d59-05f3240387ca |journal=The Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada Bulletin |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=3–9}}</ref>
The new church was the second largest Catholic church in Toronto, after St. Michael's Cathedral Basilica. In the 1950s, the church became home to a thriving Italian congregation and later a vibrant Portuguese congregation, as the neighbourhood became known as Little Portugal. In 2000, the church received a papal blessing from Pope John Paul II to mark its 125th anniversary.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Scrivener |first=Leslie |date=September 25, 2000 |title=Celebrating 125 glorious years |url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/page-b2/docview/1348407469/se-2 |access-date=February 7, 2025 |work=Toronto Star |pages=B2}}</ref>
== See also ==
* List of Roman Catholic churches in Toronto
== References == {{Reflist}}
Category:Roman Catholic churches completed in the 1900s Category:Roman Catholic church buildings in Toronto