Parishes and Peoples

Assumption stays on The French Shore

The first parish in what is now Ontario is not retold here. We point to it, then turn to the later churches newcomers built.

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Our Lady of the Assumption, 1767

First parish in what is now Ontario; the story stays on The French Shore

Assumption Parish dates from 1767, when the Huron mission became a parish, the first in what is now Ontario (Assumption Parish history; Windsor Public Library). The church building shown here was completed in 1845. That French Shore story, including the 1700s mission, is already told on The French Shore. This tab does not rewrite it. We keep the photograph as a place marker, then follow the 1800s and 1900s congregations that came after.

Sources: Assumption Parish history; Rose City Roots, The French Shore; Golden Jubilee: Assumption College 1870-1920

Assumption Church, completed 1845. Golden Jubilee: Assumption College 1870-1920, p. 19. Southwestern Ontario Digital Archive. Public domain.

The 1800s: Freedom churches

Black congregations built some of Windsor's earliest surviving, and earliest lost, church homes. The full Underground Railroad and Emancipation story stays on Freedom Shore.

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Sandwich First Baptist Church

Built by Underground Railroad settlers at 3652 Peter Street; National Historic Site

Freedom seekers built this church at 3652 Peter Street in Sandwich. Parks Canada and Canada's Historic Places designate it a National Historic Site. The early photograph, published by 1909, shows the church as Frederick Neal recorded it. The congregation and the street around it belong to the longer Freedom Shore chapter: Sandwich First Baptist on Freedom Shore. This card is the parish root, not a second telling of the river crossing.

Sources: Parks Canada; Canada's Historic Places; Frederick Neal, The Township of Sandwich (1909); Freedom Shore

Sandwich First Baptist Church, before 1909. From Frederick Neal, The Township of Sandwich (1909). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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British Methodist Episcopal Church

McDougall Street brick church dedicated 1868, demolished 1961; congregation on University Avenue from 1963

The British Methodist Episcopal Church is a Canadian denomination, formed in 1856 when Canadian congregations separated from the African Methodist Episcopal Church (University of Windsor, We Were Here). Windsor's congregation was established in 1852, with a wooden church in 1854. The brick church at 363 McDougall Street had its cornerstone in 1863 and was dedicated in 1868. The city's postwar urban renewal program expropriated the property in May 1961; the building was demolished that year. The congregation raised further funds and moved to a new church at 685 University Avenue in 1963. The 1913 photograph is the lost McDougall Street church, labelled Ontario Chapel (African) on the Gardner souvenir sheet. The later University Avenue church, from 2014, is shown beside it. Cross-link the Freedom Shore entry, which dates the McDougall Street church 1868 to 1961: BME Church, McDougall Street.

Sources: University of Windsor, We Were Here: Churches; Freedom Shore

Ontario Chapel (African), later the British Methodist Episcopal Church at 363 McDougall Street, 1913. Compiled by Harry Wentworth Gardner; photographer uncredited. From Windsor, Ontario, Canada, 1913, page 15, panel 11. Public domain.

St. Angela Merici, the Italian parish

On Erie Street, in Via Italia, a national parish built by unemployed tradesmen at the end of the Depression. Cross-link Windsor Eats for the bakeries and tables around it.

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St. Angela Merici Church

Italian chapel 1929; cornerstone 1939; opened Palm Sunday, 17 March 1940

By 1928 the Italian community in Windsor had grown to about 150 families. In January 1929 Fr. Alfonso Page was appointed to serve them, and an Italian chapel opened at Sacred Heart Church (parish history). On 22 December 1938, Fr. Costantino DeSantis arrived with a mandate to build a church; an academic parish history dates his arrival 23 December 1938, so we say late December 1938. Unemployed Italian tradesmen gave labour. The cornerstone was blessed on 29 October 1939. The first Mass in the new basement was on Christmas Day 1939, without heat; services then continued at Holy Trinity until the church opened to the Italian faithful on Palm Sunday, 17 March 1940. The name honours the founder of the Ursulines, who had already been teaching local children. A 1950s influx of Italian immigrants led to a major expansion in 1958, when the western wall was extended to Louis Avenue and became the main entrance. After Italy entered the war against Britain on 10 June 1940, Windsor's Italian community faced hostility; the new church had only just opened that spring (Italian Canadiana account). Cross-link Windsor Eats for the food street the parish still sits on.

Sources: St. Angela Merici Parish history; Walter Temelini, "Windsor's St. Angela Merici Church (1929-1996)," Italian Canadiana (doi:10.33137/ic.v13i.40425)

Chris Woodrich. St. Angela Merici Church, Windsor, 1 July 2025. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Holy Trinity, the Polish parish

A Romanesque Revival church at Ellis Street East and Langlois Avenue, still a landmark of Windsor's Polish community.

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Holy Trinity Polish Catholic Church

Parish 1916; first Mass 9 October 1917; church built 1918, consecrated 1919

Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, also named Kościół Świętej Trójcy, stands at 1021-1035 Ellis Street East, at Langlois Avenue. The City of Windsor's heritage notice describes a Romanesque Revival brick church that helps explain Windsor's Polish community and is a local neighbourhood landmark. A 2008 Windsor's Community Museum display on the Polish community says the church was constructed in 1918 and consecrated in 1919, after a 1916 door-to-door collection and a gift of land; early spiritual care had come through Immaculate Conception, with Fr. Jan Andrzejewski then sent to serve Polish Catholics. A 2017 centennial report, quoting the parish centennial committee, says the first Mass was on 9 October 1917, with Rev. Jan Andrzejewski as the first pastor, and that the parish itself was established in October 1916. We use those dates with those sources. We do not repeat later ranking claims about the age order of Windsor's Catholic churches. Those accounts conflict, and Assumption is older in any case.

Sources: City of Windsor, heritage notice, 1021-1035 Ellis Street East; Windsor's Community Museum, The Polish Community of Windsor display (2008); CKNX, 11 March 2017, parish centennial

JFVoll. Holy Trinity Church, Windsor, 17 February 2024. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sts. Vladimir and Olga, the Ukrainian Catholic parish

Founded in the mid-1920s after families moved here from northern Ontario. The photographs show the parish's present church at 601 Lake Trail Drive, not the 1937 church at Langlois and Shepherd.

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Sts. Vladimir and Olga Ukrainian Catholic Church

First liturgies 1925; parish established 26 December 1926; church consecrated 28 November 1937

After the First World War, Ukrainian families moved to Windsor from northern Ontario, especially the Fort William area. John Skalesky helped bring Fr. Lev Sembratovych from Detroit to serve a first Divine Liturgy in 1925 at Sts. Peter and Paul Maronite Church (parish history). On 4 September 1925 Fr. Roman Krupa, appointed by Bishop Nykyta Budka, chaired the first general meeting. Land at Langlois and Shepherd was bought for $2,750. Only the basement could be built in 1926. The first Divine Liturgy in that basement was on 5 December 1926; on 26 December 1926 Bishop Budka blessed the hall and established the parish under the patronage of Sts. Vladimir and Olga. The church above was built from 20 May 1937 and consecrated on 28 November 1937 by Bishop Basil Ladyka, at a cost the parish history gives as $32,000. A Ukrainian school followed. The parish later bought land on Howard Avenue for future use and, in the 2000s, prepared a new church. The parish now worships at 601 Lake Trail Drive. We have not pinned a single opening day for that building from a primary source tonight, so we do not state one. The photographs here are of the present Lake Trail church. The 1937 church at Langlois and Shepherd is not shown; a free historic photograph of that building is still a gap.

Sources: Sts. Vladimir and Olga Parish, More about Parish (official parish history)

Amakuha. Sts. Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church, Windsor, 31 May 2025. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0. Present church at 601 Lake Trail Drive.

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Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Volodymyr

A separate congregation from Sts. Vladimir and Olga

Windsor also has a Ukrainian Orthodox cathedral dedicated to St. Volodymyr. It is not the same parish as Sts. Vladimir and Olga Ukrainian Catholic Church. We include this 2025 photograph so the two communities are not confused, and so the Orthodox congregation is not left invisible beside its Catholic neighbour. A full verified history of the Orthodox cathedral is still open; this card is a place-marker with an honest label, not a finished chronicle.

Sources: Wikimedia Commons photograph, 31 May 2025, clearly labelled as the Orthodox cathedral; kept separate from the Ukrainian Catholic parish history above

Amakuha. Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Volodymyr, Windsor, 31 May 2025. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0. A different congregation from Sts. Vladimir and Olga.

St. Michael's, the German-speaking parish

A mid-century church in South Walkerville, built after the Second World War for German-speaking Catholics, including Danube Swabian families who had lost their homes in Europe.

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St. Michael's Catholic Church

Organised 1949; hall blessed 23 July 1950; first service in the finished church, Easter Sunday, 10 April 1955

St. Michael's Catholic Church stands on Parkwood Avenue in South Walkerville. The City of Windsor's 19 October 2026 heritage notice is titled 2135 Parkwood Avenue and describes the church as located at 2153 Parkwood Avenue, between Parkwood and Woodlawn, south of Tecumseh Road East. The notice calls the building a mid-century modern landmark, with Art Deco-inspired elements, originally constructed to serve the German immigrant population. A Danube Swabian community history, quoting Fritz Wieden and Michael Benzinger's Kanadas Donauschwaben (reprinted by Heimat Publishers), gives the organising dates: Fr. Koloman Moullion, a refugee priest from Batsch-Brestowatz, arrived in early 1949; he said a first Mass on 3 April 1949 in the Hungarian community's church; 212 interested Danube Swabians met on 24 April 1949; Msgr. W.E. Dillon turned the first sod for a basement on 14 August 1949; and Bishop J.C. Cody of London blessed the new hall and priest's residence on 23 July 1950. The same account says the first service in the finished church was on Easter Sunday, 10 April 1955. We attribute those 1949-1955 dates to that community history, not to a diocesan register we have seen ourselves. The same history says Fr. Moullion's sister, Sister Antonia, trained in Budapest and Vienna, designed the mosaics and stained-glass windows; the 2024 interior photograph shows the crucifixion mosaic at the main altar, flanked by the apostles, which matches that description. No free exterior photograph of the Parkwood Avenue church was found on Wikimedia Commons tonight. This interior is used with an honest caption. Do not confuse this Roman Catholic parish with St. Michael's Byzantine Catholic Church, a different Windsor congregation.

Sources: City of Windsor, heritage notice, 2135 / 2153 Parkwood Avenue, 19 October 2026; Fritz Wieden and Michael Benzinger, Kanadas Donauschwaben, as quoted in a Danube Swabian community history reprinted by Heimat Publishers

JFVoll. St. Michael Church interior, Windsor, 18 February 2024. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0. Interior only; no free exterior was cleared tonight.

Chapters in view

Kyle named this tab Parishes and Peoples. The 1767 Assumption story stays on The French Shore. This preview follows the approved RCR card design used on Natural Windsor and Windsor Eats.

Still open

• Free photos still needed: St. Michael's Parkwood Avenue exterior; the 1868 BME church at 363 McDougall Street; the 1937 Sts. Vladimir and Olga church at Langlois and Shepherd; historic construction or congregation photographs from parish archives, if they can be shared with credit.
• Fees / commercial (price to Kyle before any buy; buy nothing tonight): Windsor Star / Postmedia files of the McDougall Street BME church, the 1961 expropriation, parish centennials, and the Lake Trail church opening. No price quote pulled tonight.
• Permission, not a listed fee: parish or congregation photographs, often free with credit if asked later; Museum Windsor ethnic-hall and parish collections, price unknown.
• Primary digs still open: diocesan or parish registers to confirm St. Michael's Easter 1955 date independently of the community history; a primary source for the Lake Trail church opening day; a fuller, sourced history of the Ukrainian Orthodox cathedral; Holy Trinity confirmation of the 9 October 1917 first Mass in a parish or archdiocesan record, already supported by the 2017 centennial committee and the 2008 museum display.
• Do not claim: Assumption's 1767 story as a chapter of this tab; that the University Avenue BME photograph is the 1868 McDougall Street church; that Sts. Vladimir and Olga and the Orthodox cathedral of St. Volodymyr are the same congregation; that St. Michael's Roman Catholic parish is the same as St. Michael's Byzantine Catholic Church; age-order rankings among Windsor's Catholic churches, which conflict in secondary accounts; that the Windsor Mosque was the first in Canada (that claim is overstated, and the mosque is not a finished card tonight).

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