Saint Nicholas Church, Hamilton (Barton Street)

Saint Nicholas Church

Address: 1415 Barton St. E. L8H 2W6

Website: www.saintnicholas.info

Fr. Vojislav Pavlovic
Email: protavoja@gmail.com
Phone: 905 517 7684

Fr. Vojislav Pavlovic has been parish priest at the Saint Nicholas Church in Barton since January 1, 1995. Fr. Voja replaced Fr. Djuro Vukelic, who was the parish priest in this Church Municipality for 47 years and who, together with the faithful people of the city of Hamilton, built the church and hall and everything we have today. Fr. Voja continued in the footsteps of his predecessor and during his service in Hamilton in one of the best colonies and most beautiful churches on the North American continent, he was decorated with the rank of protopresbyter and then protopresbyter-stavrophor. He was decorated with the rank of protopresbyter in 2005 by the Bishop of New Gracanica Longin, on the occasion of the consecration of the frescoes in the church which lasted five years. For his zealous and fruitful pastoral work for the good of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the parish entrusted to him, he was awarded the right to wear a pectoral cross. He received the decoration on February 20, 2011, at the Holy Hierarchical Liturgy in the Saint Nicholas Church in Hamilton by the Bishop of Canada Georgije.

History

St. Nicholas Church on Barton Street in Hamilton is the spiritual centre of the oldest Serbian Orthodox parish in eastern Canada. Serbs began to settle in Hamilton in 1904. At the initiative of a group of Serbs already living in Hamilton, mainly from the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, the parish was founded in 1913. These hardworking workers managed to buy a house on Sherman Street, where they arranged a priest's apartment on the first floor and a chapel-church on the ground floor for their spiritual needs. The parish was founded under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church, but came under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1920.

On St. Nicholas Day itself, December 19, 1917, Bishop Mardarije (Uskokovic) consecrated the first Saint Nicholas Church, on the corner of Beach Road and Northcote Streets in Hamilton. Beach Road was once a small Slavic enclave, because in addition to our church and home, there were many shops and stores owned by Serbs, Croats, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, and Slovenes. Hamilton experienced a large wave of Slavic immigration after World War II, and the cultural development of the community accelerated at that time. In the years between 1948 and 1952, the Circle of Serbian Sisters, a choir, a school, and a theatre were founded. As the Serbian community grew, it soon outgrew its small home, and in 1957, a large hall was opened on Barton Street. The need for a larger church soon became apparent.

The magnificent church (constructed in the Serbian-Byzantine architectural style) was consecrated in 1974. The consecration was officiated by Bishop Irinej (Kovacevic). The church retained the bells of the old church, and a collection of Russian icons from 1907. The monumental mosaic, the icon of St. Nicholas, above the entrance door is the work of artist Sava Rakocevic from Chicago.

The iconostasis, a donation of Milka Stojancevic, is the work of Cretan craftsmen from the workshop of Argyrios Kavroulakis in Heraklion on the island of Crete, in 1977. It is richly carved from walnut. The same workshop made the balcony for the choir box. The frescoes were painted from 2001 to 2004, and are the work of Fr. Theodore Jurevich, a Russian priest and icon painter from Ira, Pennsylvania. In 2003, a copy of the miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary of Three Hands was brought to us from Hilandar, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the parish. The icon stands under a beautiful ciborium carved in Belgrade, from Slavonian oak. The shroud table and the entrance door are also from the same Belgrade workshop.

The parish and community have shared the joys and sorrows of our people for a century, including two World Wars, the Great Depression, periods of economic boom and bust in Hamilton, and the tragedies of the wars throughout the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. The parish has always led and supported humanitarian aid to our people at home as well as to refugees and newcomers to Canada. As we celebrate our centennial, we can be proud of our past and look forward to a bright future.