The 110-year-old church of Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Allégresses, located in Trois-Rivières, has been destroyed by a fire.
The Oct. 3 fire, which was subdued the same day, resulted in the roof completely collapsing, and one of the two bell towers being destroyed as well, according to local media.
There have been no reported injuries or deaths. Municipal officials did not respond to The Epoch Times’ requests for comment by publication time. Journal de Quebec said there has been no information released about the potential causes of the fire.
The Catholic church of Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Allegresses, inspired by the neo-Roman architectural style, was originally built in 1914. The church had recently been under construction for several weeks.
A wave of cross-country church arsons began after the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation said in 2021 ground-penetrating radar had uncovered the possible burial sites of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, B.C. The sites have not yet been excavated to confirm the presence of bodies.
More than 83 churches across Canada have been vandalized, burned down, or desecrated since then, including eleven churches in western Canada in the weeks following Kamloops that were all determined by investigators to have been caused by arson.
More recently, four Alberta churches burnt down in suspected arson attacks in December 2023 alone, with two churches in a community northwest of Edmonton being destroyed in the span of an hour. On Sept. 28, 2024, an Anglican church in a small northwestern Saskatchewan village was also destroyed by a fire. The church had been built in 1939 and held a community service once per month.
In 2023, the House of Commons voted unanimously to consider measures “to coordinate the protection of faith communities.” The vote came following a justice committee task force proposing the appointment of an Anti-Hate Crime Task Force.
