The History of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg

The First Icelandic Unitarian Church

Freethinkers among the Lutheran Icelanders who immigrated to Manitoba after the 1865 eruption of Mount Hecla founded our church in 1891. Its first minister was Bjorn Pétursson, energetically assisted by Jennie Elizabeth McCain, the Unitarian missionary in St. Paul, Minnesota. They married, and she succeeded him as minister in Winnipeg after his death.

Though the church was basically Christian in theology and practice, these Icelanders did not take Scripture literally, and insisted on applying reason to its interpretation. As a result, they suffered under the prejudice of the more orthodox Christians in the community who refused to serve them in shops or to patronize Unitarian-owned businesses.

During the Easter season of 1892, a large number of Icelanders from Manitoba’s Interlake region found themselves persuaded to a religious position similar to that of the Winnipeg Unitarians. They soon joined the Winnipeg Unitarians, filling out their numbers. Magnus Skaptasson, then a Lutheran circuit preacher, delivered his “Easter Sermon” to seven of the Interlake Lutheran churches – a Universalist sermon – attacking the idea of hell and proposing a more humane and more human approach to salvation. Five of the churches converted to Unitarianism en masse.

All Souls Unitarian Church

Unitarianism continued to grow in the city. Free-thinking English speakers founded their own (English-speaking) Unitarian church in Winnipeg in 1904 – All Souls Unitarian Church – and constructed a building at the corner of Westminster and Furby. Horace Westwood, a noted orator, supporter of labour and a newspaper columnist, served from 1912-1919.

History of 603 Wellington Crescent

The old house was built during 1912-14 by H.W. Hutchinson, the local managing Director of the John Deere Plough Company. Its architects were Ross and Macfarlane, a Montreal firm which also designed the Hotel Fort Gary. The ornate fireplace in the living room and mahogany wood staircase in the central hallway are its most distinguishing features. In the late 1920s, 603 Wellington Crescent was sold to W.P Riley and then again in 1955 to Joseph Harris of Canada Packers. It is located on two lots fronting on the Assiniboine River adjacent to the Maryland Bridge.

UU Stained-Glass Windows

A Brief History

by Donald A. Bailey Sunday, 6 October 1996, of the First Unitarian Universalist Church - Abridged 

The Artist: Fridrik Sveinsson/Fred Swanson (1864-1942)

A house painter and sign painter by profession, Fridrik Sveinsson had been born in Iceland in 1864, but he moved to Canada as a child and then to Winnipeg in 1882. Although his brother attained the rare distinction for an Icelander of becoming a Roman Catholic bishop, Fridrik Sveinsson became a charter member of the First Icelandic Unitarian Church, founded in Winnipeg in February 1891.

Unitarianism was a significant minor strand of the radical Reformation in 16th-century Switzerland, Transylvania and Poland. Prominent among its doctrines were denial of the Trinity, affirmation of the divinity of Christ and divine biblical inspiration, adult baptism, and religious toleration.