The Church

The Stadacona District was part of the city of Limoilou when it was annexed to Quebec City in 1910. The development of this district occurred around the 1850s. “Stadacona” is the name the First Nations gave to Quebec City. According to Louis-François Richer Laflèche (1818-1898), who was bishop of Trois-Rivières from 1870 till 1898, Stadacona is an Amerindian word meaning “wing”. For historian Fr Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Ferland (1805-1865), “Stadacona” is an Algonquin word having the same meaning. He believed that the land located between St. Charles River and St. Lawrence River where there was a First Nations settlement, looked like a wing and it was why the name “Stadacona” was given.

At the end of the 19th century, Hammond Gowan (1786-1864), a Quebec City lawyer, subdivided the Bickell domain that used to be owned by the Jesuits into lots: it became the Stadacona District. In 1870, a temporary chapel (30 square feet / 9 square meters) was installed in an ancient woodworking workshop. In 1888, a first chapel was built and dedicated to St. Zéphirin, to honor Father Zéphirin Charest (1813-1876), a former St. Roch parish priest, because this chapel was served by the priests from St. Roch from 1870 till April 2nd, 1896, date the chapel was established as a mission. A first resident priest was appointed and registers were set up.

In 1890, St. Roch churchwardens asked architect Joseph-Ferdinand Peachy (1830-1903) to prepare plans for a new chapel. It was a brick-covered wooden structure with a roof covered with sheet metal. It was a rectangular building with salient transepts. Inside, the walls and the depressed-arch vault were made of wood. That building, which is the actual facade, nave and transept, shows the late influence on Peachy’s art by American architect Samuel Sloan (1815-1884). The arched windows and the arches hollowed up in the facade come from the European neo-Renaissance architecture adapted by Sloan for religious buildings and which Peachy has already used for the St. Sauveur Church facade in 1867.

The chapel just built by Peachy was nevertheless enlarged over the following years. In 1903, a larger sacristy was built and, in 1917, a squared chancel measuring 39.4 feet (12 meters) was added. The chapel, inaugurated in 1918, was enlarged lengthwise and consequently the actual nave now opens into a raised chancel, under which functional areas are set up, notably the sacristy. Then, in 1922, the chancel was flanked by an ambulatory whose walls follow those of the transept. The lower floor of these passages leads to a new sacristy, built behind the apse, while the upper floor forms a gallery surrounding the chancel. The steeple, built in 1914, was rebuilt in 1958 according to the plans of architect René Blanchet.

The 1917-1918 additions were supervised by architect Adalbert Trudel (1878-1934). They gave the church its actual look, a Latin cross shaped building with a salient chancel and a semicircular apse, but mainly its actual interior, with a high-raised chancel and a wooden board floor. In 1921, the high altar was installed and painter Antonio Masselotte (1887-1983) executed the four historical paintings hung in the transept and which portray the origins of faith in Canada. The parish was canonically erected on October 14th, 1921, while all assets (land and buildings) that St. Roch churchwardens had donated to the Quebec Archiepiscopal Corporation in 1896 were transferred to the churchwardens of the new parish.

On the eve of the filming of “I Confess” by Alfred Hitchcock, in 1951, the interior of the church received an important renovation. The contract was entrusted to the Barsetti & Frères firm. Wooden panels were painted and sixteen paintings by Antonio Masselotte were installed in the vault. In 1961, the church received a concrete floor.

On May 31st, 1998, Saint-Charles-de-Limoilou, Saint-François-d’Assise, Saint-Zéphirin-de-Stadacona, Saint-Fidèle and Saint-Esprit parishes merged to form the new Notre-Dame-de-Rocamadour parish.

On December 10th, 2009, Cardina Marc Ouellet (1944-, archbishop (2003-2010) of Quebec City, sold the church for $1 to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, of Quebec. This church will be exclusively used for daily celebration of Tridentine mass. Although becoming autonomous, a little like a parish, the church was not established as a parish in the strict sense. There are no churchwardens and no pastoral committee. It is under the authority of a rector who has almost the same powers as a parish priest but without the title. The first Tridentine mass was celebrated on January 1st, 2010.

The Organ

The church has one of the few extant instruments built by Compagnie des orgues canadiennes (Canadian Organs Company) which operated in St. Hyacinthe from 1910 till 1930 before the equipment was bought back by Casavant Frères in 1931. There is opus number, but it would have been built in the 1920s.

The Pedal Bourdon becomes an Echo Bourdon when a pneumatic mechanism moves in front of the mouth of the pipes.