Qualla: St. Peter's Cathedral (Charlottetown)

St. Peter's Cathedral (Charlottetown): Introduction

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mhsheikholeslami, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two brothers made a chapel into something extraordinary. William Critchlow Harris designed it, choosing Island sandstone for the exterior and a great arch carved from grey Wallace freestone shipped across the Northumberland Strait. Robert Harris, his brother and one of Canada's most prominent artists, painted 18 works for the interior -- Church Fathers, New Testament scenes, family portraits disguised as Biblical figures, and a majestic circular painting of the Ascending Christ above the altar. Together they transformed a memorial chapel attached to a modest Charlottetown cathedral into a space that earned designation as a National Historic Site in 1990.

Image: Mhsheikholeslami | CC BY-SA 4.0

St. Peter's Cathedral (Charlottetown): Born of the Oxford Movement

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doug Kerr, CC BY-SA 2.0. St. Peter's Cathedral exists because Charlottetown businessmen travelled to England in the 1850s and came home changed. The Oxford Movement -- a theological revival of Catholic tradition within Anglicanism that had been reshaping English churches since the 1830s -- captivated the...

Image: Doug Kerr | CC BY-SA 2.0

St. Peter's Cathedral (Charlottetown): The Harris Brothers' Chapel

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit XT0911, CC BY-SA 4.0. All Souls' Chapel was conceived as a memorial to Father George Hodgson, the cathedral's first priest-incumbent, who served from 1869 to 1885. His successor, Canon James Simpson, joined with the Harris brothers to envision something that would honour Hodgson while transcending the...

Image: XT0911 | CC BY-SA 4.0

St. Peter's Cathedral (Charlottetown): Portraits Hidden in Plain Sight

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SoftwareSimian (changes by Rabanus Flavus), CC BY-SA 4.0. Robert Harris wove the personal into the sacred throughout the chapel. On the epistle side, a group portrait titled "The Harris Family" shows deceased family members posed as a Holy Land family being blessed by Christ. His mother Sarah Stretch Harris sits at the centre, surrounde...

Image: SoftwareSimian (changes by Rabanus Flavus) | CC BY-SA 4.0

St. Peter's Cathedral (Charlottetown): Stone, Glass, and Craftsmanship

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aconcagua (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The great arch separating the sanctuary from the nave was carved from grey Wallace freestone quarried on the Nova Scotia side of the Northumberland Strait. William Harris modelled it after the triumphal arches of fourth-century Roman churches, richly carved with foliage and teard...

Image: Aconcagua (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

St. Peter's Cathedral (Charlottetown): A Living Parish

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gordon Leggett, CC BY-SA 4.0. St. Peter's has had only nine rectors since its founding in 1869, each serving long tenures that give the cathedral an unusual continuity. The Anglo-Catholic tradition on which it was founded persists: daily Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, weekly celebrations of the Holy Eucha...

Image: Gordon Leggett | CC BY-SA 4.0