Fire ravages historic Notre Dame des Sept Allégresses Church in Trois-Rivières, Canada

The church fires in Canada continued Thursday as the historic Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Allégresses Catholic church in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, went up in flames, and the local fire chief “refused to speculate on the causes or origin of the blaze.” There were no injuries reported as the church was empty when the fire began.

The Journal de Quebec noted that several people who witnessed the fire said they saw a flaming container near the church. The building, built in 1914, sustained considerable damage, including the complete loss of a bell tower, True North reported.

According to the city of Trois-Rivières’s Facebook, firefighters reacted to the fire quickly, arriving on the scene at 3:40 pm and being able to keep the blaze from spreading.

Residential developer Georges Mouradian had bought the church as a “revitalization project” where he envisioned building new homes. He said the first stage of the construction was to be completed on Friday, the day after the fire broke out. As a precautionary measure, local police evacuated all businesses near the church as well as 11 Franciscan monks who live close to the church. They were unharmed by the fire.

The fire only adds to what has become a Canadian scourge as at least 110 churches have now been damaged or destroyed by fires and vandalism since 2021, according to True North. Some link the beginning of the church fires to the discovery of what was claimed to be unmarked graves at a site where an Indian residential school once stood in Kamloops, BC.

Whether there is a connection or not, arsonists have launched a virtual campaign against Canadian churches for the past three years. During the peak of the arsons, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former chief of staff, Gerald Butts, suggested these crimes “may be understandable.” Just before Christmas 2023, four churches were burned to the ground in what the Conservative Party of Canada leader called a paroxysm of “anti-Christian hatred.”

Justin Trudeau infamously said in July of 2021 that he found it “fully understandable” that some might attack Christian churches with fire, given Canada’s “shameful history."