Basilian Fathers Celebrate 200 Years of Service

A special Bicentennial Mass will be held at St. Basil’s Catholic Parish to commemorate the Congregation of St. Basil’s 200 years of service.

Banners depicting the Congregation’s storied history will be on display in the church that will feature a timeline of how the community’s founding mission of providing Catholic education to those in need took the Congregation from its birthday in France to the new world in North America.

Basilians first came to Canada in 1850, when Bishop Armand de Charbonnel of Toronto, Ontario saw a need for Catholic education among the poor Irish Catholic families in his diocese. As a Basilian student in Annonay, he invited his former teachers to come to Canada. In 1852, the Basilians opened St. Michael’s College offering in the French style, a combination of high school and post-secondary education.

The Bicentennial Mass will take place at St. Basil’s, 50 St. Joseph Street in Toronto on Sunday, November 20 at 12 p.m. with Fr. Kevin Storey, CSB, Superior General of the Congregation presiding.