Chapel gets prestigious designation

St. Catherine’s Chapel at Massey College was given a major status upgrade Tuesday, when Queen Elizabeth II designated it the third Chapel Royal in Canada.

The Chapel Royal originated as a group of religious leaders and singers that followed the monarch around to attend to their spiritual needs. But King Henry VIII expanded the designation by creating physical Chapel Royal spaces in many of the royal palaces in the 1500s.

This prestigious designation was created through a collaboration between the Crown, the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation and Massey College as a gesture of reconciliation, in time for National Aboriginal Day on Wednesday and Canada’s 150th anniversary. “We hope it becomes an icon of discussion about where we’ve been and how we move forward,” said Sandra Shaul, who worked on the project.

The college sits on treaty lands that are the territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation.

To celebrate this connection, the chapel has been given an Anishinaabek name: Gi-Chi-Twaa Gimaa Kwe, Mississauga Anishinaabek AName Gamik, meaning “The Queen’s Anishinaabek sacred place.”

While Chapels Royal have existed in the British Isles since the 11th century, Canada is the only Commonwealth country that has maintained the tradition of creating them, Shaul said. She added that the project was inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action 45, which calls on the government of Canada to build on the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the Treaty of Niagara of 1764.

John Fraser, the former master of the college, and Hugh Segal, the current master, originally had the idea for the third Chapel Royal in 2015. By September 2015, the Queen had also approved the plans. An official launch is planned for September.