From By-Law No. 7-2010, January 11, 2010:

Reasons for Designation / Statement of Significance Descent of the Holy Ghost Romanian Orthodox Church 2895 Seminole Street (Plan 874 closed part of St. Joseph Avenue)

Description of Historic Place

The Descent of the Holy Ghost Romanian Orthodox Church at the intersection of Seminole Street and Drouillard Road, and next to a cemetery of another denomination. The church was built in 1934, and has been in continuous use.

Heritage Value

Historical Importance:

In 1933, church members mainly from the Bucovina area of northern Romania elected a committee to form a new congregation in order to observe the “Old Calendar” (Julian) for holy days within the church year. According to church history, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Baby (of the early Sandwich family) donated the land for the current location to the new Holy Ghost congregation. The first church services in the partially completed building were held in 1934.

Architectural Importance:

The most prominent design feature of this one-storey, orange-red-brick church are the five domes – two onion-shaped and three with faceted cones. All domes are topped with crosses, with stained glass in the colours of the Romanian flag; there are also small concrete crosses above two parapet corners. The overall design is symmetrical. The main entrance faces west to the street corner; it includes a round arched canopy and a pair of original wood doors with inserted crosses, and is under a three-storey tower with the tallest dome. East of the doorway tower is a parapet wall that descends with scalloped caps above the sloped roofline. The rectangular main body of the building has an east-west ridge, with an onion dome at its centre. Conical domes top small curved extensions north and south, and a half-round east end has a small onion dome at its peak. All the windows have Gothic-pointed arches; between window sets on the sides there are vertical ribs of brick. Under the eaves are curved wood braces.

The overall building style is a simplified Gothic Revival, with Orthodox traditional domes added. It was built by skilled crafts people in the church. The designer is not indicated in church records, but it is presumed that it was by a member or someone familiar with design conventions of the denomination.