The Abandoned Rectory of Saint-Paul: All That Remains After the Fire
In Montreal’s Côte-Saint-Paul neighbourhood, a church that anchored the community for 150 years is gone. On February 23, 2026, fire destroyed the Église Saint-Paul. The building that still stands beside it is the parish rectory, and it’s abandoned. In this video I go inside to see what’s left of the place where the life of this parish was run and recorded.
A Parish Born With the Village
The village of Côte-Saint-Paul was founded in 1874. Within two years the parish had built its first church, along with a stone rectory right next to it. The street itself was eventually named for the church.
The parish had more than its share of bad luck. In 1899, lightning destroyed that first church. It was rebuilt, and in 1910 and 1911 the parish raised the church most people remember. It was designed by Montreal architect Joseph-Arthur Godin, and part of its interior was decorated by Guido Nincheri, the Florentine-trained artist whose work fills churches across Quebec.
The church, the rectory, the old girls’ boarding school next door, and the former town hall were designated a heritage site by the City of Montreal in 1990. The city recognized them as a classic example of how Montreal’s neighbourhoods grew up around their parishes.
What a Rectory Was
The church was where people gathered. The rectory was where the parish actually functioned.
It was home to the priests who served the community. It was the office where couples came to arrange their weddings and where families planned baptisms and funerals. It held the parish registers, which recorded generation after generation of births, marriages and deaths. Sunday collections were counted here, and the weekly bulletin went out from here.
If the church was the heart of Côte-Saint-Paul, the rectory was its memory.
The Fire
Like many Quebec churches, Saint-Paul outlived its original congregation, but it never sat unused. A food bank, La Main qui partage, operated in the basement, and a Romanian Orthodox parish worshipped in the sanctuary.
At around 1:40 a.m. on February 23, 2026, fire broke out inside the church. More than 150 firefighters fought the five-alarm blaze, and 148 people nearby were evacuated as a precaution, including the residents of the seniors’ home in the old boarding school. No one was hurt. By morning the roof had collapsed and the bell towers were gone, and the food bank had lost everything.
The cause has not been publicly confirmed. In August, the borough announced that the ruins would be demolished, with the still-sound parts of the façade preserved as a heritage memory.
The Last Witness
Today the rectory stands alone. The priests are gone, the offices are empty, and the church it served is a ruin next door. It’s the last building left from a parish that was struck by lightning, rebuilt, rebuilt again, and finally lost to fire.
