Description of Historic Place

Situated prominently on the south-west corner lot of 2nd Street and 7th Avenue South in Cranbrook, B.C., St. Aidan Orthodox Church is a one and one-half storey building. A street-facing staircase leads up to an entrance porch, which is topped with a distinctive metal cupola. The building is of classic wood-frame construction with an exterior stucco treatment and is adorned with stained-glass windows.

Heritage Value

The St. Aidan Orthodox Church has historic, aesthetic, spiritual and cutural value for its community as an excellent example of a vernacular "Lemko" style of Church architecture, as a sacred place of Eastern Christian worship and communal life, as well as for its significance as a well-known Cranbrook landmark.

Built between 1950 and 1953 by local architect/builder George Nakahara and his son Yosh, St. Aidan Orthodox Church has aesthetic and historic value as a fine regional example of the popular Ukrainian Lemko style churches built by the Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox communities throughout North America between 1900 and 1960. The building, of classic wood-frame construction - typical of both vernacular B.C. buildings and traditional Lemko Church design - is finished with an exterior stucco treatment, and adorned with jewel-toned stained-glass windows. Typified by a long, tripartite floorplan and one or more cupolas, with the tallest being most commonly set over the narthex. In many circumstances, one cupola would be erected first in this position, and commonly used as a belfry, with additional cupolas added over the nave and altar/sanctuary, as parish communities could afford. With its characteristic metal dome and design, St. Aidan's exemplifies the principles of Church design favoured by Lemko pioneers, both in their ancestral homeland, as well as across North America.

Originally consecrated as Nativity of the Blessed Mother of God Ukrainian Catholic Church, the Church has spiritual and cultural value for serving as a spiritual home and place of social inclusion for Eastern Christians, at times including more than one hundred families in the Cranbrook area. With their own liturgical traditions, the Church served not only as a sacred place for worship and essential rites of passage - Baptisms, Weddings, and Funerals - but also convivial aspects of Church life, such as monthly perogy suppers, the annual processions around the Church, and the blessing of Paschal baskets at Easter. Stained glass windows in the Church honour the memories of these Ukrainian pioneers. More recently, the parish of St. Aidan Orthodox Church has continued the legacy of Eastern Christian spiritual life and community within the same historic place, with many common liturgical traditions retained under the auspices of the Orthodox Church in America.

With its distinctive cupola, unique in the community for over 60 years, St. Aidan Orthodox is a well-known landmark in Cranbrook. Commonly used as a local directional-marker, the Church is familiar to many in the broader Cranbrook area.

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the St. Aidan Orthodox Church are embodied in such features as:
- Its prominent location on the south-west corner of 2nd Street and 7th Avenue South in Cranbrook;
- The size, form, and massing of the building, including its general tripartite structure typical of Lemko Church architecture, with the entrance staircase and porch;
- The cupola adorning the entrance porch, with its characteristic shape and size;
- The fenestration pattern;
- The six stained-glass windows, including those honouring early pioneers of the Ukrainian community.