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Conclusion

The history of St. Peter’s Cathedral is a complicated story of the desire and the struggle of a relatively small group of individuals to achieve and maintain for themselves, their community, and the Church in their province, a mode of worship which reflected the revival and enhancement of the Catholic elements and nature of the Anglican Church in its historic and continuing existence.

It is a story confused by misunderstandings and misrepresentations of individuals, both of an innocent and a calculated basis, and a story which is still unfolding today as it has for the past one hundred and twenty-five years. It is filled with suspicion between congregations of the same denomination in a small city which strongly desire to uphold and maintain the tenets of their sometimes conflicting religious convictions. Strong and stubborn personalities often times dictated the scope and direction of that conflict and became firmly embedded in the fabric of the narrative.

The story roots extend back to the French surrender of Ile Saint Jean to the British in 1763. By an Order-in-Council the Island of St. John was set up as an independent colony with its own rudimentary form of government in 1769. The governor, therefore, represented both the Parliament of Britain in Legislative and Judicial matters, and the Crown of Great Britain as Temporal Head of the Church of England in the colony.

Although the office of Governor for the island was reduced to that of Lieutenant—Governor in 1784 and made subordinate to the Lieutenant- Governor of Nova Scotia, the Government of the Island of St. John (renamed Prince Edward Island by an act of the island Legislature in late 1802) continued to act as a sovereign body regarding church affairs, as was demonstrated by the passage of a Church Act of 1802 (43 Geo. III, Cap. 6) through which the Church of England was deemed "as by law established" on the island. In a very real sense the ministers of the Crown, representatives of the Parliament of Britain, were also true representatives of the established church of great Britain which was the Church of England and Ireland. The Lieutenant-Governor of the island maintained the authority to induct new clergymen into island parishes. He also retained the power to silence and suspend any offending clergymen. In effect, the Lieutenant-Governor was designated to retain those powers originally granted and bestowed upon the Governor in 1769.

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