A beloved and famous Canadian church has been “completely destroyed” following the outbreak of a currently inexplicable fire on 9 June.

The historic St. Anne’s Anglican Church in Toronto’s west end, along with the unqiue artefacts it housed, was “completely destroyed”, according to the city’s deputy fire chief, reports Canadian media CBC.

Toronto Fire said crews received a report of a fire inside St. Anne’s, located on Gladstone Avenue near Dundas Street West, just before 8:00 a.m. on Sunday.

“This is a devastating loss for the community,” Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop told reporters at the scene.

“I’m crushed, I feel for my people,” says Rev. Don Beyers, a parish priest at the church. “You can’t imagine what this is like for a church community to come on Sunday morning to find that everything you worked so hard for and done so much for [is] gone in the matter of an hour.”

The church, built in 1907-1908 in the city’s Little Portugal neighbourhood, was known for housing early paintings by three artists with the Group of Seven, once known as the Algonquin School, a famous group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933 known for “a transcendent, spiritual force” in their artworks. The murals were installed in the church in the 1920s and decorated the chancel and the dome, all of which was destroyed by the blaze, CBC reports.

Beyers confirmed the “invaluable” works were lost to the flames: “The artwork was priceless. It was murals, beautiful murals. They were stunning.”

He added: “This was the only church that featured artwork by members of the Group of Seven. And I’m sorry to say that’s been lost, from what I can see.”

The church was designated a national historic site of Canada in 1996, CBC reports. In 1980, the City of Toronto also designated the church under the Ontario Heritage Act.

The city’s Catholics joined the community of St. Anne’s in mourning the loss of their spiritual home:

“St. Anne’s Church is a place where Christians have gathered for over a hundred years to worship and adore Jesus Christ,” Archbishop Francis Leo of the Archdiocese of Toronto said in a statement released 9 June. “It was a marvellously constructed place of worship where people could pray to Our Lord while surrounded by beautiful and historic artwork – a place of refuge for believers in the heart of a large and busy city.

“Today is indeed a very sad day and I wish to convey my sorrow, solidarity and my support to the Anglican Diocese of Toronto…Also greatly impacted by this horrific fire at St. Anne’s will be the thousands of people in the surrounding area who have come to rely on the generosity of this parish community in serving meals and caring for the less fortunate, various partners within the arts community, and the numerous other service groups and organisations that St. Anne’s is involved with.”

At the start of 2024, CBC reported that arson attacks against churches in Canada are on the rise, noting that 33 churches in Canada have been burned down to the ground since May 2021; at the time of the report, 24 of the conflagrations were confirmed arsons.

Toronto police have set up an online portal where the public can submit any photos or videos that may help assist investigators looking into the cause of the blaze of St Anne’s, while noting that “the fire has not been deemed criminal in nature yet”.

CBC reports that the fire was “deep-seated” when fire crews first arrived at the scene Sunday morning.

“Nobody was here, the church was locked, secure, all the lights were off,” Beyers said, adding that he is often the first person there in the mornings. “It’s a real mystery to us how this even happened.”