First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Toronto

The history of First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Toronto is, above all else an account of a relatively small number of German-speaking immigrants struggling to create and maintain a spiritual home for themselves and successive generations.

As the financial situation had not improved by 1860, his daughter, Elizabeth van der Smissen, undertook a trip to Europe to raise funds.

Using testimonials provided by clergy of other denominations in Toronto, specifically Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Congregationalist, Miss van der Smissen traveled to Germany, France, Switzerland, England and Scotland, and raised sufficient funds to retire the congregation's debt.

Through the late 1920s, the women's group frequently provided funds to cover essential expenses when the financial situation of the congregation became desperate.

In 1877, evening services in the English language were introduced for the benefit of the congregation's younger generation and their spouses who did not speak German.

An ambitious fundraising effort led by Theodore Heinzmann raised sufficient funds to construct the current more substantial sanctuary which was consecrated in 1898.

Indications are that the early years of the twentieth-century were fairly successful for First Lutheran, as evidenced by the purchase of a parsonage on Carleton Street in 1902.

A rift developed in the congregation shortly thereafter which resulted in a number of members leaving to form St. Paul's English Lutheran Church.

This breakaway congregation met for a time at the Broadway Tabernacle at College and Spadina before building its own small church on Glen Morris in 1914.

A modestly-successful fundraising campaign began with the intention of selling the Bond Street structure and constructing a new sanctuary elsewhere in Toronto.