Our congregation was started to serve the Danish immigrants of the 1920’s and at first it was agreeable to all that the Church function in Danish. Within 4 years (1929) came the need for English in Sunday School and confirmation class, within 10 years (1935) monthly evening English services were held, within 15 years (1941) there was a monthly Sunday morning service and 2 evening services in English. Only 2 years after this (1943) English and Danish had equal status in the congregation as the language of the Sunday morning services alternated. Five years later, in 1948, Danish services were relegated to Sunday evenings and 10 years after that in 1958 it was decided that the ability to speak Danish no longer be a requirement in the Pastoral Letter of Call. The painful but inevitable language transition has been repeated in about 100,000 congregations of various ethnic backgrounds in North America. Like childbirth, the process is commonplace, each instance is painful and traumatic, but usually produces new life.
The need for a Danish language congregation for the adult Danish immigrant was serious.
The Danish speaking congregation provided a fellowship where he could be free from the mental stress of trying to speak in this foreign English language. It provided a community where he had worth and dignity as a person in contrast to the indignities and discrimination he suffered in the job market, the neighbourhood and even from his own Canadianized children. The Danish-speaking congregation was also a place to use the treasured Danish hymnal and Bible, which were his confirmation gifts and a source of Christian nurture. The Danish-speaking congregation was also the place where he could use his considerable Christian knowledge and vocabulary gained in the Danish school system and confirmation class and this vocabulary and knowledge was not easy to acquire in the light conversations which we re the source of most of his English vocabulary.
The need for English in a congregation of Danish immigrants comes from the children of the immigrants, and from the many non-Danish spouses. The need for English also comes from the realization that to be a real Church and a Church with a future we must try to communicate the Gospel to all people and therefore we must communicate in English here. k was for the sake of his children and for the sake of the future that the immigrant made personal sacrifices and chose English. The choice was decisively made at St. Ansgar by 1947 as the congregation prepared to move to its new home on Lawrence Avenue determined to serve its new community with a new self-image. There was also a growing awareness that we were not only a Danish Church but also a Lutheran Church and that our future, and the future of the many ethnic Lutheran Churches was as Lutherans. Together as Lutherans we would have an important place and role in Canada and the individual Lutheran congregation would have a much broader base for growth.
An added push to the language transition came from the difficulty in obtaining Danish-speaking pastors from our synod which except in Eastern Canada had started the language transition a generation earlier and the second generation pastors were usually not able or interested in conducting a Danish pastoral ministry. When the Church of Denmark sent a representative to our congregation in 1947, offering to provide pastors from Denmark and the yet needed subsidy, we rejected this offer. Such an offer would have been welcomed 20 years earlier but now it would be “turning back the clock” and regressing rather than advancing. Our synod which in its pioneer days sought help from the Church of Denmark with scant results now had mixed feelings about these belated offers to help which were given across Canada.
It seemed that the language issue had largely been settled with the arrival of Pastor
Christensen in 1948 and the congregation was growing with its English morning services and was beginning to attract Lutherans from other ethnic backgrounds and those from other Christian backgrounds in the community. But in 1950 emigration from Denmark increased and so did the language problem. The congregation again tried to go two directions at once attempting to serve the new immigrants in Danish and the community in English. In 1950 regular evening services in Danish and a Monday night Danish fellowship were started with good success.
In 1951 another Danish group began to hold services in Toronto. Wishing to maintain their own identity they rejected the offer of our building and by 1954 had become a congregation sponsored by the Church of Denmark. Partly because the Church of Denmark had made an agreement with our synod to leave the “Toronto Danish franchise” to St. Ansgar’s we at first looked at this new congregation as a rival but then recognized the fact of their presence and wished them our blessing. This did not mean we would ourselves drop our Danish work and in 1956 we agreed to call an assistant pastor, more proficient in Danish, to head up this work and the synod agreed to fund this project. When all the details of this project had been worked out, the 1957 annual meeting decided by a close vote (52-32) not to proceed with this work. A year later, when it became necessary to call a pastor to replace Pastor Christensen, it was decided that proficiency in Danish not be required of future pastors. The last Danish speaking organization in the congregation was the Anna Bondo Circle which wound up its organization in 1970.
The language transition at St. Ansgar was certainly long and difficult and was a topic at annual meetings from 1935, when the first complaint about English services was heard, until 1958 when Danish-speaking pastors were no longer considered necessary for our task. The language issue was one about which nearly everyone felt deeply, and over which, depending on one’s point of view, there was great stubbornness or great determination. More to be remembered was that despite the stress and suffering there was also much graciousness and self-sacrifice and much keeping silence for the good of the congregation. We are thankful that the issue never got out of hand and that no friendships were ruined and especially that the congregation ‘s sense of mission was examined and strengthened.
Original Credits Carl Larson, Philip & Irene Jorgensen