Methodist Rome

Methodist Rome was a nickname sometimes given to the city of Toronto, Ontario in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The moniker implied that Toronto was as central to Canadian Methodism as Rome, or more specifically Vatican City in Rome, is to Catholicism.

Methodism was never the faith of the majority of Torontonians, yet it played a very important role in the city. In addition, Toronto had one of the largest (if not the largest) population of Methodists in the world.^{[citation needed]} The strong Methodist influence greatly shaped the city's character. Toronto became known for being very puritanical with strict limits on the sale of alcohol and rigorously enforced the Lord's Day Act. Discrimination against Jews and Catholics was also common, with both groups being excluded from the financial and political elite. Peter C. Newman has described Toronto in this period "a sort of Calvinist Tehran."^[1]

The name began to fade in the early twentieth century, especially after the Methodist Church in Canada merged with Presbyterians and Congregationalists to form the United Church of Canada in 1925. An influx of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe greatly altered the religious balance. The puritan Methodist heritage is still in evidence, for example still having some of the strictest liquor retailing laws in North America.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Name of Toronto

References

1. ^ "The way we were in Toronto in 1892" Trish Worron. Toronto Star. Nov 1, 2002. pg. A.29