06/10/2026
The United Church of Canada is 101 years old today!
The United Church of Canada is the largest Protestant denomination in Canada. We minister to over a million people in about 2,500 congregations. The history of the United Church is closely entwined with the history of Canada itself.
The United Church was inaugurated on June 10, 1925 in Toronto, Ontario, when the Methodist Church, Canada, the Congregational Union of Canada, and 70 percent of The Presbyterian Church in Canada entered into a union. Also joining was the small General Council of Union Churches, centred largely in Western Canada. It was the first union of churches in the world to cross historical denominational lines and received international acclaim.
The United Church continues to be a "uniting" church, and has been enriched by several additional unions since 1925. In 1930, the Synod of The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Bermuda became part of The United Church of Canada’s Maritime Conference. The Evangelical United Brethren Church became part of The United Church of Canada in 1968. In addition, various individual congregations from other Christian communions have became part of the United Church over the years.
We give thanks for the faith, courage, and vision that have sustained our church through more than a century of ministry and we look forward with hope, trusting that God continues to lead us into new possibilities.
Gracious and loving God
You called into being
This United Church of Canada
One expression of Jesus’
Beloved community,
Here in the particularities
Of our place and our time.
For the past 100 years
You have guided and sustained
And called us back when we have erred.
Now, as we look back
We also look forward,
Daring to believe
That even among us
Even in this very place
You are doing a new thing.
We long to perceive it
Like a way through a wilderness
For the sake of our neighbours
For the sake of this world of beautiful
And broken things
Yearning to be made whole
Yearning to be made new
May we perceive and live into it. Amen.
—prayer from "An Introduction to Toward 2035 for Conversations Within Communities of Faith." https://united-church.ca/toward2035
[Photos: General Council 45 (2025), 99th Aniversary Service, A Place at the Table, 100 Tables, and archival photos from Church Union, including the first General Council meeting in 1925. Credit: Alan Lai, United Church Archives, Metropolitan United Church]
