'Disrespect and disrepair': N.S. woman pushes diocese to repair church graveyard

Tucked in the woods behind an old stone church in Purcells Cove, N.S., anyone catching a glimpse of the old St. Phillip’s graveyard could be forgiven for thinking it’s been abandoned.

The grass is long, covering grave markers. Some headstones are tilting. Graves are sinking.

But Linda House, who has family buried there, says it wasn't always this way.

She’s been upset over the past number of months to find the site slowly falling into a state of disrepair, something she’s noticed while visiting the grave of her parents and brother.

“A lot of the graves are starting to sink, and the ground is settling down in, which makes it a safety hazard, and a bit of a concern on the heart,” says House.

“The worst thing I’d want to see is my parents’ grave sink in,” she adds. “It just has this connotation in my mind of disrespect and disrepair.”

About 50 graves are visible at the site, dating from the 1960s to 2021.

Over the past few months, House has tried to find out who should fix the grounds, with little success.

“I emailed the diocese of the Anglican Church in Nova Scotia/P.E.I., and I waited a couple weeks, and there was no response,” she says. “So I emailed again, asking for a response, and again -- crickets.”

“And then last week, we came again to put some fall mums down,” House says. “And there was still nothing done, and it was getting worse, to be honest.”

She says she emailed again. After hearing nothing back, House contacted CTV News with her concerns.

Like so many small congregations, the Anglican parish that once gathered in the small stone church is gone. The members are worshipping elsewhere in the diocese.

An orthodox parish has leased the building since 2015, but doesn’t use the graveyard.

When contacted by CTV News, the rector of St. Vladimir Orthodox Church, Archimandrite David Edwards, said the lease only requires his congregation to mow the grounds, which he admitted needed to be done. He declined a request for an interview.

When CTV News inquired with the Anglican Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, administrators couldn't immediately say who was responsible, stating they would need to determine where ownership of the graveyard ended up after the parish left.

Diocese executive director Reverend Ann Turner also declined CTV’s request for an on-camera interview. But Turner did contact House to explain.

“So there is a parish out in Herring Cove, called St. James,” says House. “Who has some senior folks, unfortunately, and due to COVID, they have not come out and checked the site.”

But House says she was assured they would come to the graveyard before October to assess what needs to be done.

Churches often collect money for “perpetual graveyard maintenance” -- although they're not required to under Nova Scotia’s Cemetery and Funeral Services Act.

But even with those funds, House is unsure what will happen in the future, as congregations continue to shrink and parishioners age.

“I will be honest, I’m going to wait and see,” she says. “And hopefully it does get action and someone comes, and I’m looking forward to having this place looking the way it should be for the families.”

Anthropologist and archeologist Jonathan Fowler says the scenario has been repeated many times over history.

“Congregations changed, moved, the lots were repurposed, memory faded,” he says.

Those are the reasons graveyards of the past often become “forgotten” – a focus of his work on abandoned gravesites.

While the St. Phillip’s graveyard does have stewards, Fowler says that can gradually change over time, something that happens “in slow motion.”

“Historically, it happens all the time,” he says. “And this is how we lose memory of sites.”

That’s why, he says, such places need to be better documented and tracked.

“We don’t necessarily have a very robust central inventory of these cemeteries,” he says, which is why he and his students often have to go in and find ones that have been neglected and lost.

“Therefore, we should perhaps inventory these sites and make sure that whoever does planning, that those sites are well described and well attested,” adds Fowler. “I think… that we owe a certain debt to those who came before us to care for their place of rest.”

House hopes now that she has raised her concerns, the graveyard will be maintained in the future -- long after those who come there to remember are gone.