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Ecclesiastical Kinship at Pointe-de-l’Église: A Case of Church and Community Formations
Currently, as of summer 2025, the former Église Sainte-Marie in Nova Scotia's municipality of Clare faces the threat of possible demolition. Amid declining church attendance among Canadians generally, hundreds of communities across the country have faced such a predicament in recent decades. Underutilized and decaying church buildings have been demolished and replaced by other structures. I suggest here that the case of Sainte-Marie is distinct, setting it apart from many chu
Colby Gaudet
Aug 29, 202515 min read
'The Testament of Ann Lee' and Eighteenth-Century Enthusiastic Religion
The prospect of the new film, The Testament of Ann Lee (about to be released), is exciting for a historian, such as myself, with a passion for studying eighteenth-century religion.
Colby Gaudet
Primary Source Analysis: Quaker Philanthropy and Indigenous People in the Maritimes
My interest in the history of religion often gravitates to the topic of Christianity and Indigenous people. I’m particularly compelled to study the ways that Christian groups interacted with Indigenous people in the contexts of settler colonialism.
Colby Gaudet
From Rural Roman Catholic to Urbane Freemason and Transcendentalist? Louis A. Surette in Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia and Massachusetts
In a previous post, “ Ecclesiastical Kinship at Pointe-de-l’Église ,” I discussed the ‘presbyterial household’ of the Abbé Jean-Mandé Sigogne. Among the children who lived (for a time) as part of this ecclesiastical kin-unit were three Surette brothers from Argyle Township, near Yarmouth. These boys were sons of Athanase Surette and Louise d’Entremont, Acadian parishioners at Sainte-Anne-du-Ruisseau.[1] Louise and Athanase produced a prodigious family, having twelve children
Colby Gaudet
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