Saturday
5:00 pm (Portuguese)
Sunday
9:00 am (Portuguese)
10:30 am (English)
12:00 pm (Portuguese)
Week Days (Tuesday to Friday)
10:30 am (Portuguese)
1st Thursday of each month
7:00pm
Phone: 780–474–2805
Fax: 780–474–7057
Cel: 780–909–3006
olfchurch@shaw.ca
As per statistics issued by the Canadian Department of Citizienship and Immigration, between the years of 1948 and 1956, forty four portuguese immigrated to Alberta, Canada, followed by a group of 236 in 1957. From this last group, 116 went to work with the Canadian National Railroad at the Calder station in the city of Edmonton. These were the pioneers of the portuguese community of Edmonton.
In 1982, 114 pioneers were identified having established residence in Edmonton. From the 114 pioneers, 91 were from Azores, 22 from main land and 1 from the island of Madeira. In the beginning, these pioneers kept their faith alive by attending the services at various local churches. On July 29, 1962, a young group of portuguese was confirmed by the Archbishop of Edmonton. At this time, a request was made to the Archbishop to appoint a priest to assist the community in portuguese. After several meetings headed by fr. Raymond Vozza of Calgary and fr. Fernandes of Winnipeg, a decision to obtain an image of Our Lady of Fatima was made, fr. Vozza went to Fatima, Portugalm, purshased the image and brought it with him to Edmonton.
On May of 1971 the first procession of Our Lady of Fatima took place at the Sacred Heart School and there was a very large participation by the portuguese catholic community of Edmonton. As the time went by, the need for a portuguese spoken priest became more relevant and after some meetings with the Archbishop, arrangements for a priest from Brazil were made to come to Edmonton and on August 27, 1972 Fr. Arduino Antonello, a salesian priest arrived in Edmonton to work with the portuguese catholic community of Edmonton. On September 3, 1972 fr. Arduino celebrated his first mass at the Sacred Heart Church and the Portuguese Mission of Edmonton was initiated.The rent to use the Sacred Heart Church was set at $150.00 per month a sunday mass was to be celebrated at 12:00 pm (noon).After some consideration, the parish council concluded that there was a real need to teach portuguese to the children and on August of 1973 the first portuguese school in Edmonton was started.
On September 8, 1973 we celebrated the first aniversary of the Portuguese Mission of Edmonton and at the request of the people the name was changed to Our Lady of Fatima - Portuguese Parish. Due to the increase of attendance, it became necessary to celebrate more masses, however this was not possible at the Sacred Heart Church. After some consideration arrangements were made to use the St. Emeric Church ((106 Ave & 98 St.)and on June 9, 1974 we moved to the new location; the monthly rent was $130.00 to celebrate 3 masses and use the hall for meetings and youth activities. On June 23, 1974 the image of Senhor Santo Cristo was blessed, this image was purchased for $800.00 from a sculptor in Portugal, this amount was donated by the portuguese catholic community of Edmonton. On November 5,1974 after some consideration, it was decided that the procession for Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres would be on the sunday of June, father's day.
As time passed, the congregation kept increasing and it was becoming more apparent that we needed to have our own church. On July 11, 1975 we purchased the "New Apostolic Church" located at 11011 - 84 St. On August 2,1975 we took possession of the new Church and the inauguration was celebrated with a special mass with the attendance of the Salesian director from Sao Francisco. The congregation kept growing and the once again it became apparent that we needed a bigger church and a hall. On March 24, 1979 the parish council met with the Archbishop to discuss the possibility of acquiring a bigger church and a hall, the Archbishop was very understanding of our needs and made several suggestions.
On April 30, 1979 we made the last payment on the church's mortgage. On July 17, 1982 fr. Antonio Taparello, a scalabrian priest was appointed as the new priest to service our parish replacing fr. Arduino who moved to Victoria, BC to service the portuguese catholic community of that city.