Sanctuary: It’s more than a building!

Usually, when we Lutherans talk about “sanctuary” at church, we mean the big room with the chairs in it, where every Sunday we participate in Worship. But in the language of church architecture, that big room with the enormous curved ribs, looking something like a capsized ship, is called the “nave”. Big as the nave is, “Sanctuary” is even bigger. “Sanctuary” is the idea that the church building, the House of God, is a safe place. A sanctuary is a place where people can come and be safe when they have no-where else to go; where the sanctity of God extends to everyone in that place. The Canadian Sanctuary Network states that sanctuary is an ancient practice grounded in the belief that human life is sacred and worthy of protection, and that there are places of refuge beyond the reach of the state.

In the Old Testament, Torah commands that God’s altar be built with “horns” on its four corners, representing the power of God. A person being hunted by authorities or enemies could grab hold of one of those horns and be protected by God’s sacred power: no-one could harm that person. Torah also commanded the children of Israel to create “sanctuary cities” to which refugees could flee and be safe.

When the government of Rome incorporated Christianity into the Empire’s bureaucracy in the fourth century, the privilege of Sanctuary was extended to Christian churches. For the next 1300 years, people throughout Europe could claim Sanctuary in Roman Catholic churches and be safe from legal or political execution. Even government authorities could not breech that protection.

In modern democracies both law and politics are much less brutal than in mediaeval times, and sanctuary is no longer recognized by government. But people still need a place of safety. Especially as the social safety-net erodes and more people fall through, places of safety become both scarcer, and more to be treasured.  Part of our calling as Emmanuel Community Church, is to create here in our building a place of safety for our members, for our neighbours, and for people in the most exigent of circumstances.

During the winter of 2024/2025, Emmanuel welcomed a couple of street people into our building on a regular basis, to meet their most basic needs. Christian and Jen offered us a chance to learn more about the complexity of offering sanctuary, in a complex real-world situation where imperfect people experience conflicting access needs; where one person’s “safe space” makes another person feel unsafe. Valuable learning experiences like this are — usually! — uncomfortable and stressful; but what we learn helps us move forward in the work God calls us to. In this case, for example, we learned that we need a sanctuary policy, and we learned what that policy needs to address. On April 14, council approved the following Sanctuary Statement:

Sanctuary Policy

Emmanuel’s church building is a Sanctuary. This building must be a safe space, for everyone; free of all forms of violence and aggression, physical or verbal; of threats; and of reasons to fear. 

Everyone who enters this building takes responsibility to be a safe person.

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Emmanuel is a safe space FOR prayer, meditation, worship, fellowship, and study; and for shelter during extreme weather.

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Emmanuel is safe FROM physical and verbal violence, addictive substances and behaviours caused by intoxication by drugs or alcohol, foul language, public intimacy, aggressive proselytizing, and promotion of non-Christian religions.