Points of Contact: A Wachian reappraisal of the African Orthodox Church and the early steel industry in Sydney, Nova Scotia

Abstract

In 1900, the Dominion Iron and Steel Company began production in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Active recruitment of West Indian immigrants created, by 1923, Sydney's most segregated community. In 1928, St. Philip's African Orthodox Church was erected, and it became the fulcrum of the community. Explanations for this success have stressed social or economic factors. This article suggests that although such factors are significant, the explanation is nonetheless religious. Employing the work of the historian of religion Joachim Wach, it argues that the church's success was due to its ability to reflect at once human religious nature, and the temporal and spatial contexts in which this nature is expressed. Examining St. Philip's Church advances what Wach regarded as the goal of the study of religion : to understand both the historical particular and the more general phenomenon of human religiosity.