Slavic Baptist Church

The Ukrainian Russian Baptist Church, today known as the Slavic Baptist Church, held its first services at Ritson Road South and Beatty Avenue in 1932, where the Corner Church has stood since 2018.

In the early days, before the parish was founded, Paul Mosienko and his wife began street preaching. In the 1960s, the congregation was constituted of more members who were not of Ukrainian or Russian backgrounds, and the church thus began to include services in English by Rev. James Taylor.

In the 1960s, it began to use English in its services and adopted the name “Ritson Road Baptist Church.”

The congregation has moved a few different times, including once to 1221 Simcoe Street South. Interestingly, in the 1960s (according to the 1969 street directory), there was also a “Slavic Church of Evangelical Christians and Baptists” located at 521 Bloor Street East. It is unclear whether this was the same congregation as the Ukrainian Russian Baptist Church, or if perhaps two separate congregations merged into one in later decades.

One influential former minister, who joined as a lay minister in 1937, was John Romanuk. In 1951, he was involved with building a place of worship for Russian-Ukrainian evangelical Christians in Toronto (which still stands today, at 24 Carr Street).