A group of Christians in Aylmer, Ontario, were forced to worship outside Sunday after police seized their building during a worship service, evicted them, and locked the doors.
Pastor Henry Hildebrandt of the Church of God in southwestern Ontario, most of whose congregants come from the Mennonite tradition, preached an open-air service after Ontario Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas ordered their church facility locked until the provincial gathering limit for indoor church services increases to 30% capacity or more.
Under Ontario’s shutdown order, both indoor and outdoor religious gatherings are capped at 10 people.
In addition to having their church shut down, Hildebrandt, assistant pastor Peter Wall, and the church face $117,000 in fines and legal fees.
Police officers interrupted the church’s worship service while congregants sang hymns. As the armed officers entered the sanctuary to order them to vacate, Hildebrandt read from the third chapter of the Book of Daniel, which recounts how Daniel and two of his friends were thrown into a fiery furnace for refusing to worship the king of Babylon.
Hildebrandt and the congregation then prayed for the souls of the police, asking God to forgive them “for they know not what they are doing.”