By Mary MacKay
Angels almost lost, alleged bone fragments of saints, and martyrs made on a distant South Pacific Island - these stories and more come to light at a new exhibit at Eptek Art and Culture Centre in Summerside.
Sincere in Their Religion: Island Churches in the Community, Countryside and Controversy is on display until Oct. 8. It covers some serious religious ground with artifacts from the permanent collections of P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation and the Acadian Museum in Miscouche, starting with items that date from the arrival of the European settlers on through to a slide show of 40 of P.E.I.'s present population of churches.
"It's a story that is just central to Prince Edward Island history," Boyde Beck, curator of history for the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation, says of P.E.I.'s rich religious history.
"We have so many artifacts in the (permanent collection) that have to do with religion and they've never all been out. So essentially the artifacts told us what they wanted covered and where they wanted to go. The layout was very much dictated by the artifacts," he adds of the side-by-side nature of the Catholic and Protestant pieces, the latter of which includes Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican and Baptist representation, as well.
The co-existence of the two religions was not in Britain's master colony settlement plan in the 1760s.
