Why does this Toronto church have a heart inside its walls? Because a scandalizing convert wanted it that way

From Toronto-

When John Elmsley died in 1863, his will included a minor renovation project: Please take my heart from my body and place it in the wall of St. Basil’s Church.

There it remains, floating in alcohol, inside a jar, behind a wall. The heart of the man who was involved in one of this city’s biggest religious scandals, the heart of a mercurial but generous guy who changed the fortunes of Catholic Toronto when he made a splashy conversion in 1833.

Heart burial was a mortuary practice once trendy among medieval kings, religious men and European nobility, especially during the Catholic Reformation. The practice never took off in North America, and was not a custom of Indigenous people here. Elmsley’s heart burial in St. Basil’s Church is believed to be the only one in Toronto’s history.

“It is shocking in today’s somewhat bloodless society,” David Mulroney said a few days before retiring from St. Michael’s College, which was built alongside St. Basil’s Church on land donated by Elmsley. Mulroney has been a parishioner at the downtown church east of Queen’s Park for his entire life, and he remembers being fascinated with the heart as a boy.

More here-

https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2018/08/13/why-does-this-toronto-church-have-a-heart-inside-its-walls-because-a-scandalizing-convert-wanted-it-that-way.html

The clergyman (names withheld) who is married with children and hailed from Tombia community in Yenagoa Local Government Area of the state, according to a church member was not known to be sick but was complaining of headache before his tragic death.

Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/pandemonium-as-bayelsa-anglican-clergy-slumps-dies-on-pulpit-during-wedding-ceremony/

The clergyman (names withheld) who is married with children and hailed from Tombia community in Yenagoa Local Government Area of the state, according to a church member was not known to be sick but was complaining of headache before his tragic death. According to the church member identified as Mary said: “Our reverend was not known to be sick but was complaining of slight headache before the wedding ceremony . We are at a loss as to what must have happened to him. He was such a nice family man.” It was gathered that the pandemonium that ensued changed the mood of the wedding programme and temporarily disrupted the wedding proceedings for half an hour before normalcy was restored.

Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/pandemonium-as-bayelsa-anglican-clergy-slumps-dies-on-pulpit-during-wedding-ceremony/

The clergyman (names withheld) who is married with children and hailed from Tombia community in Yenagoa Local Government Area of the state, according to a church member was not known to be sick but was complaining of headache before his tragic death. According to the church member identified as Mary said: “Our reverend was not known to be sick but was complaining of slight headache before the wedding ceremony . We are at a loss as to what must have happened to him. He was such a nice family man.” It was gathered that the pandemonium that ensued changed the mood of the wedding programme and temporarily disrupted the wedding proceedings for half an hour before normalcy was restored.

Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/pandemonium-as-bayelsa-anglican-clergy-slumps-dies-on-pulpit-during-wedding-ceremony/