In Montreal, the city of a thousand steeples, one church has found new life with an unlikely congregation – a troupe of circus performers.

St Jax Anglican Cathedral has been a bustling hub of the community since it opened 150 years ago, but in recent years has found itself on the brink of shutting down.

“Like many churches around Canada this church faced a financial and operating crisis,” St. Jax Senior Pastor Graham Singh told CTV News.

Dwindling attendance numbers and surging maintenance costs put the church in danger of closing down. It’s estimated that a third of the 28,000 faith-owned buildings in Canada could close in the next decade.

With that in mind, Singh and the Trinity Centres Foundation looked to do “a complete rethink” on how St Jax and churches like it could better use their space.

“How can we use this building all the time, rather than just on Sundays?” he remembers asking.

The answer, in this case, was Le Monastère – a non-profit organization that puts on circus cabaret evenings.

With beautiful high ceilings and specially installed support beams in the rafters, the building was an answered prayer for the performers.

“Montreal is like the capital of circus,” Le Monastère co-founder Guillaume Blais said.

“Every performer from all around the world come train here, but no one works here or presents their final work, so what we’re trying to create with this organization is an open stage for these amazing artists.”

Performers are able to come in and use the space regularly, while the organization puts on a cabaret in the space every few months.

The organization worked with engineers to optimize the location to the wide variety of circus performers that call the city home.

“It’s amazing to be able to do something like this in such a beautiful space,” performer Shena Tschofen said.

“Training spaces are often holes in the wall in the basement and it's just nice to have a spacious atmosphere to perform it in.”

Singh says that despite fears that they would experience backlash for letting the circus in, response has been overwhelmingly positive. He says it gives them hope for finding similar solutions for hundreds of other churches around Canada.

“Throughout the history of the church we’ve had some of the most exciting artists, musicians, performers of all kinds based out of these buildings” Singh said.

“I think we’ve missed that over the past few generations, and we’re really excited to be bringing some of the most creative parts of Montreal here to the heart of these churches.”