That so many churches manage to coexist in Malvern Emmanuel United Church, one member says, is a miracle requiring careful scheduling.

The modest Sewells Rd. building has no basement, but it’s home for Malvern Emmanuel and three tenants, the Tamil Christian Prayer Church, Toronto North Seventh Day Adventist, and Scarborough Spoken Word Christian Fellowship.

It’s a community, but its days are numbered. Members of all churches learned this week a sale of the property could go through on Dec. 15.

Closures and mergers of mainline Protestant churches — United, Anglican, Presbyterian — are now common in Scarborough as worshippers age and demographics change.

Victoria Park United Church closed last year, after 65 years of service, and Wexford Heights United, whose congregation tried to involve community groups in planning its future last year, disbanded last month.

The decision to sell Malvern Emmanuel wasn’t made by the congregation but by Toronto United Church Council (TUCC), a United Church of Canada body based in Richmond Hill.

Malvern Emmanuel wants to stay and continue subleasing space to the other churches. All four face a difficult task finding new places to worship.

“That’s why we’re all so devastated,” said Pamella Fell, a church trustee and Malvern Emmanuel member since before the building was finished in 1982.

After a while, many original families moved away, and the church fell six months behind in paying the $140,000 mortgage, said Chris Narayan, its treasurer.

Malvern Emmanuel agreed to maintain the building, but sold the property to TUCC in 1996. The congregation has since shrunk to around 50, and weekly attendance to 25.

Other churches, however, moved in, and today more than 400 worshippers come regularly.

Tamil Christian Prayer Church’s pastor, Selliah Chandrakanthan, a refugee from a traditional Hindu background, arrived in 1994. In 1990, he had a stroke, he said, then promised to serve Jesus Christ.

“After two days, I am completely healed,” Chandrakanthan recalled.

His wife Risvy became co-pastor. Tamil Christian Prayer Church celebrated its 25th anniversary over three days last June, feeding hundreds kothu roti and rice and curry in a big tent outside.

Learning of the impending sale in June, worshippers were upset, Chandrakanthan said, saying, “‘We don’t have any money. Where are we going?’”

Spoken Word, an evangelical church which asks its members to leave their “earthly status” at the sanctuary door, has been at Malvern Emmanuel even longer, around 28 years.

The Seventh Day Adventists held a revival meeting last year, in a parking lot tent, for a week.

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TUCC, however, decided by 2017 the “current use” of the property was “a poor use of the asset.”

The United Church congregation, TUCC told Malvern Emmanuel trustees, “does not have the capacity to grow or renew itself,” and while major capital repairs loomed — water started leaking through the roof into the multipurpose room last week — “United Church resources tied up in the land and building are primarily supporting other church groups.”

By June 2018, Malvern Emmanuel was told the property will be sold but TUCC “would consider providing” a $30,000 grant to help the congregation relocate, an amount Malvern Emmanuel members say isn’t enough.

Fell says the tenant churches need more time to move, a daunting task after a 2013 bylaw kept churches and other faith groups from moving into industrial buildings, as many had in Scarborough.

Rising real estate prices, meanwhile, have made properties whose zoning still permits places of worship unaffordable.

Knowing 80 per cent of its parishioners live three to five kilometres away, the Chandrakanthans have started searching for a new location in northeast Scarborough.

Last week, they said, they were shown a 3,200-square-foot space for $5,000 a month, but it has no parking. The church couldn’t afford it anyway.

Representatives of all four churches at Malvern Emmanuel sent a letter expressing their concerns to media and Toronto Mayor John Tory, as well as politicians representing the Malvern area.

One, local councillor Jennifer McKelvie, called the sharing of the Sewells Rd. building “a positive model that has been a success,” and offered to discuss how she can support their long-term needs.

Last week, Ron Ewart, TUCC’s executive director, wrote he couldn’t comment on Malvern Emmanuel, “as the terms and conditions of the potential sale of the property are still under negotiation.”

Reached by phone, he declined to comment further.