A 116-year-old Anglican church, along with artifacts and artworks, in Canada was “completely destroyed” in a massive blaze early Sunday morning, according to Toronto’s fire chief.

Crews responded to a four-alarm fire at St. Anne’s Anglican Church around 8 a.m., just a little more than two hours before the church’s Sunday morning service was scheduled to take place, City News reported. Firefighters worked to stop the blaze as surrounding properties evacuated as a precaution in case the building collapsed.

“The fire was deep-seated at the beginning … but as you can see the building is completely destroyed right now and as [are] all the artifacts inside,” Toronto Fire Services Deputy Chief Jim Jessop told reporters at the scene.

Absolutely heartbreaking to see these drone shots of Toronto’s St. Anne’s church. It’s completely gutted. So much beauty, so much history, destroyed within hours.

📷: @PatMorrell_CBC pic.twitter.com/dRIf3UHiiW

— Lauren Pelley (@LaurenPelley) June 9, 2024

No one was injured in the fire, and authorities said they have not yet deemed it “criminal in nature.” The Ontario Fire Marshal and Toronto police returned to the scene on Monday to investigate the cause.

“Nobody was here, the church was locked, secure, all the lights were off,” said Rev. Don Beyers, the parish priest at the church. “It’s a real mystery to us how this even happened.”

Construction on the historic St. Anne’s building began in 1907 and was completed in 1908. It housed early paintings from the Group of Seven artists that were installed in the building in the 1920s, CBC reported. Some murals were displayed on the church’s dome, which collapsed in the fire.

“The artwork was priceless,” Beyers said. “It was murals, beautiful murals. They were stunning. This was the only church that featured artwork by members of the Group of Seven. And I’m sorry to say that’s been lost, from what I can see.”

Beyers also wrote a letter to St. Anne’s congregants, saying, “Yesterday’s fire was not the end of the story, but rather the beginning of a new chapter. We will rise from the ashes stronger and even more committed to our mission to be a church for all people.”

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Around 100 Christian churches in Canada have been targeted by arsonists and vandals since 2021 — after researchers claimed to have found the remains of hundreds of Indigenous children buried near a residential school in British Columbia. Recent findings, however, appear to show that the anomalies found on radar were not graves but a septic field.

Meanwhile, further research at two other locations in Canada that were once thought to be mass graves found that there were no graves of Indigenous children.