Trinity Cathedral | |
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40°26′29″N 79°59′55″W / 40.4413°N 79.9987°WCoordinates: 40°26′29″N 79°59′55″W / 40.4413°N 79.9987°W | |
Location | 322 Sixth Avenue, Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
Built | 1872 |
Architect | Gordon W. Lloyd |
Architectural style(s) | Gothic Revival |
Governing body | Episcopal Church |
Website | www |
Designated | 1970 |
Administration | |
Diocese | Diocese of Pittsburgh |
Clergy | |
Bishop(s) | Rt. Rev. Dorsey W.M. McConnell |
Dean | Very Rev. Scott T. Quinn |
Trinity Cathedral is an Episcopal Church in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is the cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.
The present Gothic church was completed in 1872 on the site of a hilltop cemetery on land deeded by heirs of Pennsylvania founder William Penn to the congregation's founders. The site, centered on a terrace above the historic "point" (where the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River join to form the Ohio River) was sacred to Native Americans as a burial ground. The Trinity Churchyard has the oldest marked graves west of the Atlantic Seaboard, of both Native American leaders, French, English, and American colonists.
The first Trinity Church was built two blocks to the west of this burial ground at the base of the hill or terrace initially. It was constructed from the 1780s to 1805. This first church was a brick building, octagonal in shape in the meeting-house style of architecture. It was known as “The Round Church.” It was situated on a sort of triangular lot with streets on each of the three sides, so that enlargement was out of the question."
In 1824, Trinity moved to its current site in the middle of the terrace churchyard with what is regarded as the first Gothic structure in Western Pennsylvania. John Henry Hopkins was the architect for the new building. He designed it to seat a thousand people. Hopkins' plans were adopted by the Vestry without alteration. On May 1, the feast of S. Philip and S. James, the corner-stone was laid. The building was "brick, roughcast on the outside." The Church was wide, with galleries on three sides, supported by slender cluster. The ceiling was "painted in imitation fan-vaulting." The growing congregation built St. Peter as a chapel of ease. However, in 1869 the growing congregation erected a new structure.