Governing body Episcopal Church Phone +1 412-232-6404 Architect Gordon W. Lloyd | Designated 1970 Year built 1872 | |
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Location 322 Sixth Avenue, Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Website www.trinitycathedralpgh.org Bishop(s) Rt. Rev. Dorsey W.M. McConnell Dean Very Rev. Scott T. Quinn Address 328 Sixth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, USA Architectural style Gothic Revival architecture Similar Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, Oliver Building, Saint Paul Cathedral, Mellon Square, Regional Enterprise Tower Profiles | ||
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.
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1780s Round Church
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.
1824 Cathedral
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 led the design and construction of the cathedral, which was complete with buttresses, a tower, pointed arches and a vaulted ceiling. The growing congregation built St. Peter as a chapel of ease. However, in 1869 the growing congregation erected a new structure.
Current Cathedral
The current cathedral was completed in 1872. It was the tallest building in the city until the construction of the Allegheny County Courthouse in 1888.
The cathedral was designed by architect Gordon W. Lloyd in 1870-71 with an exterior featuring English Gothic Style that was favored by mid-Victorian Episcopalians including a single central steeple and side transepts. The interior features a tall nave flanked by aisles and lit by clerestory windows. The nave walls are supported by clustered stone columns, and the austere interior ornamentation, in which the pointed arch predominates, is reminiscent of the work of the American Gothicist Richard Upjohn. Some of the stained glass windows in the nave were destroyed in a fire in 1967, and were replaced by new ones in a medieval style. All other windows date from 1872. The carved stone pulpit was built in 1922 to the design of the renowned American architect Bertram G. Goodhue.
In 2007, the cathedral exterior was cleaned for the first time in preparation for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary. The cleaning removed remnants of industrial soot dating to Pittsburgh's steel making days. The grime was causing acid runoff to deteriorate the exterior stonework.
Anglican Realignment
On November 2, 2007, the convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh approved a first reading of changes to the diocesan constitution and canons designed to seceed from the Episcopal Church as part of global Anglican realignment. The decision was affirmed by a second vote in October 2008 resulting in schism.
In preparation for the October 2008 schism, the Cathedral Chapter adopted a special resolution on July 24, 2008. It stated the Cathedral Chapter's intention "...neither to withdraw from The Episcopal Church nor to withdraw from a realigned Diocese of Pittsburgh." Over the next three years, the cathedral continued to be led by the Rev. Dr. Catherine Brall as Canon Provost and included elected representatives from both the rump and breakaway dioceses and the cathedral's lay delegate had voice and vote in both the Episcopal and realigned Anglican diocesan conventions. The arrangement was terminated on December 15, 2011, when the Cathedral Chapter voted to reaffirm its original 1928 articles of incorporation which specified that Trinity Cathedral was an Episcopal congregation. That vote constituted a repudiation of the Special Resolution adopted in 2008 restoring the cathedral's service solely as the seat of the Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh.
In June 2015, Bishop Dorsey W. M. McConnell restored Trinity Cathedral to the center of diocesan life by relocating diocesan offices to the downtown cathedral from the suburb of Monroeville. During the tumultuous realignment, diocesan offices were located in the Oliver Building between 1999-2009 and the Jonnet Building in Monroeville from 2009 to 2015.