Trinity Chapel Complex

Architecture

The outside is made of heavy exterior blocks of the building were etched in a rough finish, accented with austere Gothic trim and details. The front façade sits on West 25th Street and faces south. It measures around 65 feet (20 m) in width by roughly 100 feet (30 m) in height. The façade is supported by four stone buttresses, framed by delicate stone turrets at the sides, and punctuated by a large rose window above the entrance.

Prior to the fire that took place May 1, 2016, the church was known to have had one of the largest timber hammerbeam roofs in the City of New York.

Trinity Chapel

With the population of New York City moving ever-northward up Manhattan island in the mid-19th century, Trinity Church, the center of Episcopalianism in the city, needed to provide for its uptown parishioners, especially in the increasingly sought-after residential neighborhoods around Union and Madison Squares. The church's solution was to build a chapel, named Trinity Chapel, on West 25th Street just off of Madison Square as an uptown annex. The architect selected was Richard Upjohn, who designed the third and current version of Trinity Church, as well as the Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue and West 10th Street, as well as many other churches in the Gothic Revival mode in the northeast.

The parish was a wealthy and influential one, and Trinity was the only one of Trinity Church's chapels which was capable of supporting itself without assistance from the home church. In 1865, in the Trinity Episcopal church was held an Orthodox liturgy for the first time in American history. Among the congregants was writer Edith Wharton, who was married in the church in 1885. In 1892, the reredos and altar were redesigned by Frederick Clarke Withers.

Cathedral of St. Sava

By 1930, as the rich and influential continued their uptown migration, the neighborhood around Madison Square had seriously declined. The Chapel was now located within the Tenderloin, the city's main entertainment and red light district, and the congregation had dwindled. A Serbian Orthodox congregation, founded in the 1930s, purchased the building in 1942, with assistance from various Serbian churches, and the building re-opened in 1944 as a Serbian Orthodox cathedral dedicated to Saint Sava, the patron saint of the Serbs. The first pastor was Rev. Dushan Shoulkletovich. Peter II, the last king of Yugoslavia attended services here.

Gradual changes were made to the sanctuary to make it more Eastern Orthodox in style. A hand-carved oak iconostasis was added in 1962. The Byzantine, hand-carved Iconostasis, brought from the Monastery of St. Naum in Ohrid, Yugoslavia, was placed in the Cathedral and blessed.

The Icons on the Iconostasis were written by Russian iconographer, Ivan Meljinkov.

When a bomb went off near the church on September 4, 1966 destroying some of the stained-glass windows, they were replaced with new ones commissioned in Byzantine style.

His Holiness Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle visited St. Sava Cathedral in October 1992. This was the first time the New York Church community was visited by a Patriarch.

Outside the church are busts of Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich, who was instrumental in founding the parish, helped to organize the Serbian Orthodox Church in America, and was in later years the "luminary-in-residence" at the cathedral; Nikola Tesla, the inventor and entrepreneur; and Michael Pupin, a physicist of Serbian heritage.

Prior to the fire of May 1, 2016 around $4 million had been spent on renovations to the cathedral's roof, gutters, and its attached community center in the past decade. The church's ceiling was repainted during those renovations to depict a nighttime sky.

2016 fire

On May 1, 2016, a massive fire occurred at the church, on the day Orthodox Christians were celebrating Easter, destroying most of the building. The four-alarm fire started at 6:49 p.m. local time and was brought under control by 8:30 p.m. employing more than 170 firefighters overall.

There was one minor injury.

The stone walls of the cathedral remain standing, and have been deemed to be structurally sound and not currently in danger of collapsing. Church officials have indicated they will examine whether any part of the structure could be preserved.

The parish house associated with the Chapel Complex was not harmed by fire.

Aftermath

St. Sava parishioners reunited a few blocks away the first Sunday after the fire at Gramercy Park's Episcopal Calvary-St. George's Parish Church to worship.

Church officials indicate there will be plans to rebuild at the current site. Offers of support, including a letter from His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew have been shared with the parishioners of the church.

Serbia's outgoing Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić indicated that the City of New York would be asked through diplomatic channels to aid in the rebuilding of the church. He also indicated Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić authorized him to say that the government will help rebuild the church, "because it has great significance for the Serbian community and the Serbian spirit in New York."

As of two days after the fire, the definitive cause of the fire had not been determined. Candles that had not been properly extinguished after an Easter service were identified as a likely cause, according to a spokesperson of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY). A caretaker told fire marshals that he stowed the candles in a cardboard box under a piece of wooden furniture in a rear corner of the 161-year-old church.

Nearly a month after the fire FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon indicated conclusively that, "Fire marshals have ... determined that candles, which had not been completely extinguished, caused the fire." The city has ordered the remains of the church demolished, calling them unstable.

The Buildings Department quickly clarified that the inspection was not complete and they had not ordered the immediate demolition of the building. In August 2016 the parish announced that the Building Department ordered metal beams be used to shore up the walls and the building be covered with a waterproof canvas to keep it from being damaged further by the elements. The parish announced they anticipate that effort to be completed in September 2016.