Trinity Cathedral (Pittsburgh)

Trinity Cathedral is an Episcopal Church in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is the cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The cathedral reported 128 members in 2023; no membership statistics were reported in 2024 parochial reports. Plate and pledge income for the congregation in 2024 was $176,550 with average Sunday attendance (ASA) of 68. ASA statistics of 68 were a notable increase from 35 persons a Sunday in 2015. Governance A group of two ex officio members (the diocesan bishop and cathedral dean) and other elected members govern the congregation as the cathedral chapter; this includes three ordained clergy and four lay members of the diocese. In 2019, Bishop Dorsey McConnell appointed the Rev. Aidan E. Smith of Trinity Anglican Seminary in Ambridge as cathedral provost. On June 24, 2020, Smith was elected dean of the cathedral at a meeting of the Cathedral Chapter, a role which had been vacant since 2003. A formal installation was delayed by Covid 19 precautions around large gatherings for worship. Dean Smith was placed on administrative leave in early 2026 and arrested for retail theft and stolen property charges on February 27, 2026. As of June 21, 2026, the Episcopal Diocese of Albany listed Aidan Smith as canonically resident there. On March 14, 2026, Bishop Ketlen Solak announced the dean's resignation. History 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 and French, English, and American colonists. 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. 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." 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. Bishop of Vermont and pro-slavery theologian 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 St. Philip and St. 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 the now-demolished St. Peter's Church as a chapel of ease. However, in 1869 the growing Trinity congregation erected a new structure. Current Cathedral The current cathedral was designed by architect Gordon W. Lloyd in 1870–1871 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 In advance of 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 continuing and departing dioceses; 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. 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 denominational realignment, diocesan offices had been located in the Oliver Building between 1999-2009 and the Jonnet Building in Monroeville from 2009 to 2015. Notable clergy Rectors John Henry Hopkins, rector 1823-1831, first bishop of Episcopal Diocese of Vermont and the eighth Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church; architect and pro-slavery biblical commentator Theodore B. Lyman, rector 1850-1860, fourth Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina John Scarborough, rector 1867-1875, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey from 1875 to 1914 George Upfold, rector 1831-1849, first Bishop of Indiana Deans Archibald Dixon Rollit (1912-2002), dean of cathedral 1964-1978, Canadian Army chaplain during World War Two George L.W. Werner (1938-2023), dean of cathedral 1979-2000 Musical recordings FAMILY MORNING PRAYER (Trinity Cathedral Choir, 1947) FAMILY EVENING PRAYER (Trinity Cathedral Choir, 1947) See also List of cathedrals in the United States List of the Episcopal cathedrals of the United States References Further reading Past and Present of Trinity Episcopal Church: One Hundredth Anniversary (1898) Doctor—Lawyer—Indian Chief—The Story of Pittsburgh's First Burying Ground: A Self Guided Tour of the 19 Most Significant Graves in the Burying Ground of Trinity Cathedral, Sixth Avenue, Pittsburgh Bonner, Jeremy. Called Out of Darkness Into Marvelous Light: A History of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, 1750-2006 (Wipf and Stock, 2009). ISBN 9781606081631 Trinity and Pittsburgh: The Parish, the Diocese, the Community (1969) Harriss, Helen L. (1999). Trinity & Pittsburgh: The History of Trinity Cathedral. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Trinity Cathedral. x + 214 pp. + 12 pp. of color photographs. David A. Kalvelage, Cathedrals of the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. (Forward Movement Publications, 1993) ISBN 9780880281430 External links Official website City of Pittsburgh Trinity Church website archived from 2007 Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. PA-44, "Dr. Nathaniel Bedford Monument, Trinity Cathedral Churchyard, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, PA", 2 photos, 2 measured drawings, 3 data pages, supplemental material