page_title: Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland
section_title: Diocese and Cathedral
hierarchical_section_title: Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland / Diocese and Cathedral
caption_attribution_description: St Mary's Church, Parnell, New Zealand. Taken 17 January 2006.
context_page_description: Holy Trinity Cathedral is an Anglican place of worship situated in Parnell, a residential suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. It is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Auckland and the cathedral of the Bishop of Auckland. The current main church was consecrated in 1973.
context_section_description: Today the Diocese of Auckland is one of seven dioceses of the Tikanga Pakeha (pakeha culture) stream of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. The Diocese covers the area stretching from North Cape south to the Waikato River, across the Hauraki Plains and including the Coromandel Peninsula.
  The Anglican church in New Zealand, today known as the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, was pioneered by Bishop George Selwyn who arrived as Bishop of New Zealand in 1841.
  In those early days the then colony was regarded as one huge diocese which, including large areas of the South Pacific, covered almost one sixth of the Earth's surface. Selwyn did much to establish the church and many small chapels, churches, schools and a theological college were built during this period. In 1856 Selwyn created New Zealand's first diocese, Christchurch.
  Following the adoption of the Constitution of the Church of the Province of New Zealand, which was signed in St Stephen's Chapel, Judges Bay, Auckland, on 13 June 1857, other dioceses were soon established: Nelson and Waiapu in 1858, and Wellington in 1859. Following the creation of the dioceses Selwyn became ipso facto the Bishop of Auckland (though never formally styled as such), while retaining the Primacy and continuing as the Metropolitan. In diaries kept by his contemporary, Attorney-General William Swainson, Auckland was at that time expected to be the permanent seat of the Metropolitan of New Zealand. 
  In 1843 Selwyn purchased land in Parnell for the cathedral, as well as for St Stephen's Chapel, Bishopscourt, and associated buildings. He wrote in his diary on 3 June 1843 ". . I reached the Judge's House [Judge Martin; First Attorney-General] by a path, avoiding the town, and passed over land which I have bought for the site of the Cathedral . . . ". He is reputed to have included the intended name for the cathedral in a sermon at Lichfield Cathedral in 1841 after his consecration.
  Selwyn returned to England in 1868 having selected William Cowie as his successor. Cowie was the first Bishop to be known as Bishop of Auckland, and it may be considered that this was the year of the formation of the Diocese of Auckland, though it is generally said to be 1841. The Diocese of Dunedin, formerly part of the Christchurch Diocese, was created in 1869.
  During Bishop Cowie's 33-year tenure, the last nine as Primate, the Diocesan administration was set up in the traditional Anglican understanding of the term.  When the dioceses were firmly established, each with its bishop, the building of New Zealand's cathedrals began.
  ChristChurch Cathedral was one of the first: begun in 1864, it was finally consecrated in 1881.  It had been intended to build a cathedral seating 1000 people in Auckland but by 1883 the plan was abandoned because of cost. Instead, a decision was made to replace the existing small church of St. Mary's in Parnell with a larger church and in 1884 work began.  The new church was designated a cathedral in 1887 while uncompleted, and a Cathedral Chapter of clerical canons and lay members was formed in 1893 while the new cathedral was in use but still awaiting completion.
  By 1926 the Auckland diocese was very large and becoming densely populated, so The Most Revd A. W. Averill, Bishop of Auckland and Archbishop of New Zealand, divided off the southern regions of Waikato, King Country and Taranaki to form the Diocese of Waikato.
  The Auckland cathedral used to be square, and they wanted to make it into a cross shape, but no one could work out how to design it to be safe. Later on an English carpenter, who had lived in New Zealand for a couple of years worked out how to. Apparently he was a fantastic artist, and his name was George Day.
caption: The interior of St Mary's Cathedral, Auckland
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot G3", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2006:01:19 08:22:25", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "184", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1651", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9357", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8", "EXIF FNumber": "2", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:01:17 13:48:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:01:17 13:48:21", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "115/16", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2272", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1704", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2272", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1704", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1486", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "56800/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "56800/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}