Welcome to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral!
Founded in 1851, Trinity was the first Episcopal congregation established north of San Francisco and west of Minneapolis, Minnesota. As such, Trinity is considered the mother church of all the Episcopal churches in the Pacific Northwest. In 1993, after 142 years as a parish church, Trinity was designated the Cathedral for the Diocese of Oregon.
Trinity had church buildings at two other locations before moving to our current location in 1902. The first church was constructed in 1854 at the corner of SW 2nd and Oak Streets. In 1871, that building was moved to SW 5th and Oak and construction of the second church started the following year at the corner of SW 6th and Oak. When the second church was completed in 1873 the first church building remained on site and was used as the Sunday School classroom and parish hall.
In 1902, after a fire badly damaged the second church, the congregation moved to our current location. At the time, the site was occupied by Bishop Scott Academy, an Episcopal Boys School that had been founded in 1870. Trinity converted the Academy’s drill hall into what they called “Trinity Chapel” and continued to worship there until our third and current church, now Cathedral, was completed in 1906.
The Cathedral was designed by architect David C. Lewis in the Early English Gothic style, though on a much larger scale than any parish church that would have been found in the English countryside in the late 12th century when the style first became popular.
