In the Beginning
The history of Trinity may best be told by highlighting its contributions to the wider Episcopal Church and the city of New Orleans.
Trinity opened its doors in 1847 and, by 1853, had moved to its present location on Jackson Avenue just as the adjacent Garden District was emerging as one of the city’s principal residential neighborhoods.
The second rector, the Rev. Alexander F. Dobb, grew the congregation significantly and began the construction of the present church building. The Daily Picayune, one of New Orleans’ daily newspapers, described Mr. Dobb’s role:
His congregation was large and numbered in it many of our oldest and best known citizens. Their pastor was universally beloved and respected. He died a victim of [the Yellow Fever epidemic in 1853] in the discharge of his duty toward the sick, the dying, the dead, and the bereaved.
Trinity’s next rector, the Rt. Rev. Leonidas K. Polk, who was already bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana and subsequently served as a general in the Confederate Army, is today a controversial figure. A person of deep faith who was both an enslaver and a missionary to enslaved persons, he was also one of the founders of the University of the South at Sewanee, one of the Episcopal Church’s principal institutions of higher learning.
Bishop Polk’s legacy and his contributions to the Episcopal Church and Trinity are complex and are beyond the scope of this brief history. In 2023, a committee of the congregation presented a report examining Bishop Polk’s legacy in depth, giving thanks for his ministry while forthrightly acknowledging his flaws.
A Dynamic Christianity
During the second half of the 19th century, Trinity continued to grow its congregation and expand its physical plant. By 1871, Trinity had become the largest congregation in the Diocese of Louisiana. In 1873, the church building began to take the shape it has today: the front towers were taken down and rebuilt, the exterior was cemented, and the interior was renovated.
In 1893, the Rev. Dr. Beverly Warner was called to be rector. An unpublished history of Trinity, Our Trinity Story: Building the Beloved Community, 1847–2018, noted that “Dr. Warner subscribed to the idea of a dynamic Christianity, one which radiated outside the walls of his own Church – and outside of the lives of his own parishioners.”
A “dynamic Christianity” is today an integral part of Trinity’s DNA.
Although he initiated several ministries to the poor in New Orleans, including a dispensary, various work programs, and housing for the unhoused, Dr. Warner is best remembered for leading the establishment in 1895 of Kingsley House (now Clover), the first settlement house in the South. Clover is now a multiservice institution that remains a strong and active force providing social services to improve the lives of New Orleanians in need.
Continuing this legacy of social ministry in 1933, as the Depression unfolded, the Women of Trinity Church opened a soup kitchen to serve the hungry. A local newspaper reported:
The distress of each individual was the concern of the kindly folk who sponsored the affair. No embarrassing questions were asked of the guests at the lunch. Regardless of his past, regardless of his creed, each person was cordially invited to the table.
This tradition of invitation and inclusion continues to this day. At every celebration of the Eucharist, the presider reminds the gathered community that Jesus has set the table and that all, without exception, are invited to come to the feast.
A School Is Founded
In 1945, the Rev. Canon William Turner was called as rector. Early in his ministry, Canon Turner offered a vision for Trinity that included the creation of a day school for boys and girls “to give our children locally what no other school can – a sound education based upon Christian character and faith as only the Church can do it.”
Trinity Episcopal School was born from that vision and has become one of the most significant ministries of the parish. Today, the head of school and the school’s chaplain, both of whom are Episcopal clergy, regularly preside and preach on Sundays, while parish clergy often teach at the school. The close, harmonious, and mutually supportive relationship between church and school is a blessing that is highly valued by both communities.
In 1966, the church and school, through the leadership of Alvin Edinburgh, a highly respected principal in the Orleans Parish school system, developed the Trinity Educational Enrichment Program (TEEP), designed to enhance academic skills, build faith, and shape character. Founded during the era of desegregation, TEEP’s ministry to its predominantly Black students from the neighborhood was controversial to some in the wider white community.
Sixty years later, the ministry of TEEP is one of Trinity’s greatest blessings and a source of deep gratitude throughout the parish.
A “Dynamic Christianity” for the Present Day
When the Rev. John Stone Jenkins arrived as rector in 1971, he immediately recognized that Trinity was ready for spiritual renewal. The time was ripe for the introduction of small-group ministries where deep theological and spiritual reflection might flourish and where people might share their spiritual and personal journeys.
Thus was born Disciples of Christ in Community (DOCC). As it took root at Trinity, Jenkins and a group of committed volunteers took DOCC on the road, eventually planting the program in numerous parishes across the Episcopal Church. The program became so popular that administrative leadership was eventually transferred to the School for Ministry at Sewanee. The Jenkins years saw growth in attendance and commitment to a renewed and lively faith.
Under the leadership of the Rev. Hill Riddle, whose tenure began in 1984, this renewed faith called Trinity to expand its outreach into the surrounding community and beyond. Trinity supported the nascent St. Thomas Clinic, which was then operated by two nuns in an apartment in the sprawling St. Thomas housing project located nearby.
Contributions of money and medical expertise, in cooperation with representatives of the St. Thomas community, helped develop an anti-racist institution dedicated to providing culturally competent care to the community’s uninsured and underinsured population. Trinity also began actively supporting and encouraging the death row ministry of Sister Helen Prejean, who was living and working in the St. Thomas housing project in those days.
In the early 1990s, Trinity partnered with a large, predominantly Black Baptist church, the Loyola Institute of Politics, and the Industrial Areas Foundation to establish the Jeremiah Project. A nonpartisan community organizing effort, Jeremiah provided anti-racism training, promoted racial healing and reconciliation, and advocated for the dispossessed in the city. Trinity was becoming known across the wider Episcopal Church as a leader in racial healing.
During those years, Trinity housed and supported Agenda for Children, a nonprofit that has since grown into a leading advocate for children’s health, well-being, and early childhood education in the state of Louisiana.
Trinity also created the Trinity Counseling and Training Center (TCTC). Housed on campus, TCTC provided counseling services without regard to ability to pay. It also provided necessary practical training to MSW students in degree programs at local universities, including Tulane and Loyola.
In 1992, Trinity launched its annual medical missions to Honduras and, later, to Nicaragua. Under the leadership of a Trinity parishioner and physician, volunteers, some with medical experience and some without, brought much-needed medical care to the people in the hinterlands of these countries. Participants in these missions would uniformly describe them as transformative.
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, other Trinity members and physicians established St. Thomas Clinic as a federally qualified health center. Since that time, they have led the growth of the clinic to seven locations, four with in-house pharmacies. Together, these locations serve more than 25,000 individual patients through more than 75,000 patient visits per year, all without regard to patients’ ability to pay. Two of Trinity’s rectors have served on the clinic’s board of directors.
In 2006, Trinity purchased a food truck and formed Trinity Loaves and Fishes (TLF). This ministry initially brought food to the army of volunteers who came to New Orleans to aid in the city’s recovery after Katrina.
Trinity also repurposed one of its buildings, renamed Molly’s House, to provide housing for church groups and others who came to New Orleans to help it get back on its feet. Today, Molly’s House is Trinity’s center for youth formation.
TLF is now one of the largest feeding programs in the city of New Orleans, engaging scores of volunteers who cook and deliver hot meals and sandwiches throughout the week to the hungry and unhoused.
Called to Serve
Throughout its history, Trinity has been blessed with talented clergy. Over the years, a total of ten Trinity clergy have been called to serve as bishops, including three in the 21st century.
Today, Trinity’s principal meeting space is named Bishops Hall to honor each of these talented men and women.
The rector we seek will build on this legacy of Trinity’s “dynamic Christianity,” which actively seeks to teach and give substance to Jesus’s commandment to love one another as we are loved.
Our next rector will work collaboratively with parish leadership as we imagine ever more faithful and creative ministries to serve the city and the world in Jesus’s name.
