Trinity Church on the Green or Trinity on the Green is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. It is one of three historic churches on the New Haven Green. The church reported 831 members in 2020 and 705 members in 2023; no membership statistics were reported nationally in 2024 parochial reports. Plate and pledge income reported for the congregation in 2024 was $931,470. Average Sunday attendance (ASA) in 2024 was 225 persons, down from a reported 535 in 2019.
This landmark building was designed by Ithiel Town in 1813, built between 1814 and 1815, and consecrated in 1816. It was built in what contemporaries such as the Rev. Samuel Jarvis labeled as the "Gothick style".Buggeln, Gretchen Townsend, Temples of Grace: The Material Transformation of Connecticut's Churches, 1790-1840, UPNE, 2003, pp. 112-113 It is the first example of a thoroughly Gothic style derived church building in North America, and predates the Gothic Revival architectural style in England by more than two decades.The earliest authority for the originality of the Trinity New Haven Gothic style church is found in Jarvis, Samuel, An Address, delivered in the City of New Haven, at the Laying of the Corner-Stone of Trinity Church, May 17th, 1814; together with the Form of Prayer composed for that occasion, New-Haven, 1814Dr. Dwight in his account of the city of New Haven wrote that, "The Episcopal church is a Gothic building the only correct specimen it is believed in the United States." Blake, Henry, Chronicles of New Haven Green from 1638 to 1862, Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Press, 1898, p. 27Buggeln, Gretchen, Temples of Grace: the Material transformation of Connecticut's Churches, 1790-1840, UPNE, 2003, p. 110, notes that, "Trinity was the first of several Gothic buildings erected by Episcopal congregations in Connecticut in the next few decades. St. John's in Salisbury (1823), St. John's in Kent (1823-26), and St. Andrew's in Marble Dale (1821-23) are good examples of the standard form these early Gothic churches assumed in more rural areas, rendered in brick or stone." Buggeln on page 115 also quotes Bishop Hobart and the Rev. Harry Croswell who were both present at Trinity's consecration in 1816, and who call it a Gothic church.Croswell, Harry, Annals, a manuscript in the archives of New Haven Museum, p. 55, calls it "the first attempt at the gothic style of architecture in church-building in New England", and credits it with bringing in new members.The first stone neo-Gothic church in Canada was probably St. John's Church in Saint John, New Brunswick in 1824, the same year work began on Notre-Dame de Montreal. There were earlier examples of churches with Gothic elements: Christ Church, Stratford (1743) had pointed arch windows, for example, but these eighteenth-century wooden churches are not considered Gothic Revival, but in the Colonial style with Gothic details. The oldest church in the United States is St. Luke's "Old Brick Church in Smithfiled, Va., (1632); it is a rectangular "room church" which also shows Gothic details, some of which were added in the nineteenth century.
It is notable for its historic architecture. It largely retains its original early Gothic exterior, using the indigenous New Haven trap rock, in this form, a red/brown/orange stone that changes color with light and moisture for its external walls. Its mostly newer Gothicizing interior has burgundy walls and deep-sea green ceilings, oak pews with closing doors leading into the aisle, and gilt arches, groining, and organ pipes. It has eight stained glass windows on the north and south sides, including four Tiffany stained glass windows, and a rare "nonafoil" or nonagon shaped nine-petal Trinity Rose Window on the chancel end of the church (to the west), added when the chancel was added in 1884. The west end (liturgical east) wall of the chancel also contains two pentafoils alpha/omega windows, and five narrow windows with medallions giving the history of creation, along with icons of the four gospels and other religious symbols. Most unusual is the east side outfacing window "Trinity's History and Vision," commissioned for the 250th anniversary of the first church and designed by glass artist Val Sigsted; it is back-lit at night and it shines out on the dark New Haven green for those passing by or waiting for the bus. The stone reredos in the chancel was dedicated in 1912, with statues carved by Lee Lawrie in both late Gothic Revival and very early Art Deco styles. There is also an historically sensitive architect-designed columbarium in the nave, completed in 2009, with a small altar used in healing services.
Trinity, along with its two neighboring churches on the Green, is part of the New Haven Green Historic District, that was designated a National Historic Landmark District on December 30, 1970. and
Calling itself a "historic church in the heart of a city", Trinity is also known for its music. Its music program includes the Choir of Men and Boys, first formed in 1885, that has performed at the White House and toured England and the Continent, the more recently formed Choir of Adults and Girls, and an adult parish choir, all accompanied by a large Aeolian-Skinner organ. Its Trinity Players dramatic group performs original sermon dramas during services, and plays at other events.
Trinity Parish also sponsors the Chapel on the Green, a highly-accessible "outdoor church" that offers services and also lunch for the homeless every Sunday afternoon of the year regardless of weather. Its drumming circle, heard for blocks each Sunday, is its call to worship. Nearly a quarter of the parish income is spent is spent on local community outreach programs.
A cultural center, Trinity on the Green is often a venue for concerts, dramatic performances, and events by Yale University, Hopkins School, and the International Festival of Arts and Ideas.
History
Officially known as "Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green, New Haven, Connecticut", the parish was organized in November of 1723 by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, a recent Anglican convert and a missionary priest of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts - an organization now known as the United Society - immediately on his return from his ordination voyage to England. In January the next year he began baptizing parishioners in the parish.Rev. Dr. Johnson, Samuel, Rev. Pigot, George, etc., Christ Church, Stratford Register, 1722-1828, manuscript, archives of Christ Episcopal Church, Stratford, Connecticut, baptisms 1723, 1724. The parish was supplied by Johnson and a succession of missionary "priests in charge" until the Revolutionary War cut off funding from England and the parish became a self-funded church with a Rector around 1780.Olsen, Two Hundred Years on the Green, Appendix A: Trinity’s Ministers, pp. 141-149
Connecticut had been an established Congregationalist church colony since its founding in 1638, with only a single Anglican parish (and no church) in the village of Stratford, Connecticut, that had been only recently founded in 1707. Johnson on assuming his mission there in 1723 planned on using New Haven as a base to convert Yale students to the Episcopacy so they in turn could take orders and fill the newly founded parishes of his missionary territory in Connecticut. He was amazingly successful: Trinity Church would be the last of 25 churches he personally founded and saw built before he moved to New York City to found Columbia University: his disciples would build18 more churches in Connecticut by 1772.Olsen, Neil C., The End of Theocracy in America: The Distinguishing Line of Harry Croswell's Election Sermon, Nonagram Publications, , , 2013, p.20 Johnson traveled to New Haven frequently between 1723 and 1752. During this time, services were conducted in private homes. Henry Caner, an English emigrant and the architect of the first 1718 Yale Hall, and his son Henry Caner Jr., were among the first members of Johnson's New Haven Anglican house church. Henry Caner Jr. later went on to study with Johnson, take orders, and lead Anglican churches in Fairfield, Connecticut, and King's Chapel, Boston.
First Wood Trinity Church 1752-1753
In April 1728, the Rev. Samuel Johnson preached in New Haven: ten parishioners came up after the service and each subscribed £100 towards building a Church, though opposition by the town prevented its construction at that time, and for the next two decades.Hawks, Francis, and Perry, William, Documentary history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America: Containing numerous hitherto unpublished documents concerning the church in Connecticut, Volume 1, James Pott, 1863, p. 128, 131, 138, 208, 245, 252, 272, 291 Undeterred by repeated failures, Johnson appointed two wardens around 1749, and collected money and timber to build a physical church for the parish. A hard-won deed to build a church in New Haven after opposition by New Haven Puritans was finally granted in 1752, and a wooden church was constructed in 1752-1753. Obtaining the deed, which took the parish nearly 30 years to obtain, was of such import and searing memory, that the date of the founding of the church for many years was dated from the day they formally obtained it as documented in city records. The second building, formed of trap rock, was built in 1814-1816 and still houses the parish today.
Trinity's First Church was built between July 1752 and the summer of 1753.Getlein, Edward, Tillotson, Ellen, Olsen, Neil, Here Will I Dwell: A History of Trinity Church On-The-Green New Haven, Connecticut, Trinity Church Publications, Edition 2, 2012, p.20 It was located on the south side of Chapel Street and on the east side of what is today still called Church Street — named so after the church — about 100 feet from the corner. It was considered the first church in the town, as the three established Congregational places of worship in New Haven each called their buildings a meetinghouse. The first church was a small wooden structure measuring 58 feet by 38 feet and seated 150 persons.
As the dominantly Puritan town was boycotting its construction, workmen had to be imported into New Haven and boarded out among the parishioners. Beleaguered by Puritans (who greatly outnumbered the Anglicans, in spite of their being members of the "official", established religion of the Crown Colony of Connecticut), to proclaim its status in the larger British Empire, whose the British monarch has the constitutional title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England, a gold crown was placed atop the steeple. It was the sole steeple in a town that until then contained only Puritan meetinghouses that lacked steeples. The crown discreetly disappeared during the American Revolution.
In 1785, Trinity brought a pipe organ from the London builder Henry Holland, another item not then found in Puritan churches. In 1807, the top part of the steeple was replaced with a cupola, and the church expanded to make room for a choir.
The first wooden church's small wooden altar is still used for services today; it is located in the north side aisle chapel of the present building. In the wooden building, it was flanked by two Gothic arch-shaped tablets listing the Ten Commandments, which are presently displayed in Trinity's vestibule.
Second Stone Trinity Church 1814–1816