History

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Columbia, South Carolina was established in 1936, when a small group of Greek immigrants settled in the Midlands region of South Carolina and began worshipping together, forming the nucleus of what would become the center of Greek Orthodox life in the state capital. By 1939 the modest congregation had acquired a frame house on which to hold church services, and by 1942 the parish, then known as the Assumption Greek Orthodox Parish, had officially joined the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, giving it its canonical standing.

As the community grew through the postwar years, the need for a proper house of worship became pressing. In 1949 a new church was constructed at the corner of Sumter and Calhoun Streets, designed by the respected South Carolina architect Heyward Singley in a Colonial Revival style with fluted pilasters and a broken pediment in the vestibule, a classical and elegant building that served the congregation for more than six decades. With the construction of the new church, the congregation changed its name to the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity, the name it has carried ever since.

By the turn of the twenty-first century the growing parish required yet again a larger home. In March 2011 a magnificent new Byzantine-style cathedral was consecrated in a Thyranoixia, or door-opening ceremony, presided over by Metropolitan Alexios of Atlanta and Archbishop Demetrios of America, completing a journey from a small frame house to one of the most ornate Orthodox Christian sanctuaries in the American South. The original 1949 sanctuary remains on the premises and continues to serve the parish for smaller services, preserving a tangible link to the founders who built it. In 1988 the parish launched its annual Columbia Greek Festival, which has grown into one of the most beloved Hellenic cultural events in South Carolina, drawing thousands of visitors each year to partake in Greek culture, food, and fellowship in the heart of the capital city.

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral at 1931 Sumter Street in Columbia serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of the South Carolina Midlands as a Cathedral of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a community that grew from a handful of humble Greek immigrants into a cathedral that welcomes people into the downtown quarter of one of the South's great capital cities.