History

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Portland, Oregon was founded in 1907 by the Greek immigrant community of Portland and the surrounding region, the first Greek Orthodox church established in the Pacific Northwest. That same year groundbreaking took place for the original church edifice at SE 17th and Taggart Streets, and by 1910 the stone church, as it came to be known, was completed, giving the Portland Greek community its first permanent house of worship.

The Orthodox presence in Portland actually predates the formal founding of Holy Trinity by more than a decade. In November 1892, Father Sebastian Dabovich baptized two Greek children in what the Oregonian described as the first Orthodox ceremony of its kind in the city, noting that the Greek colony then comprised only about twenty members. By the 1890s organized efforts had begun to establish a permanent Orthodox chapel, and early records document a Holy Trinity Greek Russian Mission at East 20th and Morrison Streets, reflecting the cooperative spirit between Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians in the Pacific Northwest before the two communities developed their own separate institutional lives.

As the twentieth century progressed and the Portland Greek community grew and spread across the city, the original stone church became insufficient for the expanding congregation. In 1951 groundbreaking took place for a new church edifice at 31st and Glisan Streets, the location that has been the Cathedral's home ever since. The parish continued to grow into one of the most vibrant and diverse Greek Orthodox communities in the United States, sustaining a rich liturgical life, an active educational program, and extensive outreach and service ministries in the Portland community.

On May 5, 2007, during the Cathedral's centennial celebration, Metropolitan Gerasimos of San Francisco announced that Holy Trinity would be elevated to Cathedral status, the seat of the Metropolis of San Francisco for the Pacific Northwest. The Cathedral Elevation Service took place on October 21, 2007, formally recognizing a community that had shaped Orthodox Christian life in the Pacific Northwest for a century.

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral at 3131 NE Glisan Street in Portland serves the Orthodox Christian faithful of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest as a Cathedral of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, the mother church of Greek Orthodoxy in the region and a welcoming home for Orthodox Christians and inquirers of all backgrounds.