This week our whole crew of staff, docents, vol­un­teers and interns were invit­ed to vis­it Trin­i­ty Luther­an Church in Soulard. Docent Den­nis has been a mem­ber of Trin­i­ty all of his life, and when he’s not giv­ing tours at Camp­bell House, he gives tours at church. Since Trin­i­ty was built around the same time the Camp­bells’ Sec­ond Pres­by­ter­ian Church was con­struct­ed in the mid 1860s, he thought it would be a good place to host our quar­ter­ly docent meeting.

Trin­i­ty is sig­nif­i­cant because it is the tra­di­tion­al Ger­man-her­itage Luther­an church in St. Louis. The con­gre­ga­tion was found­ed 1839 by Sax­on immi­grants who were flee­ing reli­gious per­se­cu­tion in Dres­den, and, after a stint in Per­ry Coun­ty, it has flour­ished in its Soulard loca­tion since 1864. To learn more about Trin­i­ty’s his­to­ry (and to see Den­nis in action!), take a look at this YouTube video.

Today, Trin­i­ty is a vibrant part of the neigh­bor­hood, serv­ing its spir­i­tu­al con­gre­ga­tion and the needs of the less for­tu­nate in the area. They open their doors to give the home­less a place to sleep dur­ing the cold­est months of the year,  they oper­ate a food pantry and soup kitchen, and they offer many more direct ser­vices to those most in need. Click here to read all of the impor­tant help Trin­i­ty offers the community.

After see­ing the sanc­tu­ary and some of the church’s trea­sures (a fan­cy, spark­ly chal­ice and an old church spire), Den­nis took a few of us into the steeple to get up close and per­son­al with the big bells that live there (not to men­tion the beau­ti­ful views of the neigh­bor­hood). With­out fur­ther ado, the pictures: