Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church is located at 13355 Hillcrest Rd, in North Dallas.
A newly erected state historical marker in front of the church reads as follows:
"Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church
In the early 20th century, unrest and subsequent regional turmoil in Greece forced hundreds of thousands of Greeks to leave their homes, often for America. A year after the Hermes Society, a Greek-American benevolent society, was formed, the Dallas community recognized the pressing need to establish an Eastern Orthodox Church. On November 18, 1915, a charter was signed and granted to create Holy Trinity for public worship.
By 1916, with the help of many donations and a loan, construction began at the Riggs Street location, the first site of Holy Trinity. There are very few records of the construction as the wood-frame structure was designed to be temporary as many Greeks in Dallas meant to return to Greece. On July 18, 1937, Holy Trinity at Riggs Street was consecrated. In the late 1930s, Archbishop Athenagoras (later Patriarch) visited Dallas. By this time, a community meeting hall was added and a nearby house served as the priest’s house.
During WWI and WWII, Holy Trinity contributed to the war effort through military service and services at home. Following the war, Dallas grew quickly and the church purchased property and built a new church at Swiss Avenue and Apple Street. There the church flourished, initiating and participating in numerous church and community activities, including choir, youth activities, stage productions, concerts, the annual Greek Food Festival, monthly publications and much more. In the 1990s, the church moved to this location. Through spiritual guidance, cultural celebrations and involvement in the community, Holy Trinity helped cement a successful and growing Greek population in Dallas.
(2017)
Marker is property of the State of Texas"
From the Church website: (
visit link)
"Welcome to Holy Trinity!
The Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, Dallas, was founded in 1915 by immigrants from Orthodox countries, predominantly Greece.
Our first church home was in South Dallas at Riggs and Sanger. In the early 1950’s, the parish relocated to Swiss and Apple, where it remained until 1992.
The beautiful Byzantine Church of Holy Trinity is presently located at the southwest corner of Hillcrest and Alpha in North Dallas.
We are part of the Metropolis Of Denver, a metropolis of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, which is an eparchy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
OUR ICONOGRAPHY PROJECT
Our Iconography Project
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Iconography Project
When Prince Vladimir the Great (Saint Vladimir of Kiev) was seeking a religion for his people, the pagan Kievan Rus, he sent emissaries to study and report on the religious traditions of all his neighbor countries.
When the emissaries returned from Constantinople, and described the Orthodox worship at the great cathedral of Hagia Sophia, they are reported to have said, "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth," and of the beauty of the church, "we know not how to tell of it."
We know longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth. The visitor to an Orthodox church, on stepping inside, should ideally feel transported into a new world, one that affirms in the most forceful way that the beauty of God's creation is a manifestation of His glory and His love for mankind. The iconography that traditionally adorns the interior of an Orthodox church plays a major role in this affirmation.
Icons have also traditionally played an educative role in the Orthodox church, conveying pictorially the lessons conveyed verbally in the Gospels—art that is "a vehicle of the Gospel teaching," in the words of Leonid Ouspensky ("The Meaning and Language of Icons").
Part of our iconography, in progress at the iconographer's studio.And perhaps most importantly, on a theological level, Orthodox icons—especially icons of Christ—are statements affirming the Incarnation: "The undepictable Word of the Father became depictable when He took flesh of you, O Theotokos" (Kontakion for the Sunday of Orthodoxy).
It is with these traditions in mind that our church embarked on a major project to complete the interior ceiling iconography of Holy Trinity. To the church's current iconography, the new project added 35 full-panel settings of events from the life of Christ, the Old Testament, and the Tradition of the Church; 61 full-body saints; and 20 "medallion" depictions of the saints. If you cannot visit in person to see this beautiful installation, you can see a rendering of what the completed project looks like here.
The iconographer was Leonidas Diamontopoulos, the same iconographer by whose hand the church's original iconography was written. Mr. Diamontopoulos prepared the icons in his studio in Greece, and came to Dallas to oversee their installation. The pictures on this page show some of the icons "in progress" at Mr. Diamontopoulos's studio. The pictures were taken by Father Christopher Constantinides, our former proistamenos, during a visit to Mr. Diamontopoulos's studio in the summer of 2015.
The first phase of the project—the installation of icons in the altar area and the two transepts—was completed in September 2015. The second phase, which installed the icons in the remainder of the nave, was completed in September and October of 2017."