Who
we are: History
First
Trinity was founded in 1851 by German immigrants, which conincided with the height
of the influx of German Lutherans, around
the middle of the nineteenth century.
A number of the more conservative
members of the German Evangelical Church of Washington, the only Protestant German-language
church in Washington, became increasingly concerned over the preaching of the
United Lutheran and Reformed confessions that had been united by the edict of
the State Church of Germany. A new constitution was prepared and signed
by 24 persons, and on November 2, 1851, after a service held in the Temperance
Hall on E Street, west of Ninth, the Trinity German Evangelical Lutheran Congregation
of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession of the City of Washington was formally organized.
The organizers voted to join the Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. Pastor
Willhelm Nordmann of Franklinsville, outside Baltimore, who preached at the November
service, was called in January of the following year and installed on Palm Sunday. In
February 1852, the site now occupied by First Trinity at Fourth and E streets,
NW was purchased for $1,062.60. The congregation continued to worship in the Temperance
Hall until August 1852, when a temporary meeting place was completed for church
and parsonage and a school building on two lots adjoining the church on E Street.
The lots were purchased and the building erected, by charter member George Wilner
with a five year $200 per year rental agreement until the new church was ready
for occupancy. The August 1852 dedication ceremony must have been something
to behold as the congregation, led by the children and pastors in their robes
and 70 members from St. Paul's Congregation of Baltimore marched the six blocks
down E Street from the Temperance Hall to Fourth and E. The cornerstone
for the church building was laid in October 1856, and the new building was formally
dedicated on November 22, 1857. The church steeple was added in 1867. The congregation
supported a parochial school for the first years of its existence. The school
was discontinued in 1902 by which time almost all the members had moved to the
suburbs and it was not feasible to provide transportation for the children. It
is interesting to note that English was not taught in the school until 1859. Church
services were conducted in German. This gradually resulted in a breach and in
1876 a group of members was released and organized the English language Grace
Lutheran Church. A similar separation followed in 1892 when a number of members
left to form Christ Lutheran Church. Grace and Christ churches are located near
each other on 16th Street, NW in Washington. The first English services at Trinity
were conducted on Sunday evenings in 1898.
Through the efforts and support
for the congregation in the decades following World War I, two mission churches
were formed, leading to the organization of Trinity in Mt. Rainier, Maryland in
1931 and Bethlehem in Southeast Washington in 1942.
In the years after World
War II, Washington experienced the exodus to the suburbs that beset almost all
American cities. Faced with a critical decision, the congregation saw its ministry
and mission in the city and voted to stay downtown. The old structure was razed
and the new church erected. Dedication services were held November 22, 1959. In
the 1970's, a group of Lutheran congregations broke away from the Lutheran Church/
Missouri Synod (LC-MS) and formed the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches
(AELC). In 1977, First Trinity applied for membership in the East Coast
Synod of the AELC and was accepted. In 1988, the AELC, the American Lutheran Church
(ALC) and the Lutheran church in America (LCA) merged into one large Lutheran
Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). First Trinity was one
of the few congregations in Lutheranism that had dual membership with LCMS and
ELCA until January 2000 when LCMS removed First Trinity from its congregational
roster.
| 
