Holy Trinity Orthodox Church Altoona PA

We welcome you to celebrate the Divine Liturgy with us. Whether you are an Orthodox Christian, or this is your first visit to an Orthodox Church, we are pleased to have you with us. Although Holy Communion is reserved for baptized and chrismated (confirmed) Orthodox Christians, all are invited to receive the “antidoron” which is not a sacrament, but is a reminder of the “agape feast” that followed worship in the early Church. After the Divine Liturgy, please join us in the Church Hall for fellowship and refreshments. We hope you will return often to worship with us, to grow in Christ and in our Orthodox Faith.

 

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https://www.pittsburgh.goarch.org/communities  

 

 

Coming from I-99...

- Take exit 33 for 17th St
- Turn west onto 17th St
- Turn right onto 12th Ave
- Turn left onto 15th St and Holy Trinity is on the right (corner of 13th Ave and 15th St)  

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The Greek community was established in Altoona in 1898, when A. A. Notopoulos initiated the Greek Settlement. By 1933, as it celebrated its 35th anniversary, the Church was comprised of 400 men, women and children, 200 of who were American citizens. Subsequently covering a four-county area, its membership expanded to at least 500 persons. The Greek population peppered the Altoona landscape in those early immigrant days with restaurants, lunch rooms, bars and taverns, grocery stores, bakeries, business enterprises, and real estate investments.

When the church building fund reached a little more than $28,000, the Commonwealth was petitioned for a State Charter for the Hellenic Community of the Holy Trinity—Agia Trias—of Altoona, Pennsylvania. In 1924 the Mountain City Hebrew Reform Congregation sold its synagogue to Mr. Notopoulos and Charles Miles on behalf of the Greek Orthodox Congregation for $37,500, and the sale included the three adjacent houses.

When the building was converted to a Greek Orthodox Church it was described as the "most elegant church between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia." The crystal chandelier, imported from Czechoslovakia, was purchased by the Congregation in 1925. In the 1930s, Holy Trinity supported a resident priest with his family, a psalti and Greek School teacher. During World War II, women of the congregation supported the Greek War Relief effort by holding fundraisers and collecting clothing to be sent to Greece. When the war ended, returning servicemen were honored at a dance in the Penn Alto’s Logan Room.

In the decades after the war, when the employment situation in Altoona drastically changed, the population of Holy Trinity started a sliding decline, and with the exodus for employment elsewhere and natural attrition, the congregation reached a point when it could no longer afford a full-time resident priest. Continually since 1982, the Metropolis, through his Eminence Metropolitan Maximos, has blessed Holy Trinity with priests to serve the community on a Sundays-only basis, with special arrangements for other needs.

Excerpt from Blair County’s First Hundred Years 1846-1946… When in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century the Greek began to leave his homeland to emigrate to the western world, he brought with him his ideals, customs, and spiritual beliefs. Next to his home, the Greek lobes his church; in fact, his home and church are one and inalienable in his thoughts and daily life. He adheres loyally to his religion because he is born to it, because his church has limned its character in his soul and ramified its dogmas in every part of his spiritual being.

In the years directly following the turn of this century, a number of Greek families migrated to Altoona to establish their homes. There were approximately twelve families, and as there was no Orthodox place of worship in the city, they worshipped separately or in small groups in their individual homes. This was not the type of worship to which they were accustomed, and therefore not what they wanted to continue tin their newly organized colony. Desiring unity, the banded together under the leadership of Mr. Anastasius Notopolous and his wife, and the unorganized Greek colony soon became an organized Orthodox community.

By the late ’teens this movement was progressing rapidly. A third floor hall on the main street in the vicinity of Fifteenth Street was rented and converted into a chapel. Selected by his fellow Greeks to act as their religious guide, Mr. Notopoulos secured the first priest on the newly acquired chapel. Priests from the surrounding communities were invited to journey to Altoona to administer to the congregation. And so the church was established.

Naturally the congregation was desirous of owning and worshipping in a regular Orthodox church edifice. A church fund was inaugurated, which was soon large enough to justify looking for a site. At a general convention a committee was nominated with Mr. Notopoulos as chairman. A petition was made to the state for a charter. It was to be known as the Hellenic Community of the Holy Trinity Agia Trias of Altoona, Pennsylvania.

As the Hebrew Synagogue on the corner of Thirteenth Avenue and Fifteenth Street was being offered for sale this appeared to be an excellent opportunity, and negotiations were immediately made for its purchase. In 1924 this edifice, said to be one of the most elegant of its kind, became known as the Holy Orthodox Hellenic Church of the Holy Trinity.

Thus the struggling Greek colony of less than half a century ago is today one of the leading religious organizations in the community, numbering among its small congregation some of Altoona’s most prominent citizens. Although the enrollment has increased gradually, there are approximately fifty Greek families affiliated with the church at the present time.

Reference: Notopoulos, Victor A., "The Greek Orthodox Church", Blair County’s First Hundred Years 1846-1946, The Blair County Historical Society, Hollidaysburg, PA, 1945, pg 200-201.