Trinity Lutheran Church is a

Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), also known as the Missouri Synod, is a traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 1.8 million members, it is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. The LC ...

(LCMS) congregation in

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, U.S. It is considered the "mother church" of the LCMS.

History

Located at 812 Soulard Street in the

Soulard __NOTOC__ Soulard ( ) is a historic neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri. It is the home of Soulard Farmers Market, the oldest farmers' market west of the Mississippi River. Soulard is one of ten certified local historic districts in the city of ...

neighborhood, it is the oldest Lutheran church of the

contiguous United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

. Its architectural style is

Gothic revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

. The church was founded in 1839 by German Lutheran immigrants from Saxony who had arrived in the United States in 1838. They traveled by boat from

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to St. Louis. Much of their party soon traveled south to

Perry County, Missouri Perry County is a county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,956. Its county seat is Perryville. The county was officially organized on November 16, 1820 (effective ...

; those who remained in St. Louis started a church that went for three years with neither name nor dedicated worship facility. The congregation first met at an

Episcopal Episcopal may refer to: *Of or relating to a bishop, an overseer in the Christian church *Episcopate, the see of a bishop – a diocese *Episcopal Church (disambiguation), any church with "Episcopal" in its name ** Episcopal Church (United State ...

church at Broadway and Walnut Streets. The Saxon Lutherans brought with them a library, church organ, and church bells. The congregation's school had roots dating to the 1830s when the Saxon children studied on their journey to the United States. Otto Hermann Walther was inducted as the first pastor on June 9, 1839. When he died in 1841, his brother Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther accepted the call to lead Trinity Lutheran. C. F. W. Walther's tenure at Trinity lasted from May 1841 until his death in 1887, during which time he also served as president of the LCMS and president of

Concordia Seminary Concordia Seminary is a Lutheran seminary in Clayton, Missouri. The institution's primary mission is to train pastors, deaconesses, missionaries, chaplains, and church leaders for the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). Founded in 1839, t ...

. The first building, on Lombard Street, was dedicated in 1842. A new church at Eighth and Soulard streets was built in 1865. That building was destroyed by the 1896 St. Louis tornado. The congregation rebuilt the sanctuary on the same property and was able to incorporate the pulpit and baptismal font that had survived the tornado. Trinity was known as the "mother church" to three other early Lutheran congregations in St. Louis; this group was called the ''Gesammtgemeinde'', or "general congregation". The others were Immanuel (1848 – 2012) in the Greater Ville neighborhood, Holy Cross Lutheran (1858) in the Gravois Park neighborhood, and Zion Lutheran (1860) in the

St. Louis Place St. Louis Place is a neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. It is bounded by Palm Street on the North, Cass Avenue on the South, North Florissant on the East, and North Jefferson on the West. It is home to National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's ...

neighborhood. The 150th anniversary of the LCMS was celebrated at Trinity in 1997. Restoration work on one of its mahogany window frames was completed in 2008.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.trinitystlouis.com, name=Official website
Build St. Louis
1839 establishments in Missouri Churches in St. Louis Culture of St. Louis Lutheran churches in Missouri Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod churches Religious organizations established in 1839