Who Is Trinity?

Trinity is situated between West Virginia University on its northern side and the Historic District of Downtown Morgantown. We are a welcoming, liturgical, prayer-centered church; a family church, where our life together is celebrated around the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, Christian education for children, and fellowship. We have an active chapter of the Order of the Daughters of the King, a women’s devotional society in the Episcopal Church devoted to prayer, service, and evangelism.

Our members seek to know God’s love and to extend the kindness and generosity of Christ to those around us. We wish to be builders of community. Through service to others, we will continue to nurture our personal bonds and to strengthen our connection with God and the world around us. We are committed to our spiritual development as individuals and to the vibrancy of the parish as a whole. We strive to engage parishioners of all ages and backgrounds so that together we may experience the supportive and healing love of God in Christ.

Our congregation was founded in 1819. The original church’s construction was completed in 1822, a property shared by Presbyterians and Episcopalians. The two communities shared the church until a disagreement suspended Episcopal use of the building from 1861-1874. The present church moved to its current location in 1900 and in 1952 a new church building was finished, the fifth construction housing the Episcopal community in Morgantown.

The current Trinity Episcopal Church building was designed by the renowned Philip H. Frohman, the chief architect of Washington National Cathedral, and was dedicated in March 1953. The church represents Frohman’s expertise in English Neo-Gothic style at a much-reduced scale. The sanctuary is in the traditional shape of a Latin cross has a stone floor, smooth plastered walls, windows framed with limestone surrounds, an open timber ceiling, and intricately carved oak furnishings. Significantly for this application is that it has a slate roof. Trinity has impressive stained-glass windows composed primarily of Blenko glass manufactured in Milton, West Virginia. At Frohman’s instigation four stained glass studios are represented: that of Burnham; Pittsburgh Stained Glass Studios; Reynolds, Francis, and Rohnstock; and Willet.

There is a Latin saying at the heart of Anglican theology: lex orandi, lex credenda (“the law of prayer is the law of belief,” or simply, “praying shapes believing”). What we believe in the Episcopal Church is encapsulated in our Liturgy. We believe in the authority of scripture as a divinely inspired product of sacred tradition, containing all things necessary for salvation, to be held together and interpreted with God’s gift of reason and the same sacred tradition passed down from the Apostolic Age. We believe in the authority of the Ecumenical Councils and the historic Creeds of the Church. The Apostolic Succession through the historic Episcopate (a continuous succession of bishops stretching back to Christ’s apostles) is at the heart of our ecclesiology.

At every celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Sunday and other special holy days, we recite an ancient statement of faith called the Nicene Creed. Since the 4th century, this has been the Church’s authoritative standard of doctrine. At other times—in our daily prayers, during Baptism and Confirmation, and as part of weddings and funerals—we recite the Apostles Creed, developed from an even older catechism. These confessional statements stand at the core of our beliefs:

• That there is one God in three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—who created heaven and earth.
• That Jesus Christ is the Son of God—both fully human and fully divine, made incarnate by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary
• That Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; and that he descended to hades to harrow the righteous to paradise before he was raised from the dead on the third day
• That the resurrected Jesus appeared to and instructed his apostles, giving them the Great Commission before he ascended bodily into heaven where the incarnate, crucified and risen Jesus now sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty
• That Jesus will come again in power and the glory to judge both the living and the dead, and that his established kingdom—heaven on earth—will be never-ending
• That according to Jesus’ promise to his apostles, the Holy Spirit descended on them ten days after his ascension, filling them with grace and power to proclaim the Gospel, to perform healing miracles and cast out demons in the name of Jesus, and to administer the Sacraments that Jesus left to his church that we might follow his Great Commission (to go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit)
• That the Church Jesus established with his apostles and by the power of the Holy Spirit is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic
• That the communion of saints is mystically knit together in Holy Baptism and that all the saints of God are alive in Christ
• That in Jesus, there is the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting

We believe that all people were created in the image and likeness of God (Imago Dei), and that the mission of God (Missio Dei) was to restore fallen humanity to the fullness of our created dignity and reconciliation with God the Father through the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ (justification) so that baptized into the Body of Christ, we may work out our salvation and unification with God by our imitation of Christ (Imitatio Dei) by the grace of the Holy Spirit (sanctification/theosis/deification). 

This process unfolds in our lives by participating in the Body of Christ through the Sacraments (Baptism, Communion Confession, Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination, and Unction/Healing); the Liturgy of the Church (the Holy Eucharist and the Daily Office); personal prayer, fasting, and devotions, including almsgiving and corporal acts of mercy in service to the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the imprisoned (Matthew 25:31-46). 

Over the last few decades, the Episcopal Church has engaged in careful study of the scriptures and theology concerning the important question of human sexuality and marriage. In 2012, our denomination authorized the blessing of same-sex civil unions on a trial basis. In 2015, after same-sex marriage became legally possible in the United States, full access to the sacrament of marriage was made possible for all couples in the Episcopal Church. Our diocese is committed to inclusive orthodoxy: we adhere strictly to the core ancient doctrines that are essential to the Christian faith and affirm the Episcopal Church’s careful discernment to radically include all Christians in the fullness of the Church’s sacramental life. The sacramental rite of Holy Matrimony is fully available to all members.

The Episcopal Church is one of the 42 Provinces of the global Anglican Communion that developed from Colonial Anglicanism. With the Revolutionary War and the founding of the United States, formerly colonial Anglicans also founded a new denomination in the same theological and liturgical tradition of the Church of England, but with ecclesiological and political independence from the British Crown. While the majority of Episcopal Church parishes and dioceses are located within the geographical boundaries of the United States, there are dioceses and parishes of the Episcopal Church located all over the world.

The Episcopal Church’s official liturgical text is the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Each Province of the Anglican Communion has its own Prayer Book. Our denomination is geographically broken up into regions called dioceses, which consist of parishes throughout that territory overseen by a bishop. The bishops of Episcopal dioceses share in fellowship with one another as members of the House of Bishops, which is convened by the Presiding Bishop (the Primate, or figurehead, of our denomination). Life and governance in the Episcopal Church involves bishops, priests, deacons, and laypeople at the parish, diocesan, and denominational levels.

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