A ma­jor fund-rais­ing ini­tia­tive will be launched on Sun­day No­vem­ber 14th, in sup­port of restora­tion works at the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral in Port of Spain.

The Cathe­dral, a Na­tion­al Her­itage Site As­set of the Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go and ar­chi­tec­tur­al gem, was built in 1818 and con­se­crat­ed in 1823.  One of the city’s old­est sur­viv­ing struc­tures, its unique ar­chi­tec­tur­al mer­it and strate­gic ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion in the heart of Port-of-Spain means it has been used for many his­tor­i­cal and so­cial events of sig­nif­i­cant im­por­tance in the his­to­ry of this coun­try.

How­ev­er, the Cathe­dral is in dire need of restora­tion works to re­pair and re­fur­bish it, em­a­nat­ing out of the 2018 earth­quake, which dam­aged the struc­ture’s ex­te­ri­or and in­te­ri­or.

And the head of the An­gli­can church in Trinidad and To­ba­go is ap­peal­ing for the pub­lic’s sup­port of the project.

Dur­ing the launch to parish­ioners of the Dio­cese held three weeks ago, His Lord­ship The Right Rev­erend Claude Berke­ly, Bish­op of Trinidad and To­ba­go, said the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral is the Moth­er Church of the An­gli­can Dio­cese and the mag­nif­i­cent spir­i­tu­al home in the cap­i­tal city.

“The founders of our coun­try and hold­ers of the high­est of­fice in the land, have been at the heart of the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral Church, in­clud­ing Gov­er­nors, Pres­i­dents and Prime Min­is­ters. The leg­endary Gov­er­nor Wood­ford over­saw the con­struc­tion and de­sign of the Church and laid the cor­ner­stone in 1816. The Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral was con­se­crat­ed on Trin­i­ty Sun­day 30th May 1823 and the 200th An­niver­sary will be cel­e­brat­ed with the restora­tion of the Cathe­dral that sus­tained dev­as­tat­ing dam­age,” Bish­op Berke­ly said, as he not­ed the Cathe­dral’s great sig­nif­i­cance to the ta­pes­try of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Very Rev­erend Dr Shel­ley-Ann Tenia, Dean and Rec­tor of the Cathe­dral stat­ed the restora­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the near­ly 200-year-old build­ing re­quires spe­cial­ist con­trac­tors and ar­ti­sans to re­store it to its orig­i­nal state.  Ma­jor re­pair work is need­ed in the ar­eas of the roof/ceil­ing; in­te­ri­or walls; ex­te­ri­or walls; stained glass win­dows; floor­ing; bells; or­gans and var­i­ous elec­tri­cal, me­chan­i­cal and plumb­ing fix­tures.

Ac­cord­ing to the Dean and Rec­tor, there is mois­ture trapped with­in the walls and struc­tur­al tim­bers which has re­sult­ed in rot­ting and sig­nif­i­cant dam­age.

“The Cathe­dral con­tin­ues to suf­fer from ma­jor leaks with nu­mer­ous bro­ken roof slates, cracked gut­ters, and fail­ing old re­pairs that need se­ri­ous at­ten­tion. Veg­e­ta­tion growth has caused crack­ing and fur­ther de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the struc­ture, and the Church’s roof al­so suf­fers from ter­mite dam­age,” Dr Tenia ex­plained.

She re­vealed the earth­quakes in 1825, 1918, and more re­cent­ly 2018, had caused sub­stan­tial crack­ing and dam­age to walls, the steeple, and chan­cel roof, as well as the de­struc­tion of sev­er­al stone pin­na­cles.

Chair­man of the Dioce­san Restora­tion Fund Com­mit­tee, Sel­by Browne, thanked the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go for its al­lo­ca­tion of $20 mil­lion to as­sist with the works, as well as the tax con­ces­sions to Trinidad and To­ba­go all com­pa­nies that con­tribute to Her­itage Sites of the Na­tion­al Trust. He stat­ed while some costs were met through the Church’s fundrais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, ad­di­tion­al funds are need­ed to have the restora­tion com­plet­ed.

“The Cathe­dral con­tin­ues to suf­fer from a host of mi­nor and su­per­fi­cial dam­age that if left un­at­tend­ed, will con­tribute to fur­ther se­vere im­pacts in the fu­ture,” Mr Browne said.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly $70 mil­lion is need­ed to re­store the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral.

His Lord­ship Bish­op Claude Berkley is­sued an ap­peal for do­na­tions:

“This ma­jes­tic land­mark which has been the site of so much of our is­lands’ rich his­to­ry must be pre­served, to tell our na­tion’s sto­ry and to con­tin­ue as a bas­tion spir­i­tu­al en­light­en­ment, and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. With this in mind, please help us re­store the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral to its for­mer glo­ry.”

“The Ap­peal is for con­tri­bu­tions to this Her­itage Site, As­set of the Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go to con­tin­ue the his­tor­i­cal proud lega­cy for the next 200 years, for which we thank you in ad­vance,” he added.

In­for­ma­tion about the restora­tion de­tails, as well as on how to do­nate to the cause is avail­able on the Cathe­dral’s web­site at www.trin­i­tyrestora­tiontt.com.  Bank trans­fers al­so can be made to the First Cit­i­zens Bank, in the name of the In­cor­po­rat­ed Trustees of the An­gli­can Dio­cese of Trinidad and To­ba­go, ac­count num­ber 2696950.

The For­mal Launch of the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral Restora­tion Fund will be held on Sun­day 14th No­vem­ber 2021 at 5 pm at will be streamed on YouTube.