Southern Russian
Image represented is one of a related set (CHUR 0891), some of which may also be described in this new record; Facade (closeup) of church: top section of facadedome, and bell tower. Caption: "Southern Russian--Towering above the East New York Neighborhood at Pennsylvania and Glenmore Aves., Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church presents an interesting study of green-copper domes atop a red-brick six-story building. Here the Very Rev. John Semanitzky presides over a congregation of 400 families, all of Russian descent. The church was built in 1935, but was founded in 1909."
Brooklyn Public Library(Roman Meltzer, 1935)
Founded in 1909 by immigrants from Belarus, the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church commissioned this magnificent structure a few decades later, with construction completed in 1935. The church was designed in the traditional Russian Orthodox style by Roman Meltzer, a notable Russian-born architect. Before arriving in New York in 1921, Meltzer worked as an architect and decorator for several of the Imperial palaces in St. Petersburg, and was appointed court architect in 1903. He was best known for his Art Nouveau style interiors and for the wrought-iron grillework he designed for the Winter Palace entrance gates and garden railing. In the late 1950s, the interior of the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church was redecorated with murals by the famed iconographer Pimen M. Sofronoff. On the exterior, the church’s domed copper roofs, which have tarnished to reveal a beautiful green patina, have become neighborhood icons and serve as a beacon to those of the Russian Orthodox faith. After many years of coping with a diminishing congregation, the church’s membership has increased in recent years due to an influx of Russian immigrants to southern Brooklyn.
Historic Districts Council