Members of the parish decided to move from downtown Boston to the Back Bay in 1870. Under the leadership of Rector Phillips Brooks the young architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, was hired. He conceived a bold new design as a home for a thriving parish and a preacher with a national reputation. The church building helped to define Copley Square as a cultural center for the city, and was quickly honored as a landmark in American design.

Ask any architect, architectural historian, or critic and they’ll tell you: Trinity Church is a masterpiece of American architecture. And it has been considered so since its dedication in 1877, when it heralded the signature “Richardsonian Romanesque” style of its celebrated designer, and presented a bold, fresh new face and feeling for ecclesiastical architecture in America.