Our Churches
Holy Trinity Church
Australia's first Greek Orthodox church
Founded in 1898 in the heart of Surry Hills, Holy Trinity (Αγία Τριάδα) is the oldest Greek Orthodox church in Australia. It has served Sydney's Greek community for more than a century, through migration waves, through generations of weddings, baptisms and funerals, through the building's own quiet endurance.
After major restoration works completed in 2024, the church reopened to the parish it has always belonged to.
Visit Holy Trinity
Location
626 Bourke & Ridge Sts, Surry Hills 2010
Priest
Very Rev Fr. Thomas Giantzis
Phone
0424 073 098
Feast Day
Pentecost Sunday
A church built by the early Greek community
Holy Trinity began with a need and a piece of donated land. In the late 1890s, Orthodox Greeks in Sydney had no church of their own, services were held in St James Parish Hall, courtesy of the Anglican community, conducted by Archimandrite Dorotheos Bakaliaros, the first Greek Orthodox priest in Australia.
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In 1897, Ioannis Cominos donated the land. Within six months, 390 pounds had been raised by the small Orthodox community to build on it. The foundation stones were laid on 29 May 1898, a date chosen deliberately. It is the day Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, and it has since become the founding date of every Holy Trinity church in the world.
For decades, Holy Trinity and St Sophia Cathedral in Paddington stood on opposite sides of an ecclesiastical dispute that ran through the Greek community of Sydney for much of the early twentieth century. The two churches were finally reconciled in April 1945, together becoming the Greek Orthodox Community of Sydney and NSW, the organisation that cares for the church today.
In 2024, after years of structural decline, Holy Trinity reopened following an extensive heritage restoration: masonry arches, corroded steel beams, columns, the bell tower membranes, the stained glass windows and the painted Greek inscription across the rose window — all carefully repaired. The building stands now much as it has stood for more than a hundred years, ready for the next generation.
The 2024 restoration
The 2024 works were led by BellMont Facade Engineering with ARA Building Services and Ardex Australia, in partnership with the Greek Orthodox Community of NSW. The full conservation report, submitted to the National Trust (NSW) Heritage Awards, documents the masonry, structural, and stained glass repairs undertaken.