As it turns 100, this landmark SLC church is about more than prayers and preaching. It’s about people.

To a young Elaine Bapis, stepping into Salt Lake City’s Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral was like being teleported to a universe far, far away from her Ogden home.

She was mesmerized, she recalls, by the “sights, sounds and smells” she found there.

Walking up the center aisle of the landmark church, Bapis was drawn in by the giant icon screen with its exaggerated, two dimensional images, including a wide-eyed and mournful Mary with a miniature man — the Son of God — on her lap.

The girl, though, also loved the whiffs of incense and the echoes of Greek chants.

It became her spiritual home, the place where she met her future husband, where she was married, where her son and daughter were baptized and confirmed, where her sister was mourned, and where her grandchildren were baptized.

On Oct. 19, Bapis was to be on hand as fellow believers marked the 100th birthday of the red brick cathedral, a monumental testament to the faith of its builders.

Since the cathedral’s first liturgical services on Aug. 15, 1924, multiple generations of Greek Orthodox families have gathered under its dome for countless services, sacraments and celebrations. They will share their memories of the cherished church, of its choir, its dancers, its theater, its Greek school and Greek Festival, one of the largest ethnic festivals in the country.

As members, friends and dignitaries gather for a black-tie gala at the Grand America Hotel, they will remember Holy Trinity’s “legacy of faith.”

It has stood, writes the current priest, the Rev. Archimandrite George Nikas, in a centennial book, “as a beacon of hope and light in Salt Lake City for a century.”

Sacred history

In the early 20th century, fishers, miners, rail crews, grocers and restaurateurs trekked across the ocean and Plains to find work in the deserts of Utah, where they were strangers in a strange land — a place dominated by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

So these immigrants clustered together first in the Salt Lake Valley, creating Greek Town from 200 South to 400 South between 400 West and 600 West. Other enclaves sprouted near mines in Bingham Canyon and Price.

Soon, Greek-owned businesses — bakeries, drugstores, coffee shops, saloons — popped up in these neighborhoods.

And, in 1905, among their first communal endeavors was to build a church — Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church — at 439 S. 400 West.

It was small but a potent symbol of their faith in the midst of the Beehive State.

Within a decade, the Greek population had tripled and had outgrown the church, so leaders began to raise money for a larger building and look for a nearby lot. Parish leaders found a property on 300 West and bought it from the Sweet Candy Co. for $20,250, according to church records.

They then enlisted architects Hyrum Pope and Harold Burton (who also designed The Tribune building on Main Street and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, as well as the Cardston Latter-day Saint Temple in Alberta.)

During the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties, Greek Orthodox leaders dedicated the cathedral, using icons from the old church, with every member contributing something.

Since then, Holy Trinity has been renovated, renewed and expanded — stained-glass windows were added in the 1950s and it joined the National Register of Historic Places in the mid-70s — but through it all, it has been a community center where thousands of Greek believers had found a home.

The church’s Easter celebration was “the pinnacle of my childhood,” Trish Kapos recalls in the memorial book.

“Every girl would don a brand-new Easter dress for the occasion,” she writes. “We enjoyed lamb and pilaf, then danced the night away with music from the Chris Dokos band…and the party always seemed to come home with us by way of our smoky-smelling clothes.”

Glimpses of a forgotten past

The church museum sits snuggled below the cathedral’s main sanctuary as a visible reminder of the thriving Greek community and the story it tells.

Bill Rekouniotis, the church’s sexton for decades, eagerly reports that the space once housed a stage and theater company. It was where children learned Greek and theology, where choirs sang and dancers danced, and where members sat down together for coffee.

It was sometimes known as the “leaning room” because it had a “particular tilt” either on the floor or the ceiling, he says. At the bottom of the stairs, there is a glass case displaying dozens of porcelain dolls, each dressed in the traditional clothing of a different city or state. There is even one with the black clerical garb of a priest.

Rekouniotis grins as he boasts that Greek American actor Telly Savalas, best known as the lead in the crime drama series, “Kojak,” once visited the cathedral.

He knows not every visitor will have heard of Savalas, who died in 1994, he says with a laugh, but it seemed worthy of note.

The symbolism of faith

Holy Trinity “stands out in the cityscape, with its Byzantine architecture,” writes George Karahalios, the parish president of the Greek Orthodox Church of Greater Salt Lake, “...as a symbol of religious difference and diversity… and a vibrant place of worship.”

For many, it is a sanctuary and a refuge.

“If you look closely at the way the brick is laid in patterns on the south outside wall, it is really gorgeous,” says Bapis, who helped edit the centennial book. “The architectural design brings the domes together at different heights, and that takes your eye up to the cross — especially when light is shining on it.”

All of these curves “touching each other” beckon to her, Bapis says, hinting that “there’s something inside here.”

Besides icons, stained glass, domes and pews, that something, she says, is faith, courage, community and God.

And durability, adds Rekouniotis. After all, 100 years later, it’s still here.