The Holy Trinity Church
In 1905, Utah's first Eastern Orthodox church -- Holy Trinity -- was dedicated. The church, which fronted 4th South, became the center of spiritual life for many eastern and southern Europeans who lived in Salt Lake City and around the Intermountain West. But it was Utah's Greek community that was the driving force behind the construction and consecration of the church.
Most of Utah's early Greek settlers were men who felt the duty to provide for their families, leaving poverty-stricken Greece in the hopes of finding temporary jobs in America. Labor agents for railroads and western mining companies preyed on these desperate men, luring them away to the Intermountain West from ports like New York and San Francisco almost as soon as they got off the boat from Greece. Typically, the agent would first charge the new immigrant an excessively steep fee to place him in a job, and then collect a one-dollar kickback from each month's salary. One particularly repugnant labor agent, Leonidas Skliris, nicknamed the "Tsar of the Greeks," lived in an opulent apartment in the Hotel Utah and publicly flaunted his diamond jewelry, bought with money he collected from poor immigrant workers.
In the initial years of Greek immigration to Utah, very few women came with their husbands and fathers. In fact, in 1910, fewer than 10 Greek women lived in the state. Over time, though, Greek men began staying longer in America, and started bringing family members to their ethnic neighborhood on Salt Lake's west side. Holy Trinity soon became a place for family worship where children were baptized, young men and women were married, and whole families were given the sacraments. Eventually, the community outgrew the old church and a new one had to be built. The new church -- also named Holy Trinity -- still stands on the corner of 3rd West and 3rd South.