TRINIDAD, Colorado (STPNS) -- A tradition of about 140 years ends next Sunday when the Trinity Episcopal Church of Trinidad officially closes its doors and disbands its congregation due to rising operating costs and declining attendance.

Trinity Church is currently located at 119 Colorado Ave., a space it has occupied for more than 120 years.

A statement put out by the church read, "Due to the decrease in the number of worshippers attending services, and the steadily increasing expense of operating and maintaining the building, the congregation and the Dioceses of Colorado have agreed that the Episcopal presence in Colorado must come to an end."



Vicar Janet Rawlins estimated that the congregation had dwindled to less than 10 regularly attending members. "There's no cut-off point," Rawlins said. "No one is shutting us down. It's just the circumstances as they are make it necessary to end over 120 years of the Episcopal presence in Trinidad).

According to a short history written by a former vicar of Trinity Church, Louis Foubare, the congregation was founded June 24, 1868. Rawlins, however, cites an entry in the church registry as dating the congregation's founding to the 1872 visit of a missionary priest from Denver. Services were initially held inside Skelly's Dance Hall with the hall's gaming tables pushed back against the walls. According to Foubare's history, it was in September 1871 when the Episcopal Mission Board sent Rev. John C. Fitzman to start regular services, open a Sunday school and begin confirming parishioners. Services were held inside the houses of the congregation members and later in the town courthouse. In time, Fitzman also ran the local newspaper, The Enterprise, practiced law, founded the Tillotson Academy and an Episcopal cemetery on Pine Street.

Trinity Church was completed in the spring of 1888 and dedicated in late May of that year.

The last full-time vicar, Fr. Harvey Woolverton, retired in 1979, and Trinity Church had to content itself with lay readers and the occasional supply priests. The Episcopal Church's Standing Committee and Commission on Ministry eventually granted Trinity Church the right to ordain persons from within the congregation. A special clause within Canon Law allows for the modifying of typical educational requirements for ordination in cases where congregations are in distant or isolated communities.

Congregation members Foubare and Rawlins volunteered for ordination, were approved by the congregation and began four years of doctrinal study that resulted in their respective ordinations as deacons in August 1985. Continuing their studies, they were then made vicars in February 1986, the first to be ordained in Trinity Church and the first in Colorado to be ordained under the clause allowing for ordination in special cases.

"I'd always been an Episcopalian, and when we moved to Trinidad (from Nebraska in 1973), I started attending the church," Rawlins said.

"We were introduced to the concept of the canonical requirements (allowing for the ordaining of lay members) by a supply priest...we got approval from the dioceses and the bishop."

According to Rawlins, the concept of ordaining laypersons, no longer part of Canon Law, originated in Alaska. "Remote communities (utilized the concept)...or sacramental services wouldn't be available for long periods of time," she said, noting that such ordinations also occurred in New Mexico.

Foubare, a retired hospital administrator, eventually moved to Texas for family health reasons, leaving Rawlins the sole vicar of Trinity Church, a non-stipendary position she has held for 22 years and will continue to hold till the official disbanding of the church this coming Sunday.

The nearest surviving Episcopal churches are in La Veta and Pueblo. Rawlins stated that she will recommend to her remaining parishioners to attend local Lutheran churches. "The Episcopal and Lutheran churches have a concordance," she said. "There are some Episcopal-Lutheran groups in the country."

The final service is scheduled for Sunday at 5 p.m.