I was pastor at Most Holy Trinity from 1991 to 2004. In that time we completely restored the interior of the church and its Jardine pipe organ. The Church was consecrated in 1863 in the middle of the Civil War and the second bishop of the Diocese of Savannah, Bishop John Barry is buried under the church with about 12 priests all from the 1800’s. He was pastor of Most Holy Trinity from 1845 to 1857 before being named Savannah’s second bishop. Unfortunately he died in 1859 in Paris, France. He laid the cornerstone for the new church building, the original going back to 1810. His body was brought back to Savannah and buried there, but later exhumed when Most Holy Trinity was completed and buried in the crypt of the church in an above ground tomb.
The Jardine organ could not be sent from New York due to the blockade of the south by the north. It arrived in 1866 after the war and funding for it came from the Priest-poet of the Confederacy who was stationed at Most Holy Trinity at that time, Father Abram Ryan.
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From 1864-1865 Father Ryan was the priest for St Michael Church in Robertson County, TN in my hometown of Flewellyn. Founded cir. 1838, it is the oldest Catholic Church still in use in the state although our family home, also still inhabited by family members, was erected some time before that in 1792. Father Ryan High School in Nashville was and remains a highly regarded secondary school.
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