On Leroy Avenue in the northeast corner of Buffalo, just east of Fillmore, a single brick and terra-cotta church draws visitors who have heard it is one of the finest examples of twelfth-century Lombard Romanesque architecture in the United States. Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic Church, a small parish of roughly two hundred families, has worshipped inside that building since its dedication in 1928 and has grown into an anchor of the surrounding Fillmore-Leroy neighborhood through a Wednesday food pantry, weekly bingo, an active docent program, and an unusually long roster of parish organizations and outreach partners.
A Church Built from Medieval Bricks and a Pastor's Italian Dream
The current church building was not the parish's first. Blessed Trinity was established in 1906 by Bishop Charles H. Colton, who assigned Father John F. Pfluger as its first pastor. The inaugural Mass was celebrated on July 8, 1906, in a third-floor apartment above a grocery store on Forest Avenue (now Dewey Avenue), where sixty worshippers contributed thirteen dollars and fifty-one cents to the first collection. A year later the parish was incorporated and built a three-story combination church, hall, and school on Le Roy Avenue, the Gesl farmland, with stone dug out for the basement foundation. The Sisters of St. Joseph, walking each morning from their motherhouse on Main Street near Humboldt Parkway, began teaching the eighty pupils who enrolled in 1908.
By 1911 the parish had grown to four hundred families, and by 1919 the school had attracted 308 pupils. The need for a larger church, however, was pressing, and it fell to Father Albert F. Fritton, the second pastor, to imagine it. Fritton had traveled in Northern Italy and admired the Lombard Romanesque churches there. He hired architects Chester Oakley and Albert Schallmo and, in 1922, gathered about 150 parishioners to discuss drawings of a new church he predicted would be "one of the finest in Buffalo. We shall be proud of it, the city will be proud of it, and God will be proud of it." Children in the parish sold bricks at ten cents apiece to help raise money. The cornerstone was laid and blessed on August 7, 1923.
The new church took five years to build and cost more than half a million dollars - $513,000 - exhausting parish savings and forcing two separate mortgages of $150,000 each. It was dedicated by Bishop William Turner on June 3, 1928. Fritton died in 1933, never seeing the parish's building debt retired; it was finally paid off in 1953, and the altars and the entire building were consecrated in a five-hour Mass that was televised in Buffalo.
The walls are two feet thick and built of handmade, unmolded "Harvard" bricks produced in Exeter, New Hampshire, by descendants of French brickmakers using medieval techniques. The bricks vary in color from coal-black to rich reds and oranges, and the bricklayers were taught their craft by the architect himself so they could work odd-shaped pieces into patterns such as the herringbone design on the apse and the small designs within the facade and nave arches. Terra cotta, made in Crum Lynne, Pennsylvania, was used for windows, doorways, floors, columns, and arches; it took two men roughly two years to set all the ornamental pieces.
Most striking of all is the iconography. More than two thousand symbols and pictures, worked out by Rev. Thomas Plassmann, OFM, president of St. Bonaventure College, cover the building. They speak of nature, science, history, and morals; signs of the zodiac, rivers, winds, trades, virtues, and vices all appear, including twelve on the facade illustrating tenets of the Apostles' Creed and an All-Saints procession of more than one hundred angels and saints rising through the great dome, painted by Joseph Mazur. Visitors, the parish warns, may need repeated visits to absorb it all.
The parish school closed in 1975 after the Sisters of St. Joseph could no longer staff it. The building still stands at 307 Leroy Avenue and now houses Buffalo City Ballet and boxing programs. In 1977 Blessed Trinity became the first building declared a landmark by the City of Buffalo's new Landmark and Preservation Board, and in 1979 was accepted onto the National Register of Historic Places. It is also a New York State Historic Site. A 1927 Tellers-Kent pipe organ, originally installed when the church was built, was renovated in 2022 and is still played for Mass and special programs.
Mass, Reconciliation, and a Sunday Morning Online
Weekend Masses are celebrated Saturday at 4:30 p.m. and Sunday at 10:00 a.m., with Reconciliation on Saturdays at 4:00 p.m., just before the vigil Mass. Weekday Masses are offered Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11:00 a.m. in the Daily Mass Chapel; Holy Day schedules are published as they are set. The Sunday 10:00 a.m. Mass is livestreamed on the parish Facebook page, where viewers who follow the page receive a notification when the stream begins. Weekly bulletins, in PDF form, are posted online as well.
Music at the Saturday vigil is provided by Music Minister Elizabeth Clay, who also serves as cantor. At the Sunday liturgy a volunteer adult choir sings from the loft, accompanied by the Tellers-Kent organ, from mid-September through the Feast of Corpus Christi, and also at Holy Week services and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Masses. Rehearsals are held weekly from September through May.
Bishop Robert L. Gebhard, Jr. - Father Bob to his parishioners - has served as Administrator of Blessed Trinity since October 2020, when he was appointed temporary administrator. A native of Buffalo, he previously served as Pastor of St. James Parish, Buffalo, St. John Vianney in Orchard Park, and on the faculty of Christ the King Seminary before its closing, and was Vicar of the Northwest Central Vicariate and Coordinator of the Catholic Urban Outreach Network. He is joined by Patricia Dyer as Pastoral Associate and Religious Education Coordinator, Music Minister Elizabeth Clay, Trustees Homer Dick and Nancy Langer, Bookkeeper Phil Van Dette, Secretary Barbara Sercu, and Joseph Strusienski in Maintenance and Operations.
The Catholic Central Food Pantry and a Welcome at the Door
The Catholic Central Food Pantry has operated continuously on Buffalo's east side since 1991 and moved to the parish in August 2013, expanding service to residents of zip codes 14214 and 14215. It runs every Wednesday from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. out of St. Charles Hall at 350 Dewey Avenue. Visitors help themselves to carbohydrates, grains, proteins, canned vegetables, bread, sweets, and infant care items in household portions sufficient for three days; a stock of gently used clothing is also available. No one is turned away, but guests from the two zip codes must show identification and sign a statement of eligibility. The pantry is staffed entirely by volunteers, including students seeking community-service hours, and its food is supplied through FeedMore WNY under federal and New York State grants, plus donations from parishioners and Food Shuttle of WNY. Coordinator Dan Korchowsky can be reached at 716-217-0816 or by email at ccfp14215@gmail.com.
St. Charles Hall, the parish social center and school annex built in 1958, also hosts the parish's primary fundraiser: Bingo, every Thursday evening. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., concessions at 7:30, and games begin at 8:00 p.m. Players must be eighteen or older, and carryover jackpots are posted on the parish Facebook page. The hall is wheelchair accessible and has its own entrance on the right side of the building, with ample parking behind it and adjacent to the church's east-side ramp. Mass intentions may be requested through the rectory for $15 each.
Faith Formation for Children, Teens, and Adults
Patricia Dyer coordinates Faith Formation, which the parish describes as "not just for kids any more." Religious education runs from pre-kindergarten through high school, with public and charter school children meeting once a week and a Family Faith Formation track for families whose schedules do not fit traditional class times. The fee is $10 per child, capped at $50 per family. Children's Liturgy of the Word is offered during Mass on the first Sunday of each month, and since April 2026 Bible stories for children six months to four years old are told during the Scripture reading on the second Sunday, with parents welcome. Monthly enrichment packets are distributed to all children.
Sacramental preparation includes Baptism classes for parents of children under seven (held several times a year, with a $10 fee), First Communion for second graders and older (parents attend with their children, all classes held at Blessed Trinity), and Confirmation for high school students who have completed at least two years of religious education. Confirmation is celebrated in even-numbered years, with a service project and retreat required. The Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) and the children's equivalent (OCIC) are offered for unbaptized adults and children over seven, baptized Christians from other traditions seeking full communion, and Catholics who missed Confirmation; sessions are ongoing and tailored to each person's situation.
Adult enrichment includes Scripture Studies on the Letters of St. Paul (currently on brief hiatus), Tuesdays in person at St. Martin de Porres, and a Sunday study at Ss. Columba-Brigid. The Subs 'N Suds lecture series at St. Charles Hall invites speakers on contemporary topics, with free-will offerings supporting the Father George Reger Faith Formation Program.
Parish Organizations with a Century of Service
The Ladies Sodality, the oldest parish organization, came into being shortly after the parish was founded in 1906 and remains open to any woman of the parish. The Sodality hosts social events and fundraisers, supports parish social justice efforts, and provides a setting for women to share faith and emotional support. It meets five or six times a year, usually on the first Sunday after Mass, and designates one officer to sit on the Parish Council.
The Holy Name Society has met since June 1909. Its purpose is to honor the Holy Name of Jesus Christ and to assist members in growing in holiness; for more than a century the men of the Society have also raised funds for parish projects. Any Catholic man is welcome to join.
The Parish Council brings together clergy, religious, and laity to advise the pastor and guide parish ministry. It includes representatives of the main parish organizations, the trustees, the pastoral staff, and three-year elected members of the congregation, and operates through four committees: Buildings and Properties, Finance, Spiritual Life, and Community Life.
Liturgical ministries include Eucharistic Ministers (assisting with the distribution of Holy Communion at Mass and to the homebound), Ministers of the Word (serving as lectors), Ushers (greeting, taking up the collection, directing Communion, distributing bulletins), Sacristans (caring for the sanctuary, sacristy, and light cleaning), and a Bereavement Committee that prepares funeral luncheons in the parish hall after a parishioner's Mass of Christian Burial or Memorial Mass. Pastoral Outreach is offered to parishioners who are hospitalized, homebound, or in senior care; family members are encouraged to contact the rectory in the event of an illness or admission.
Outreach Beyond the Parish
Blessed Trinity parishioners participate in several wider community ministries. As a support congregation for Family Promise of Western New York, they purchase and deliver groceries to the Family Promise shelter at Ss. Columba-Brigid, one of only two emergency shelters in Erie County that allow fathers and teenage sons to stay with their family. The parish is also involved with FLARE (Fillmore-Leroy Area Residents, Inc.), the neighborhood association that grew out of 1970s federal block-grant work and is now housed in the former school building; Peaceprints of WNY, including the late Sister Karen Klimczak's Christmas Prison Package Project, which since 2009 has packed more than two thousand hand-decorated gift bags of food and paperback books for delivery to correctional facilities in Albion, Alden, and Buffalo each December; TRY (Teaching & Restoring Youth); and the Sister Karen Klimczak Center for Non-Violence.
The parish also maintains a list of Life Resources covering the basic needs of the surrounding community, including St. Vincent de Paul Society for clothing and furniture, St. Luke's Mission of Mercy, the Response to Love Center, City Mission, and Meals on Wheels for food; Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army, and the Department of Social Services for emergency housing; the Department of Health for low-cost vaccines and lead screening; Help for Moms, the Mother Teresa Home, the St. Gianna Molla Center, and the diocesan Pro-Life Office for crisis pregnancy support; the Elder Abuse Hotline for adult abuse; and Catholic Charities' senior programs, Hospice, and the Alzheimer's Association of Western New York for older adults and those with dementia. Catholic Charities' Resettlement Program, Jericho Road Ministries, the International Institute, and Journeys End are listed for refugee and immigrant services.
The School (1908-1975) and a Self-Perpetuating Alumni Network
Blessed Trinity School opened on the second floor of the 1907 building with eighty students taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph and graduated its first class of six in 1909. Over the decades more than 2,300 pupils passed through its rooms. In the 1960s and early 1970s, enrollment declined sharply, and in 1975 the Sisters announced they could no longer staff the school. Grades four through eight were eliminated first, and the primary school closed after the final eighth grade class graduated.
An Alumni Committee has kept graduates connected since a 450-person reunion in 2006, now maintaining a database of nearly five hundred alumni. Each year on the first Sunday of October the parish welcomes graduates and their families for the Annual Alumni Memorial Mass at 10:00 a.m., during which all recently deceased alumni and faculty are remembered by name. The Mass is followed by an all-class reception in St. Charles Hall with memorabilia, reminiscence, and the chance to take a docent-led mini-tour of the church. Classes celebrating significant anniversaries are invited to take part in a special way. The Alumni Committee also funds the "Under This Roof" restoration fund through its annual appeal. In 2019 the school's original bell, "St. Helena," which had hung in the 1907 building from 1909 until 2018, was restored and rededicated in front of the church.
Parishioners of all eras continue to mark milestones: General Thomas DeLuca, a member of the Class of 1967, was elected Supreme President of the Knights of St. John International, a Roman Catholic fraternal service organization of roughly twenty thousand members in nine countries, at its 2024 convention in Buffalo.
Family of Parishes and Pastoral Planning
Blessed Trinity is part of a Family of Parishes with Ss. Columba-Brigid and St. Martin de Porres, a configuration in place since November 2024. Family-wide events include the annual Lenten program with Ash Wednesday Masses at all three parishes, a rotating schedule of Monday "Journey Masses" and Penance Services, weekly Stations of the Cross on Fridays in Lent (with Spanish-language materials available at all sites), Thursday evening "Life in the Eucharist" presentations at Ss. Columba-Brigid, a Youth Living Stations of the Cross, and a combined-choirs Tenebrae Service at Blessed Trinity on the Friday before Palm Sunday. The pastoral and faith-formation work of all three parishes is coordinated in part through the Heart of Buffalo Catholic Community East.
Diocesan consolidation has shaped the parish's recent history. The Diocese of Buffalo merged St. Vincent de Paul and St. Bartholomew into Blessed Trinity in 1993, and St. James and St. Gerard into Blessed Trinity on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 2008. Fragments from the former St. Bartholomew Church, including a medallion of the apostle in the right transept, are preserved in the present church.
Visiting Blessed Trinity
The church sits at 317 Leroy Avenue, between Fillmore Avenue and Grider Street, with its main entrance under a large terra-cotta portico. The building is wheelchair accessible through an east-side ramp, with ample off-street parking behind the church and adjacent to the ramp. The rectory office is open Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and can be reached at 716-833-0301 (fax 716-834-4711) or blessedtrinitychurch@gmail.com.
Beyond regular worship, Blessed Trinity is one of Western New York's most visited sacred sites. Docent-led tours can be arranged by contacting the rectory; the parish participates in the New York Landmarks Conservancy's annual statewide Sacred Sites Weekend each May, New York State's Path Through History festivities each fall, and Explore Buffalo's Sacred Sites tour series throughout the year. Recent Explore Buffalo tours have included an Eastertime tour, an "All Hallows' Eve" tour that follows the All-Saints procession in the dome, and a "Sacred Space Sunday" series of docent-led mini-tours following the Sunday Mass. Tours of the interior highlight the handmade bricks, the extensive use of terra cotta, the more than two thousand Christian symbols worked into the building, the Tellers-Kent organ, and the Mazur dome painting. The parish's connection to film includes use of the building in the 2024 biopic "Cabrini" and in the 2002 film "Manna from Heaven."
Visitors seeking to register as parishioners can download a registration form online or pick one up at the church. Weekly offering envelopes are mailed bimonthly; donations may also be made online through PayPal, with a portion directed to the "Under This Roof" restoration fund, established in 2002 to maintain the building that has been called, in the words of one parishioner, simply "my house of prayer."