Soon after the founding of Katharinenstadt, a Reformed parish was established in north Katharinenstadt and a Lutheran Parish in south Katharinenstadt. The Reformed pastors of the Katharinenstadt (North) parish served the Wiesenseite's Reformed colonies. The Lutheran pastors of the Katharinenstadt (South) parish served the Wiesenseite's original 21 Lutheran colonies. Beginning in 1820, the distinction between Reformed and Lutheran parishes was removed by Imperial Edict. In September 1905, the North and South parishes were merged into a single Katharinenstadt parish.
The first Lutheran church building in Katharinenstadt was a wooden structure. A new wooden building was built in 1807. In 1851, after construction of the new brick church building, the old church was dismantled, moved to the colony of Ernestinendorf, and reconstructed on a stone foundation where it stood until 1931 when it was destroyed in a fire.
The original church building in Katharinenstadt was replaced in by a Kontor-style brick building located nearby that was whitewashed inside and out. The new church was dedicated on 20 May 1851. The Lutheran Church had a massive steeple with a four-sided clock in the top section. The clock functioned until the deportation of the Germans from Katharinenstadt in 1941. An organ built by the Walker company in Ludwigsburg (Germany) was installed in 1895. Soviet authorities dismantled the steeple in 1956 claiming that bricks were needed for other official buildings. The building was used as a community center and then movie theatre.
It was officially returned to use as a church (Holy Trinity Lutheran Church) in 1993 and the interior renovated in 2002. The steeple reconstruction was completed in 2017, and the exterior has been repaired and repainted. During the summer of 2018, the interior was stripped of all the Soviet-Era renovations. Reconstruction of the dome over the transcept will begin next. Funding for the renovations of Holy Trinity is being provided in large part by brothers Alexander and Viktor Schmidt.
South Katharinenstadt Parish:
Ludwig Balthasar Wernborner (1768-1774)
Gottlieb May (1778-?)
Johann Heinrich Buck (1794-1820)
Karl Friedrich Wahlberg (1821-1877)
Karl Erich Wahlberg (1861-1862)
Gotthilf Heinrich Keller (1878-1906)
Richard Keller (Associate, 1886-1888)
North Katharinenstadt Parish:
Johann Georg Herwig (1767-1769)
Hartmann von Moos (1779-1803)
Johann Samuel Huber (1807-1820)
Emanuel Grunauer (1820-1823)
Peter Heinrich Abraham Haag (1827-1848)
Karl Heinrich Thomas (1852-1860)
Friedrich Wilhelm Dsirne (1860-1872)
Isaak Theophil Keller (1873-1906)
Richard Keller (Associate, 1877-1882)
Merged Parish:
Paul Friedrich von Kuhlberg (1906-1918)
Arthur Julius Kluck (1920-1927)
Vladimir K. Rodikow (2002-)
- Beratz, Gottieb. The German colonies on the Lower Volga, their origin and early development: a memorial for the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first German settlers on the Volga, 29 June 1764. Translated by Adam Giesinger (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1991): 350.
- Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Rußland, 1972.
- Schnurr, Joseph, Die Kirchen und das Religiöse Leben der Russlanddeutschen - Evangelischer Teil (Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, 1972): 195-196.
- "Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 16.
- Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (parish website)
