Five Years On, Fencing, Inventories and Exhumations: Clearing Begins at Haiti’s Destroyed Cathedral

• Clean-up of Holy Trinity Cathedral’s site in Port-au-Prince began on 20 July 2015
• The 45-day project secured the site and inventoried what could be restored
• Rebuilding the cathedral was estimated at US$25 million
• Bodies in the crypts had to be exhumed for reburial

More than five years after the January 2010 earthquake brought down Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, work finally began on its site. Episcopal News Service reported that clean-up started on 20 July 2015 as a 45-day project, the first physical step towards a new building.

Workers put up red metal fencing to secure the downtown complex, inventoried surviving remnants and marked sections for restoration. The cathedral had been known for murals painted in 1950 and 1951 by noted Haitian artists. A sombre part of the job involved the crypts: bodies buried there had to be exhumed so they could be reburied.

The cost of rebuilding the cathedral was estimated at US$25 million. Architectural plans had been released in 2013, but the construction timeline was still undetermined. The complex also housed schools and a music conservatory, so the site was never just a place of worship. Those involved included Bishop Stacy Sauls, chief operating officer of the Episcopal Church’s Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, Haiti’s Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin and the diocese’s chief of operations, Sikhumbuzo Vundla.

“This is a great sign of hope for the Haitian people,” Bishop Sauls said.

For Jamaica, where a number of churches own historic buildings, burial grounds and school campuses on the same property, the Holy Trinity clean-up is a reminder of how complicated a church site becomes once disaster strikes. Graves, heritage artwork, schools and the sanctuary itself all need separate decisions. Churches that map their land, record what is buried where, and photograph and list valuable fixtures will be in a far better position to rebuild, claim insurance and reassure families if the worst happens.

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