In 1927, Father Pierre Erdozaincy Etchard, a French missionary from the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Betharram, envisioned a sanctuary in Dali Old Town. He hired Bai ethnic craftsmen from Taihe Village to realize this vision. Completed in 1931, the Holy Trinity Church stands at No. 6 Xinmin Road as a physical dialogue between European theology and Yunnan craftsmanship.

The builders worked without a single iron nail. They relied on traditional Chinese joinery, sliding seasoned timber into precise mortise-and-tenon joints. Visitors entering the courtyard encounter a classic Bai "three drops of water" gateway. This portal features multi-tiered flying eaves and "mi"-shaped bracket sets. Above this structure, a sixteen-meter-high pyramidal bell tower rises toward the sky, holding a Christian cross.

Inside, the main chapel stretches thirty-two meters deep and thirteen meters wide, resting on forty-nine sturdy wooden pillars. The cool, eighty-centimeter-thick masonry walls block the heat of the Yunnan sun. The air carries a faint scent of aged pine and cypress. Overhead, the ceiling is painted a deep indigo, dotted with gold stars to mimic the night sky.

The craftsmen spent forty percent of the construction budget on ornamentation. They carved more than three hundred and thirty dragons, phoenixes, lions, and elephants along the eaves. On the entry walls, murals depict the Fall of Man, Noah’s Ark, and the life of Christ. These biblical scenes unfold against local landscapes, featuring the peaks of Cangshan Mountain and the Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple.

Today, the church remains an active house of worship, accommodating over two hundred people for Mass. The chisel marks of the Taihe villagers remain visible on the stone, preserving the memory of the hands that shaped this sanctuary.