Kawaiahaʻo Church is known as the "Westminster Abbey of Hawaiʻi": site of royal weddings, inaugurations, installations, christenings, funerals and tombs.
At one time the national church of the Hawaiian Kingdom and chapel of the royal family, the church is popularly known as Hawaiʻi's Westminster Abbey. The name comes from the Hawaiian noun phrase ka wai a Haʻo (the water of Haʻo), because its location was that of a spring and freshwater pool of a High Chiefess Haʻo.[4] It has also been called the "hale pule lahui", the Great Stone Church, the Hawaiian Tabernacle (luakini), the Mother Church, the Kingʻs Church, the Kingʻs chapel, and the "Aliʻi Church".
Today, Kawaiahaʻo continues to use the Hawaiian language for parts of the service. It is the oldest church on Oʻahu and one of the oldest standing Christian places of worship in Hawaiʻi, although four thatched churches stood at or near the present site before construction of the coral church. The oldest standing church is Mokuaikaua Church on the Big Island. Denominationally, it is a member of the United Church of Christ.
History
First known photograph of the church in 1857 by Hugo StangenwaldThe grass church that preceded the stone church seated 4000 people; by Francis Allyn Olmsted
The Kawaiaha'o mission was started in 1820. The stone building of Kawaiahaʻo Church was commissioned by the regency of Kaʻahumanu, during the reigns of Kamehameha II and Kamehameha III. Designed by Rev. Hiram Bingham in the New England style of the Hawaiian missionaries, it was constructed between 1836 and 1842 of some 14,000 thousand-pound slabs of coral rock quarried from an offshore reef on the southern coast of Oʻahu. Hawaiian divers dove three to six metres below sea-level to chisel out each coral block with hand tools, and the blocks then were transported from the reef onto the shore.[5]
The church house rivaled the concurrent construction of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace by the Roman CatholicApostolic Vicariate of the Hawaiian Islands. Construction began on that churchhouse in 1840 and was substantially completed in 1843, one year after the completion of Kawaiahaʻo Church.
The name Kawaiahaʻo was not applied to the site until 1853.
Kawaiahaʻo Church was frequented by the chiefs of the Hawaiian Islands as well as the members of the reigning Kamehameha dynasty and Kalākaua dynasty. Kamehameha III, Kamehameha IV, Kamehameha V and Kalakaua took their oaths of office to their constitutions at Kawaiahaʻo Church. State burials were also held at the church as well the baptisms of aliʻi including aliʻi members who would eventually convert to other denominations or faiths.
Today, the upper gallery of the sanctuary is adorned with 20 portraits of Hawaiian royalty (Aliʻi).[6] The body of King Lunalilo, who preferred burial in a church cemetery to burial in the Royal Mausoleum, is buried in a crypt along with his father near the front courtyard.
John Thomas Gulick, a missionary to Micronesia and head of the Hawaiian board of Foreign Missions to Oceania and the Philippines;
Daniel Opunui, one of the first Protestant missionaries in Micronesia was member of Kawaiahaʻo Church before Kaumakapili Church was built;
David Kinimaka, adopted brother of King Kalakaua and officer in the Hawaiian Royal Guards;
Henry Berger, band master of the Royal Hawaiian Band and is buried at Kawaiahaʻo Church.
Miss Agnes Baldwin Alexander, born in Honolulu in 1875 to William DeWitt Alexander and Abigail Charlotte Alexander, née Baldwin. Miss Alexander was a scion of two of Hawaii’s most illustrious Christian missionary families — the Alexanders and the Baldwins. In 1900 Agnes discovered the Baháʼí Faith while in Rome on a tour of Europe, which she had undertaken after a severe illness. In 1901 she returned to Hawaii as its first Baháʼí.[8]
Abraham Akaka, late pastor of the Kawaiahaʻo Church and most remembered for his role in the US Civil Rights Movement.
