Kawaiahao Church
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Kawaiahaʻo Church is a historic Congregational church located in Honolulu, Oʻahu in the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi. Once the national church of the Hawaiian Kingdom and chapel of the royal family, Kawaiahaʻo Church is popularly known as Hawaiʻi's Westminster Abbey. The oldest Christian place of worship in Hawaiʻi, Kawaiahaʻo Church was designated as a National Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places.
Kawaiahaʻo Church was commissioned by the regency of Kaʻahumanu during the reigns of Kamehameha II and Kamehameha III. Designed in the New England style of the Hawaiian missionaries and constructed between 1836 through 1842, Kawaiahaʻo Church is comprised of 14,000 thousand-pound slabs of coral harvested from the southern shores of the island of Oʻahu. It rivaled the simultaneous construction of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace for the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of the Hawaiian Islands.
Kawaiahaʻo Church was frequented by the chiefs of the Hawaiian Islands as well as the members of the reigning Kamehameha Dynasty and Kalākaua Dynasty. The upper gallery of the church is adorned with the portraits of the royal families. Lunalilo, who preferred to be buried in a church cemetery rather than the Royal Mausoleum, is buried in the courtyard.
Kawaiahaʻo Church was not the only site of royal worship. Kamehameha IV and his wife Emma were devout members of the Church of England and established the Anglican Church of Hawaiʻi — the present-day Episcopal Diocese of Hawaiʻi. They commissioned the construction of the Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew, which replaced Kawaiahaʻo Church as the principal center of royal worship. Kamehameha V, Kalākaua and Liliʻuokalani preferred to utilize the cathedral.
