As Hawaii’s island of Maui continues to fight wildfires that have claimed at least 53 lives, residents of the decimated town of Lahaina are mourning the loss of nearly all their cultural institutions. Among them, a 200-year-old church, which Native Hawaiians say has been a mainstay in their community for centuries.
“It was a gathering place, it was a staple of Lahaina,” said Kūhiō Lewis, CEO of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. “Like when you think of Seattle, you think of the Space Needle. In Lahaina, it was that church.”
Waiola Church has been standing since Lahaina was the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii in the 1800s, he said. It just celebrated its 200th anniversary this year. It was the main location of community meetings both in the 1820s and the 2020s, and it was the burial site of early members of the Hawaiian royal family.
One of the first marks of Christianity on Maui, it’s now listed as permanently closed on Google Maps.
“Many of our chiefs, our Hawaiian monarchs are buried there,” Lewis said. “The church has significance to our culture, there’s artifacts of the town that’s been standing for over a century. It’s just gone.”
The Kingdom of Hawaii was established in 1795 after King Kamehameha, its first ruler, conquered several islands on the archipelago. In 1802, he moved the capital to Lahaina, where the site of his palace was marked by a large banyan tree until it, too, was scorched by fires Wednesday.
Waiola Church was first established in 1823 by Kamehameha’s wife, Queen Keōpūolani, and it became a central gathering place for the Hawaiian royals, Lewis said.
“That’s where you would have the big meetings about how to govern the islands,” he said. “There’s some very sacred sites there.”
Over the next two centuries it remained a staple to the Native Hawaiians and immigrants who lived on Maui. Located in the center of town, it played host to Lahaina’s celebrations and luaus, including one…
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