History
The first Christian service of any type in Hawaii was a lay funeral service conducted by Captain James Cook for an English sailor at Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1779.
The first Christian liturgical service held in Hawaiʻi was a Russian Orthodox celebration of Pascha (Πάσχα, Easter in Greek). Sometime between 1750 and 1793, while traveling from the Far East to what was then Russian America, a Russian trading ship stopped over in the Hawaiian Islands. The Russian Orthodox priest, not wanting to celebrate Pascha at sea, instructed the captain to disembark. The captain told the priest he feared the "natives" but the priest responded, "They will not harm us, for we are Orthodox, and we bear the Light of Christ to illumine their hearts." They disembarked and blessed a temporary altar under a newly built temple made out of palms and bamboo and adorned with an Our Lady of the Sign icon of the Theotokos (Mother of God) and the Christ Child. It was rumored that as they departed the priest left the icon used in the Paschal Divine Liturgy. The ship's priest promised that, "We shall return and baptize these natives to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church."
Read more about this topic: Orthodox Church In Hawaii
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