Eastern Orthodoxy in Hawaii
The first Christian liturgical service held in Hawaiʻi was a Russian Orthodox celebration of Pascha (Πάσχα, Easter in Greek).
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.
[citation needed] In 1882, the Kingdom of Hawaii sent a diplomatic delegation to St. Petersburg, Russia, to witness the coronation of Tsar Alexander III.
[citation needed] Saint Innocent of Alaska also made a brief stop-over in Hawaii during his travels from Asia to Western America.
], the Feast Day of the Znamenny-Kursk Root Icon of the Sign of the Mother of God), reader services were organized and served by Vasily Pasderin.
[citation needed] In 1915, after the Russian Orthodox community in Hawaii (and the Episcopal Bishop Henry B. Restarick) sent an official request to the Holy Governing Synod in St. Petersburg, a priest was dispatched (with the blessing of Archbishop Evdokim (Meschersky) of the Aleutians|Evdokim (Meschersky) of the Aleutians) to pastor the large population of Orthodox Russian faithful.
Jacob, a well-known missionary priest, established churches in Canada, the United States, Alaska, Australia and the Philippines.
Jacob's missionary exploits this way, "He did much to convert the heathen to the Christian Faith and returned many Uniates to the Orthodox Church.
Archimandrite Innokenty Dronov of Hilo, a contemporary of St. Jonah of Hankou and St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco and Metropolitan Meletius of Harbin, served the entire Orthodox Christian flock on all the Hawaiian Islands throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
He frequently returned to the Diocese in San Francisco to report to Archbishops Apollinary (Koshevoy) and Tikhon (Troitsky) as well as for medical reasons.
In the early 1980s, this mission parish was later re-consecrated under the heavenly protection of the Mother of God and is now known as the Holy Theotokos of Iveron Russian Orthodox Church.
The current pastor of the Greek Orthodox community in Hawaiʻi is Priest Alexander Leong, who was assigned to the parish in Honolulu in 2008.
[citation needed] In 2003, the short-lived St. Paul the Apostle Antiochian Orthodox Mission was established in Honolulu at Fort Shafter Army Base.
There is currently a small community under the care of a priest from the Antiochian Orthodox Church, who visits Oʻahu on a regular basis.
On the eastern side of the Big Island, the Holy Ascension Orthodox Church was also established recently in Honomu, Hawaii.
