story by Mona de Crinis
photographs by Daniel Sullivan
As diverse and culturally rich as the island itself, houses of worship have long sheltered and ministered to Maui’s faithful. Buddhist temples and Christian churches of nearly every stripe — Evangelical, Episcopal, Baptist, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — coexist with Catholicism’s striking cathedrals and agrestic heiau where early Hawaiians, influenced by Polynesian culture, venerated nature and channeled mana (divine energy or life force).
Whether historically significant, architecturally masterful, devoutly spartan, pagoda-like or enshrined in the ina, the sacred spaces of East Maui reveal a multidenominational mosaic with a singular message culled from lava rock and carried by the trades: Treat others with kindness and be in harmony with the planet. In other words, live aloha.
As diverse and culturally rich as the island itself, houses of worship have long sheltered and ministered to Maui’s faithful. Buddhist temples and Christian churches of nearly every stripe — Evangelical, Episcopal, Baptist, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — coexist with Catholicism’s striking cathedrals and agrestic heiau where early Hawaiians, influenced by Polynesian culture, venerated nature and channeled mana (divine energy or life force).
Whether historically significant, architecturally masterful, devoutly spartan, pagoda-like or enshrined in the ina, the sacred spaces of East Maui reveal a multidenominational mosaic with a singular message culled from lava rock and carried by the trades: Treat others with kindness and be in harmony with the planet. In other words, live aloha.
Kaulanapueo Church
27 Door of Faith Road, Ha’iku
Built in 1853 in Haiku Town with large coral stone cut and hauled by hand from Waipio Bay, Kaulanapueo Church appears as if plucked from a gothic novel with rough-hewn walls and gravestones bleached white. Think Wuthering Heights with a tin roof and tropical backdrop. Named for the owls heard roosting in the trees at night — “kaulana” meaning famous and “pueo” meaning owls — the church sits on land that once nurtured an ancient hala grove.
Lime mortar, used to bind blocks of coral, was mixed in a pit makai (ocean side) of the main building. Atop the United Congregational Church, a green steeple reaches toward the heavens. The church bell, cast in Pennsylvania and delivered to Maui in 1862, still peals to summon the faithful.
Lanakila Ihiihi O Iehowa O na Kaua Church (Keanae Congregational Church)
316 Keanae Rd, Haiku (Keanae)
In 1946, a massive earthquake off Alaska sparked a tsunami that swept across East Maui’s Keanae Peninsula, destroying much in its path. The only structure said to survive the briny assault was Lanakila Ihiihi O Iehowa O na Kaua Church, commonly known as Keanae Congregational Church. Built in 1856 from lava rock and coral mortar, the church was restored in the 1990s.
Today, white double-pane windows illume the rustic architecture. Outside, a pastoral graveyard memorializes those who lived and worked among Ke‘anae’s fields of taro. Etched above the altar, the words “Ihiihio lehowa o na Kaua” offer hope to all who read them: “Sacredness of Jehovah, the Son of God.”
St. Gabriel Mission Church, Our Lady of Fatima Shrine
135 Wailua Rd, Ha’iku (Wailua)
Although the quaint wooden Catholic church that fronts Our Lady of Fatima Shrine, erected in 1860 with lime-plastered coral and rubble-stone, sadly burned to the ground last year, the tale of “The Coral Miracle Church” in Wailua lives on.
According to island lore, the ocean gifted parishioners the coral during a fierce storm. When building was complete, a second squall returned the unused coral back to the sea. In 1937, the congregation constructed a larger church in Gothic Revival style, rededicating the original coral-and-stone structure behind Our Lady of Fatima in 1951 for special services and ceremonies. A mission of St. Rita since the 1960s, the St. Rita Parish is raising funds to restore Our Lady of Fatima Shrine, which was spared by the fire but in need of repair.
Pi‘ilanihale Heiau & Kahanu Garden
650 Ulaino Rd, Hāna
A few miles north of Hana Town, Piilanihale Heiau rises from the rain forest like the regal io (hawk). With 50-foot lava rock walls, some comprising multiple stepped terraces, this heiau is considered the best-preserved temple in the Hawaiian Islands and the largest in Polynesia.
Erected in stages beginning as early as the 13th century, the massive 4-acre complex is constructed of basalt rock transported from as far away as Hana Bay. It’s believed the stones were shaped by hand and somehow puzzled together without the use of mortar.
A registered National Historic Landmark, the ancient temple and surrounding grounds hold great significance as a multifaceted space with historical functions and stories unique to early Hawaiians. While inherently spiritual, the heiau carries distinct meaning and context that is markedly different from worship sites associated with post-contact religions.
Pi‘ilanihale Heiau is also the piko (cultural center) of Kahanu Garden, a National Tropical Botanical Garden spread across 294 acres that showcases Hawaii’s indigenous flora, including rare and endangered species, and home to the Pi‘ilanihale Heiau Visitor Center.
Hāna Hongwanji Gakuen Buddhist Temple
5305 Hana Highway, Hāna
First built in 1926, the original austere Gakuen Temple (Learning Garden Temple) was replaced in 1940 with a more ornate version befitting the Buddha. Japanese carpenters crafted the new, one-story temple in a style fusing Western plantation and traditional Japanese later termed “Hawaiian eclectic.”
Iconic cranes and elephants carved into portico beams silently trumpet the temple’s Eastern influence associated with Hana’s once-thriving Japanese community, which suffered a sharp decline after WWII and closing of the sugar mill. While the Hana Nisei imprint survives to this day, the temple itself was in disrepair. A community organization formed in 2015 is committed Gakuen Temple’s restoration and preservation.
Wananalua Congregational Church
10 Hauoli Rd, Hana
Located on Hana Highway next to Hana-Maui Resort, this large stone worship house of the United Church of Christ was built in 1842 on the hallowed ground of an ancient heiau. Associated with one of the first Western missionaries to settle in Hāna, the church was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1988.
With thick plastered walls and an outset bell tower that serves as the entry, the Romanesque architecture is reminiscent of a medieval Norman cathedral. In the nearby cemetery, an outstretched banyan tree’s long arms drape protectively over aging gravestones and mausoleums.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Chapel
4836 Uakea Rd, Hāna
In June 1851, missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints organized the first congregation on Maui, called a “branch,” near Kula. By the end of the summer, the Church expanded to East Maui with three branches in Honomanū, Waianu and Wailua Nui, then added Ke’ane, Nāhiku and Hana. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the six East Maui branches consolidated into one branch in Hāna, meeting in a single-room white clapboard chapel.
By the 1990s, membership outgrew the little chapel, which was replaced with a new chapel in 1999. With Asian design influences, a large overhanging roof covering wide wrap-around porches and a foundation of lava stone, Maui architect Ed Akiona designed the plantation-style chapel to blend into the tropical Hana landscape, as if it had been here for generations.
Palapala Hoomau Church
8 miles south of Hāna past mile marker 41, turn makai (ocean side)
Palapala hoomau roughly translates to “Church of enduring Scriptures,” and this missionary-era jewel with thick walls, peaked roof and a bell tower really lives up to its name. Built by New England Christians in 1864 at Kipahulu Point — a feral swath of Pacific raging below — the modest limestone-coral and lava-rock church with the million-dollar view soon became Kipahulu’s worship and community hub for local families and immigrant sugar plantation workers.
Neglected for a full century as congregants abandoned Kipahulu for employment opportunities elsewhere on island, the “Church of the Enduring Scriptures” found new life when Sam Pryor discovered the remnants slowly being devoured by a hungry jungle. Pryor was determined to restore the property with friend and aviator, Charles Lindbergh, who was later laid to rest in the graveyard he helped revive.
As news of the restoration spread, community members returned the original organ and pews they had safely stored at home. On Thanksgiving Day 1965, the enduring little church opened its doors to worshippers for the first time in many years. Greeting them was Pryor’s final gift: a Polynesian Christ draped in the sacred ahuula — red-and-yellow feather capes reserved for Hawaii’s highest chiefs — illuminated in stained glass.
Catholic Churches of East Maui
Beginning in the early 19th century, Catholic missionaries arrived on Maui intent on spreading their teachings and faith across the island. They succeeded.
In the 17 miles from Hāna to Kaupo on Maui’s rugged southeast shore, four active Catholic Churches serve their flock. A parish church of St. Paul and St. Peter Churches, St. Mary’s Catholic Church at 5000 Hana Highway west of Hāna-Maui Resort dates to 1850 and boasts stunning stained-glass windows.
Farther south are the mission churches of St. Peter Catholic Church at 37 St. Peter Church Rd. in Puuiki and St. Paul Catholic Church at 41145 Hana Highway in Kipahulu. On a thrust of rocky coastline near Kaupo, St. Joseph Catholic Church at 33622 Piilani Highway invites exploration by all who brave the lonely stretch of Piilani Highway casually known as the backroad to Hāna.
Built on this isolated point in 1862, the weathered two-tiered stone church is flanked by stone ruins and, behind, lies a graveyard full of stories.
Huialoha Church
Mokulau Peninsula, Kaupo
Perched on Kaupo’s wild, wind-whipped coastline of Mokulau Peninsula, Huialoha Church was hand-built by Christian missionaries and native Hawaiian converts over a 10-year period beginning in 1849.
Hauled rock cemented together with coral mortar formed the two-foot-thick walls. Logs brought down from Haleakala’s wooded upper slopes provided material for the roof, window frames and doors.
Once boasting more than 200 church members, the humble whitewashed sanctuary has endured storms, earthquakes and a dwindling congregation as economic opportunities continued to flourish elsewhere on the island.
During the mid-1970s, community efforts to restore the modest little church to its former glory unearthed an unexpected treasure within its walls: A bottle stuffed with handwritten notes, some scrawled in Hawaiian, dated Feb. 9, 1942 — a mere two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor — spoke of war and the hope for peace, with one message in particular lamenting that, with the men away, “the women have done most of the work.”
Author of “The Maui Coast: Legacy of the King’s Highway” and award-winning Maui photographer, Daniel Sullivan has traveled the world chronicling cultures in remote, exotic locations, but his greatest adventure, he says, was right here in his own back yard.
Inspired by legendary Eddie Pu, who walked the entire island in 1976 to honor the aina, Sullivan spent nine days hiking and photographing Alaloa Kihapiilani, today known as the King’s Highway, a once-vital 138-mile road hand-paved with basalt stones that rings the whole of Maui.
The 2013 oddessy taught him to go deep, not far, Sullivan said about the immersive experience he discovered just beyond his doorstep. Exploring East Maui’s jungled coastline revealed a spiritual landscape both beautiful and battered. His arresting images deftly capture a layered worship history not unlike the very road traveled — disjointed and fragmented, yet forming a clear path forward when pieced together.
Some East Maui places of worship, built of coral and lava rock, stand tall while others have suffered the winds of time. Yet all have a story to tell. Turning the lens on his island home, the prolific, globe-trotting photographer sparks renewed passion for East Maui’s hale of hope and encourages their preservation for future generations.
