Changes

The first Christian service held in Hawaii was a [[Church of Russia|Russian Orthodox]] [[Pascha]]l service. Somewhere between 1792 and 1793, while traveling from 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 Holy Pascha (Easter) at sea, instructed the captain to disembark. The captain then told the priest that he feared the native Hawaiians but was then told, "They will not harm us, for we are Orthodox, and we bear the Light of Christ to illumine their hearts." The priest then landed and blessed a temporary [[altar]] under a newly built temple made out of palms and bamboo. As they departed, the Orthodox priest nailed a copy of the miracle-working [[Kursk Root icon|Znamenny (Kursk-Root) Icon]] of the Sign of the Mother of God to a bamboo post, promising that, "We shall return and baptize these natives to the [[One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church|One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church]]."

In 1815, Russians built Hawaii's first Orthodox Church; the Russian Orthodox chapel at Fort Elizabeth. On the Island of Kaua'i, three Russian forts were built: Fort Alexander, Fort Barclay, and [[Fort Elizabeth]]. Fort Alexander also housed a small Orthodox chapel, but Fort Elizabeth was the trading base for the new Russian-American Company in Hawaii. When King Kaumuali'i of Kaua'i ceded his kingdom to King Kamehameha the Great in 1816 following the tsar's refusal to annex Kaua'i due to political troubles in Russia, the forts were also ceded, and the Hawaiian Islands become one unified kingdom. The chapels ultimately fell into disrepair after Calvinist missionaries from the United States landed in 1820 after the death of King Kamehameha I. [[Image:kamehameha.jpg]]