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=== Christianity in Hawaii ===
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 Pascha at sea, instructed the captain to disembark. The captain then told the priest that he feared the "natives" but was then told, "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 a Znammeny icon of the Mother of God and the Christ Child. It was rumored that as they departed the priest left the icon used in the Paschal Liturgy. The ship's priest promised that, "We shall return and baptize these natives to the [[One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church|One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church]]."
The first Christian service was a lay funeral service conducted by Capt. James Cook for an English sailor at Napo‘opo‘o (Kealakekua) on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1779.
=== First Orthodox Chapels ===
[[Image:kamehameha.jpg|left|frame|Russian Artist's Sketch of King Kamehameha the Great of Hawaii]]
In 1882, the Hawaiian Kingdom sent a diplomatic delegation to St. Petersburg, Russia, to witness the coronation of Tsar Alexander III. The reports of the Hawaiian Hawaii's special envoy to the Russian court, Colonel Curtis I'Iaukeaaukea, Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the Kingdom of Hawaii, about regarding the Russian Orthodox [[liturgy|liturgical]] services were widely published in Hawaiian-language newspapers. Two years later, Tsar Alexander III sent King Kalakaua the Imperial Order of St. [[Alexander Nevsky]], the highest Russian award, and established a permanent Russian embassy in Hawaii, along with a very small Orthodox chapel. Subsequently, 200 Ukrainians were imported by American sugar planters.
In 1893, Queen Lili'uokalani was deposed by U.S. Marines and American sugar plantation owners, who were mostly the children of American Calvinist missionaries, and a provisional government under the protection of the United States was installed. In 1898, Hawaii was incorporated into the United States despite near universal opposition from native Hawaiians. In the early 1900s, the Russian ambassador was recalled, the embassy was moved to a small office, and the Russian Orthodox chapel was closed.
St. [[Innocent of Moscow]] also made a brief stop-over in Hawaii during his travels from Asia to Western America.
== Rebirth of Orthodoxy ==
[[Image:korchinsky.gif|left|frame|A photo of Fr. Jakob Korchinsky from the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, January 23, 1916]]
On [[November 27]], 1910 ([[Julian Calendar|O.S.]], the Feast Day of the Znamenny-[[Kursk Root Icon]] of the Sign of the [[Theotokos|Mother of God]]), with the blessing of the [[bishop]]s of Vladivostok and in America, the first Russian Orthodox [[reader services]] were held organized and served by Reader Vasily Pasderin.
In 1915, at the petition of an official request by the Russian Orthodox community in Hawaii and the Episcopal Bishop of Hawaii Henry B. Restarick to the [[Holy Synod]] in Moscow, a priest was dispatched to Hawaii to pastor the large population of faithful. On [[Christmas]] ([[December 25]], O.S.), Protopresbyter Jakob Jacob Korchinsky celebrated the [[Divine Liturgy]] at Saint Andrew's Episcopal Cathedral in Honolulu, and he established permanent liturgical services. Thus Orthodoxy was re-established in Hawaii.
[[Image:episcopal.jpg|right|thumb|100px|St. Andrew's Episcopal as it appears today in downtown Honolulu]]
Fr. JakobJacob, a well-known [[missionary]] priest, established churches in Canada, the United States, Alaska, and Australia. He was murdered in [[Wikipedia:Odessa|Odessa]] shortly after the [[w:Russian Orthodox Church#Russian revolution|Bolshevik Revolution]] in Russia, but has not yet been officially recognized as a martyrmartyred saint.
In subsequent years, the Russian Orthodox church in Hawaii shipped or flew priests to Hawaii to care for the dwindling Orthodox population, becoming part of the [[Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia]] (ROCOR). [[Archimandrite]] Innokenty Dronov of Hilo, a contemporary of St. [[Jonah of Manchuria]] and St. [[John Maximovitch|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. Fr. Innokenty had a large following of [[Church of Japan|Japanese Orthodox]] Christians. He frequently returned to the [http://www.wadiocese.com Diocese in San Francisco] to report to Archbishops [[Apollinary (Koshevov) of San Francisco|Apollinary (Koshevov)]] and [[Tikhon (Troitsky) of San Francisco|Tikhon (Troitsky)]] and for medical reasons. He is now purportedly buried on the Big Island of Hawaii.
===The Russian Orthodox Church (ROCOR)===
In the late 1960s, a group of Russian Orthodox Christians parted ways with the local Greek community and joined the Russian Orthodox Church in Hawaii under the Omophorion of Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles; they formed the St. [[Mark of Ephesus]] Russian Orthodox Mission. In the early 1980s, this mission parish was later re-[[consecrate|consecrated]] under the heavenly protection of the [[Mother of God]] and is now known as the Holy [[Theotokos]] of [[Wikipedia:Iveron|Iveron]] Russian Orthodox Church. In the late 1990s, the pastor of the Russian Orthodox community, Father Anatole Lyovin, was [[ordination|ordained]] to serve the Orthodox faithful in Hawaii. Currently this parish is without a permanent structure, but there are plans to build the first Russian Orthodox [[church]] in Honolulu. [[Image:Archbishop Kyrill.jpg|thumb|145px|right|Archbishop Kyrill on an Archpastoral visit to Hilo, Kona and Honolulu in 2003]]
Fr. Anatole also oversees the Russian Orthodox mission communities on Kauai and the Big Island of Hawaii. These Russian communities are under the spiritual care of Archbishop +[[Kyrill (Dmitrieff) of San Francisco]] ([[ROCOR]]).
===The Greek Orthodox Church (GOARCH)===
In the mid 1960s, a Greek Orthodox community established a Greek Orthodox mission under the auspices of the [[Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America|Greek Archdiocese]]. This community became known as the Ss. [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]] and [[Helen]] Greek Orthodox Church. The current (and temporary) pastor of the Greek Orthodox community in Hawaii is Fr. Demetrius Dogias, who was assigned to the parish in Honolulu in 2007. This community is well-known for its annual Greek Festival held at Ala Moana Beach Park near Waikiki.
In the 1990s, on the Island of Maui, a Greek Orthodox mission was established. This mission is served by clergy of Ss. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church in Honolulu. These two Greek communities are under the care of Metr. [[Gerasimos (Michaleas) of San Francisco]] ([[GOARCH]]).
===The Serbian Orthodox Church===