Compiled from the writing of Father Louis H. Yim and Sacred Hearts Father Robert Schoofs
July 7, 1827: Arrival of first Catholic missionaries to Hawaii.
July 14, 1827: First recorded Mass on Hawaiian soil celebrated in a grass hut on a rented lot in Honolulu.
January 1828: Hawaii’s first Catholic church built on land granted by Kamehameha III where the sanctuary of Our Lady of Peace Cathedral stands today.
June 22, 1840: The Hawaii mission’s first bishop, Stephen Rouchouze, signs a contract with Honolulu businessman Francis J. Greenway for the building of a coral block cathedral at a cost of $15,000.
Aug. 6, 1840: The cathedral’s cornerstone in laid and construction begins.
Jan. 3, 1841: Bishop Rouchouze leaves for France to procure personnel and supplies for the Hawaii mission. On the return trip in 1943 his ship is lost at sea. Besides the bishop, the mission loses six priests, one subdeacon, seven lay brothers and 10 sisters.
Aug. 15, 1843: After financial diffculties and construction delays the cathedral is finally dedicated on the feast of the Assumption. At 7 a.m., three Masses are celebrated simultaneously at the main altar and two side altars. At 10 a.m. a High Mass is offered. Combined Oahu choirs sing. About 800 people receive Communion that day.
Aug. 30, 1846: Pope Pius IX appoints Father Louis Maigret the second vicar apostolic of Hawaii. He was consecrated bishop on Oct. 31, 1847, in Santiago, Chile.
c.1847: The cathedral receives a pipe organ, Hawaii’s first, a French instrument with one keyboard and a half dozen sets of pipes.
c.1852: The cathedral installs its clock, now considered the oldest tower clock in Hawaii.
May 21, 1864: Damien de Veuster, Clement Evrard and Livinus Vanherens are ordained priests for the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in the cathedral.
May 2, 1876: The cathedral’s second pipe organ arrives from London.
c.1870-1880:
Bishop Maigret, inspired by his experience at the First Vatican Council, oversees a major renovation of the cathedral. The walls and the bell tower are raised four feet, a new roof built and a vaulted ceiling with gold leaf decorations installed. Casement windows with stained glass are put in. Two second floor side galleries increase the seating capacity. Thirty-six statuettes of saints are set above the gallery railings. A Calvary setting is placed above the altar, topped by life-size gilded statues of the Blessed Mother and her parents. Outside, the church’s exposed coral blocks are stuccoed over and pilasters added to the walls. A humble island church is turned into an impressive European-styled cathedral.
January 19, 1881: In the cathedral, prayers for safe travels are offered for King Kalakaua the day before he departs on his historic trip around the world. Upon his safe return nine months later, he attends a thanksgiving ceremony in the cathedral led by coadjutor Bishop Herman Koeckemann.
June 11, 1882: Bishop Maigret, builder of the cathedral dies after 42 years of service in the Hawaiian Kingdom, 35 years as bishop. After his funeral in the cathedral, his body carried in procession to the King Street Cemetery, but he is not buried there. His final resting place goes unrecorded for 100 years until 1981 when, during renovations, his tomb is discovered under the sacristy of the cathedral.
Nov. 8, 1883: St. Marianne and six sisters of St. Francis from Syracuse, N.Y., arrive in H
onolulu to assist the Hansen’s disease patients at the Branch Hospital in Kakaako. Their first stop is the cathedral where a thanksgiving service is offered by Bishop Herman Koeckemann.
Feb 19, 1888: St. Marianne Cope attends the funeral of Hawaii’s former prime minister Walter Murray Gibson in the cathedral. As president of the board of health, Gibson was the Franciscan Sisters’ primary sponsor and patron in Hawaii.
1910: Bishop Libert Boeynaems considers a major renovation of the Cathedral but does not follow through, except to add an impressive, gothic front to the church, replace the wooden floor with a cement one, add new pews and a communion railing, and replace the termite-eaten steeple.
1929: The new Bishop Stephen P. Alencastre takes down the gothic front and puts up the simple doric pillars seen on the cathedral facade today. The exterior plaster is replaced with cement.
1927: Bishop Alencastre buys 81,000 square feet on the slopes of Punchbowl to build a new cathedral to replace the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, which would become an ordinary parish church. But the church’s plans could not survive the country’s devastating financial depression of 1929 and were eventually dropped. Other central Honolulu churches and a three-story chancery and clergy residence on Bishop Street were built instead.
February 3, 1936: Hawaii pays its final tribute to the earthly remains of St. Damien in the cathedral at a Mass celebrated by Bishop Alencastre. That same day, the remains, which were exhumed in Kalaupapa on Jan. 27, 1936, begin their journey back to Belgium as requested by the Belgian government.
1940: Concrete buttresses, steel tie rods and steel trusses are added to strengthen the cathedral structure.
Nov. 9, 1940: Bishop Alencastre dies on the passenger liner Matsonia while returning to Honolulu from Los Angeles. Recognizing the bishop as a strong friend of labor unions and the working man, the Maritime Union, which the bishop helped during a devastating shipping strike in 1936, erects a plaque on the cathedral to “their benefactor” with the accolade, “labor never forgets.”
1960s-1980s: A variety of interior changes are made to accommodate liturgical renewal and the building of a new chancery and rectory.
