WHERE WE WORSHIP
St. Mary's gears up for its 100th birthday

By Zenaida Serrano Espanol
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Rev. Dale Hathaway leads a service at St. Mary's Episcopal Church. The church, on South King Street in Mo'ili'ili, traces its origins to a Sunday school and will celebrate its centennial anniversary early next month. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Our affiliation: The Episcopal Church, based in New York

Where we are: 2062 S. King St., Mo'ili'ili

Our numbers: The church has about 140 members, with about 70 who attend services, held 8:15 a.m. every Sunday.

Our senior pastor: The Rev. Dale Hathaway, who graduated from Nashotah House, a seminary in Wisconsin, then received a master's degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame.

What's special about us: St. Mary's Episcopal Church will celebrate its centennial anniversary Dec. 6 to 8. Festivities will feature praise music from the past century, a presentation by former rector the Rev. Douglas McGlynn about a century of mission in the Mo'ili'ili community, a luncheon, a forum on the mission of the church in the 21st century, and the opening of the church's time capsule, which was last opened during its 75th anniversary.

Our history: "Part of the distinctive heritage and history of the Episcopal church in Hawai'i, and St. Mary's in particular, is that the Anglican Communion came to Hawai'i from the Church of England, and only when Hawai'i became a territory of the United States, the jurisdiction of those churches passed to the Episcopal Church in the United States. That all happened at (around) the time that St. Mary's came into existence," Hathaway said.

The origins of the church are traced to 1902, when a woman named Madge Maroni taught Sunday school to children in Mo'ili'ili. At the time, the Rev. Henry B. Restarick had just arrived in Honolulu to become the first Bishop of the Honolulu Missionary District.

Maroni, getting older and in poor health, asked Restarick to find a replacement for her. He went to the Rev. Kong Yin Tet of St. Peter's Mission, who then opened a Sunday school near the present-day Kuhio School on Dec. 6, 1902.

The mission was eventually named St. Mary's.

"What really grew up over the next 20 to 30 years was a very strong mission, oriented toward children," Hathaway said. "By the 1920s, an orphanage had been formed and that was a prominent feature of the life in this part of Honolulu."

What we believe: "There's really something distinctive about Anglican Episcopal churches that make it possible for people in one part of the country to go to another Episcopal church and to feel at home ... (and what) binds us together is in some way or another worshipping out of the Book of Common Prayer," Hathaway said.

The book basically brings together all of what's essential for the church to pray and worship communally and at home, such as forms of daily prayer, Hathaway said.

Members also believe in the trinity and celebrate communion every week. Other sacraments are baptisms for infants and adults, when the occasion arises, he said.

What we're excited about: "(We) have supported missionaries overseas and we continue to be excited about those opportunities for us," Hathaway said. "Over the last year, there has also been a renewal of music here, partly with the arrival of a choir director and someone to play the organ."

Contact: E-mail stmarys@aloha.net or call 949-4655.

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