Makiki Christian Church is a

Christian church In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus Christ. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a syn ...

located in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

. It was built in 1931, and is the only Christian church in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

designed to look like a 16th-century

Japanese castle are fortresses constructed primarily of wood and stone. They evolved from the wooden stockades of earlier centuries and came into their best-known form in the 16th century. Castles in Japan were built to guard important or strategic sites, such a ...

History

In 1903, Takie Okumura, a pastor from Japan, left his congregation at the Honolulu Japanese Christian Church (now the Nuuanu Congregational Church) to start the Aiyū kai. On April 8, 1904, Takie Okumura founded the Makiki Church, but there wasn't an actual building until a few years later. In 1905, George Castle, a local businessman, donated a plot of land to the church so that they could build the actual church, which was built in 1906. It could hold up to 500 people. In 1927, after the existing church building had been infested by

termite Termites are a group of detritivore, detritophagous Eusociality, eusocial cockroaches which consume a variety of Detritus, decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, Plant litter, leaf litter, and Humus, soil humus. They are dist ...

s, the congregation decided to buy another plot of land and build another church. This became the "Castle Church", which still exists today. The church was modeled after the Kochi castle in Kochi prefecture, Japan, where Okumura was from. Okumura chose the design to symbolize peace and protection, though at the time it was criticized because it was misunderstood to represent

militarism Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...

Hego Fuchino Hego Fuchino (1888–1961) was an architect from Hawaii. He designed the Makiki Christian Church, the Izumo Taishakyo Mission, and the Hawaii Shingon Mission. Biography Fuchino was born in Saga, Japan in 1888. He immigrated to Hawaii in 190 ...

was the architect who created the plans for the church. It is the only church in the United States that has been designed to look like an

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japanese castle. The new church was dedicated on November 6, 1932. In 1936, a dining hall and classrooms were added to the building. The Christian Education building was built in 1960.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Churches in Honolulu Japanese architectural features United Church of Christ churches in Hawaii 1904 establishments in Hawaii Churches completed in 1932