There are a handful of places on the Big Island that stop people in their tracks, not because they’re flashy, but because they carry real weight. The Star of the Sea Painted Church in Kalapana is one of them. This small, pale green building sits just off Highway 130 in the Puna district, roughly 55 minutes from our Hawaii National Park vacation rentals, and it holds more history than most places ten times its size. If you have a free afternoon and want to see something that genuinely tells the story of this island, this is worth the drive.
How the Star of the Sea Church Was Built
Sacred Hearts Father Evarist Gielen built Star of the Sea in 1927 as a mission church for the community of Kalapana, a small coastal village on the Big Island’s eastern shore. The church cost $2,500 to build. Father Gielen used lumber salvaged from nearby run-down churches and kept costs low wherever he could. For the interior, he mixed house paints with linseed oil and began painting the walls and ceiling himself with vivid scriptural scenes and devotional drawings. Other artists added to the interior over the following decades, through the 1960s and 1970s.
The result is a folk-art interior that feels entirely unlike anything else on the island. Light blue tones shift to deeper shades across the ceiling. Angels, the Virgin Mary, and biblical scenes fill the walls. A trompe l’oeil effect on the altar creates the illusion of columns receding into the distance, making the small space feel much larger than it is. Two stained-glass windows near the entrance depict Saint Damien and Saint Marianne Cope, the two Catholic saints connected to Hawaii, both of whom served leprosy patients on Molokai and later died from the disease.
Star of the Sea was one of three “painted churches” on the Big Island, alongside St. Theresa Church in Mountain View and St. Benedict in Honaunau. It served the Kalapana community for decades, surviving hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis without major damage. Then came the lava.
The Move That Saved the Star of the Sea Church
In 1986, lava from Kilauea’s Pu’u ‘O’o vent began flowing toward Kalapana. The area around the church was evacuated, but a handful of parishioners continued attending Sunday morning Mass at Star of the Sea until May 1990. That month, with lava approaching and the entire village facing destruction, a contractor from Kohala offered to move the church free of charge.
The 22 by 48 foot building, including its bell tower and rear sacristy, was loaded onto a flatbed truck and hauled out of Kalapana just before the lava arrived. Within weeks, the lava covered the village completely. Dozens of homes, a Protestant church, and a family store that had served the community for decades were buried under 60 feet of volcanic rock. The black sand beach that had defined Kalapana’s shoreline was gone. The village itself was gone.
Star of the Sea survived. It was relocated roughly 1.5 miles east to the adjacent village of Kaimu, just off Highway 130 between mile markers 19 and 20, where it stands today.
What the Church Means to Local Families
Look closely at the pews inside Star of the Sea, and you’ll notice names carved or marked into the wood. These are the names of the original congregation, the families of Kalapana. For many Big Island families, this church is one of the few physical traces that remain of a community that no longer exists in any other form. The village is gone. The beach is gone. But the church is still here, and those names in the pews connect it to the people who once called Kalapana home.
The church was decommissioned by the Diocese of Honolulu after the move and no longer serves as an active Catholic parish. Ownership passed to the Kalapana Ohana Association, a community group dedicated to maintaining the site. For years, the church sat with limited access due to insurance and maintenance costs. A local woman named Roseanna Kanoa, who runs a business across the street, began investing her own time and money in 2005 to keep the church open and cared for. Community volunteers and donations from visitors have helped fund roof repairs and exterior upkeep ever since.
Mass is still celebrated there on the first Friday of each month, led by volunteer priests from around the island. Most attendees come from Sacred Heart Church in Pahoa, the original parish that Star of the Sea was built to serve as a mission. The church is open every day to visitors, regardless of faith.
Visiting the Star of the Sea Church
The church is located at 12-4815 Pahoa Kalapana Road in Pahoa, just off Highway 130. From Volcano Village, the drive takes just under an hour. The route takes you through Pahoa town and down into the Puna district, past lush tree tunnels and open lava fields that are a reminder of the same forces that shaped this area’s history.
The building is small, so visits tend to be quick, but you can walk through the interior, look at the murals up close, sit in the pews, and take in the detail of the folk-art ceiling at your own pace. A small donation box supports the ongoing maintenance of the site.
The surrounding area has a few other things worth seeing on the same trip. The Puna district’s Red Road is a scenic coastal drive under a dense canopy of trees, worth taking if you have time. Pohoiki Beach, created by the 2018 lava flows, is nearby, as is Lava Tree State Park and the farmers market in Pahoa (15-3003 Kauhele St. Pahoa, Hawaiʻi 96778) on Sunday mornings.
The Other Painted Churches on the Big Island
St. Benedict’s Painted Church
Star of the Sea is one of only two surviving painted churches built by Father Gielen, and the connection between the two goes deeper than most visitors realize. Father Gielen learned his approach to painted church interiors directly from Father John Berchmans Velghe, a Belgian Sacred Hearts priest who arrived on the Big Island in 1899. Father Gielen was Father Velghe’s student, which means the two painted churches on the Big Island share a direct artistic lineage.
Father Velghe’s church, St. Benedict’s, is located in Captain Cook on the Kona side of the island, about 84 miles from 5th Street Ohana. It sits on a hillside above Kealakekua Bay and overlooks the Pu‘uhonua o Honāunau National Historical Park. The church itself started life as St. Francis Regis Chapel at the shore of Honaunau. In the 1880s, the local community relocated further up the hillside to more productive land, and Father Velghe had the chapel dismantled and moved plank by plank on the backs of mules to its current site, where it was renamed St. Benedict Catholic Church and blessed in 1902.
Between 1902 and 1904, Father Velghe painted the interior using house paint, the same medium his student Father Gielen would later use at Star of the Sea. The result at St. Benedict’s is striking. Gothic vaults painted over the altar create the illusion of a Renaissance cathedral interior. Emerald green palm fronds burst from the tops of red and white striped columns. Biblical scenes cover the walls from floor to ceiling. The effect was inspired by the Burgos Cathedral in Spain, which Father Velghe had seen and carried in memory for years.
Unlike Star of the Sea, St. Benedict’s remains an active Catholic parish, holding Mass five days a week and open to the public every day. Both churches are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. If you plan to visit both on the same trip, it would be a long day from Volcano Village, but the contrast between the two is worth it: one a living parish still serving its community, the other a quiet landmark that survived lava and carries the names of a village that no longer exists.
St. Theresa Church
The third painted church, St. Theresa in Mountain View, is the closest of the three to 5th Street Ohana, just a short drive up Highway 11 toward Hilo. Father Gielen built it in 1936, roughly 10 years after Star of the Sea, and painted the domed ceilings himself by oil lantern at night. The interior includes biblical scenes, the Stations of the Cross, and images of St. Damien, the Hawaiian saint who served leprosy patients on Molokai.
A Day Trip from Volcano Village
Staying at 5th Street Ohana puts you about 45 minutes from the church, making this an easy half-day trip that leaves plenty of time to explore Pahoa town or the eastern coastline before heading back. The Queen Emma and Sir Spencer units both have full kitchens, so you can pack lunch, spend the morning at the church and the surrounding area, and be back in Volcano Village in time for the park in the late afternoon.
If you want to build out the day, the drive between Volcano Village and Kalapana passes through some of the most distinctive landscapes on the Big Island. Open lava fields, dense rainforest, and small farms line the route. It’s a different side of the island from the national park, and it’s worth seeing.
Book your stay and discover the beauty and history of the Star of the Sea Painted Church.