Religious, Spiritual sights in USA
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Eldridge Street Synagogue
This landmarked house of worship, built in 1887, was once the center of Jewish life, before falling into squalor in the 1920s. Left to rot, it's only recently been reclaimed, and now shines with original splendor. Its onsite museum gives tours every half hour ($10; 10am to 5pm), with the last one departing at 4pm.
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Washington National Cathedral
Open to all faiths and creeds, this house of worship, while run by the Episcopal diocese, has conducted services for Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Baha’is. Presidents attend multifaith services following their inauguration, state funerals are hosted inside and this was where Martin Luther King Jr gave his last Sunday sermon. Technically, it took 82 years to build this edifice – Teddy Roosevelt laid the cornerstone in 1908, and construction didn’t technically stop until 1990. The National Cathedral has become such an iconic feature of the city skyline it is hard to imagine a time when its construction was a controversial issue, but there was some str…
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King’s Chapel & Burying Ground
Bostonians were not pleased when the original Anglican church was erected on this site in 1688. (Remember, it was the Anglicans – the Church of England – whom the Puritans were fleeing.) The granite chapel standing today was built in 1754. If the church seems to be missing something, it is: funds ran out before a spire could be added. The church houses the largest bell ever made by Paul Revere, as well as a historic organ. Note the prestigious Governor’s pew, once occupied by George Washington, who came to hear a concert. Request a brochure to take a self-guided tour of the church’s architectural and historical highlights. After the revolution, King’s Chapel became the fi…
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Mo'okini Luakini Heiau
One of the oldest and most historically significant temples in the Hawaiian islands, Mo'okini Luakini Heiau sits on a grassy knoll near 'Upolu Point at the northern tip of the Big Island. The massive structure, which measures about 250ft by 125ft, with walls 6ft high, was a 'closed' heiau, reserved for ali'i nui (kings and ruling chiefs) for fasting, praying and offering of human sacrifices to their gods.
There's a clear view of Maui and, during winter, humpback whales, from the heiau site. There are no facilities. The heiau was dedicated to the god Ku, and built from 'sunrise to first light' by up to 18,000 'little people' passing water-worn basalt stones in complete sil…
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Kane'aki Heiau
Set within the Makaha Valley, this is one of the best restored sacred sites on the island. According to legend the rain goddess was impressed with the fishing prowess of a local chief. His generous offering to her was reciprocated with generous rainfall to the parched valley and in turn a heiau was built in her honor. The site was later used as a luakini, a temple to the war god Ku and a place for human sacrifices. Kamehameha worshipped here.
The site remained in use until the time of his death in 1812. Restoration, undertaken by the Bishop Museum and completed in 1970, added two prayer towers, a taboo house, drum house, altar and god images. The heiau was reconstructed u…
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Valley of the Temples
The Valley of the Temples is an interdenominational cemetery in a stunning setting just off the Kahekili Hwy. For most visitors the main attraction is Byodo-In, the 'Temple of Equality.' Dedicated in 1968 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Hawaii, Byodo-In is a replica of the 950-year-old temple in Kyoto, Japan. For a panoramic view of the valley, head up to the hilltop mausoleum with the cross.
The Byodo-In temple's symmetry is a classic example of Japanese Heian architecture and garden design symbolizing the Pure Land of Mahayana Buddhism. The seated 9ft-tall tall Buddha in the main hall is positioned to catch the first rays of morning sunli…
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Kaua'i's Hindu Monastery
On an island virtually devoid of Hinduism, the splendid Kaua'i Aadheenam, commonly called simply Kaua'i's Hindu Monastery, is both serious monastery and growing tourist attraction. Located on 458 acres of lush rainforest above Wailua River, the traditional South Indian Saivite (Shiva-worshipping) monastery is a sprawling garden oasis, with a meditation hall and Ganesha statues sitting amid wildly tropical landscaping. The gift shop here has chanting CDs, alarm clocks with the Great Crystal on the face, granite lingams and tiger-eye Ganesha figurines.
Access is limited to tours three or four times a month, which are well worth the time. Check the website for tour dates.
In…
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Churches of Ukrainian Village
The domes of the neighborhood’s majestic churches pop out over the treetops in Ukrainian Village. Take a minute to wander by St Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral, which is the less traditional of the neighborhood’s main churches. Its 13 domes represent Christ and the Apostles. The intricate mosaics – added to the 1915 building in 1988 – owe their inspiration to the Cathedral of St Sophia in Kiev. Saints Volodymyr & Olha Church was founded by traditionalists from St Nicholas, who broke away over liturgical differences and built this showy church in 1975. It makes up for its paucity of domes (only five) with a massive mosaic of the conversion of Grand Duke Vladi…
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Wai'oli Hui'ia Church
A popular site for quaint church weddings, Wai'oli Hui'ia Church was built by Hanalei's first missionaries, Reverend and Mrs William Alexander, who arrived in 1834 in a double-hulled canoe. Their church, hall and mission house remain in the middle of town, set on a huge manicured lawn with a beautiful mountain backdrop.
The pretty green wooden church retains an airy Pacific feel, with large, outward-opening windows and high ceilings. The doors remain open during the day and visitors are welcome. A Bible printed in Hawaiian and dating from 1868 is displayed on top of the old organ. The Wai'oli Church Choir, the island's best, sings hymns in Hawaiian at the 10:00 Sunday ser…
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Botanicas
The storefronts promise to help in matters of love, work and sometimes 'immigration services,' but trust us, there are no marriage counselors or INS guys in these shops. Welcome to the wide world of vodou. As you enter you'll probably get a funny look, but be courteous, curious and respectful and you should be welcomed.
Before you browse, forget your stereotypes about pins and dolls, because vodou is no scarier than wine turning into blood on Communion. Like many traditional religions, vodou recognizes supernatural forces in everyday objects, powers that are both distinct and part of a single overarching deity. Ergo, you'll see shrines to Jesus next to altars to tradition…
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Franciscan Monastery
This honey-colored compound leaps out like an unexpected religious slap from the surrounding parkland and residential row houses. Also known as Mt St Sepulchre, the building is pretty but not particularly unique; more interesting are the carefully maintained grounds, threaded with walkways that lead past 44 acres of tulips, dogwoods, cherry trees and roses – and some unintentionally tacky re-creations of the Middle East. See, the Order of St Francis is charged with the guardianship of the Holy Land’s sacred sites, and it has interpreted that task in a unique way here, constructing replicas for the faithful on its grounds. There are life-size fake-granite reproductions of …
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Kukaniloko
Just north of Wahiawa is the area known as Kukaniloko, which marks a group of royal birthstones where Hawaiian queens gave birth to generations of royalty. The stones date from the 12th century. Legend held that if a woman lay properly against the stones while giving birth, her child would be blessed by the gods, and indeed, many of O'ahu's great chiefs were born at this site.
These stones are one of only two documented birthstone sites in Hawaii (the other is on Kaua'i). Many of the petroglyphs on the stones are of recent origin, but the eroded circular patterns are original.
To get to the site from town, go three-quarters of a mile north on Kamehameha Hwy from its inters…
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Church of the Holy Ascension
Unalaska is dominated by the Church of the Holy Ascension, the oldest Russian-built church still standing in the country. It was built in 1825 and then enlarged in 1894, when its floor plan was changed from to a pekov (the shape of a crucifix). On Broadway overlooking the bay, the church and its onion domes are a photographer's delight. The church contains almost 700 pieces of art, ranging from Russian Orthodox icons and books to the largest collection of 19th-century paintings in Alaska.
The best time to view the church and its icons is at 18:00 on Saturday when staff members give an informal 30-minute tour just before service. Outside the church is a small graveyard, wh…
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Old St Mary’s Cathedral
Many thought it a lost cause, but California’s first cathedral, inaugurated in 1854, tried for decades to give San Francisco some religion – despite its location in brothel central. Hence the stern admonition on the church’s brick clock tower: ‘Son, observe the time and fly from evil.’ Eventually the archdiocese abandoned attempts to convert Dupont St whoremongers and handed the church over to a Chinese community mission run by the activism-oriented Paulists. During WWII, the church served the US military as a recreation center and cafeteria. The 1906 fire destroyed one of the district’s biggest bordellos directly across from the church, making room for St Mar…
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Old St Patrick’s Church
A Chicago fire survivor, this 1852 church is not only the city’s oldest but also one of its fastest-growing, thanks to the strategies of its politically connected former pastor, Father Jack Wall. Old St Pat’s is best known for its year-round calendar of social events for singles, including the enormously popular World’s Largest Block Party; this is a weekend-long party with big-name rock bands where Catholic singles can flirt. (No less an authority than Oprah has proclaimed the block party the best place to meet one’s match.) The social programs have certainly boosted Old St Pat’s membership, which has gone from four (yes, four) in 1983 to thousands two decades later. The…
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Moku'aikaua Church
On April 4, 1820, the first Christian missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands sailed into Kailua Bay. When they landed, they were unaware that Hawai'i's old religion had been abolished on that very spot just a few months before. King Liholiho gave them this site, just a few minutes' walk from Kamehameha's Ahu'ena Heiau, to establish Hawai'i's first Christian church.
Completed in 1836, Moku'aikaua Church is a handsome building with walls of lava rock held together by sand and coral lime mortar. The posts and beams, hewn with stone adzes, and smoothed down with chunks of coral, are made from resilient ohia, and the pews and pulpit are made of koa, the most prized native hardwo…
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Mahayana Buddhist Temple
The Mahayana Buddhist Temple holds one golden, 16ft-high Buddha, sitting on a lotus and edged with offerings of fresh oranges, apples and flowers. Mahayana is the largest Buddhist temple in Chinatown, and its facade, right near the frenzied vehicle entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, features two giant golden lions for protection; its interior is simple, with a wooden floor, red chairs and red paper lanterns – but all these are trumped by the magnificent Buddha, thought to be the largest in the city.
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New Haven Green
New Haven’s spacious green has been the spiritual center of the city since its Puritan fathers designed it in 1638 as the prospective site for Christ’s Second Coming. Since then it has held the municipal burial grounds – graves were later moved to Grove Street Cemetery – several statehouses and an array of churches, three of which still stand. The 1816 Trinity Church is Episcopal and resembles England’s Gothic York Minster, featuring several Tiffany windows. The Georgian-style 1812 Center Church on the Green (United Church of Christ), a fine New England interpretation of Palladian architecture, harbors many colonial tombstones in its crypt. The 1814 United Churc…
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St Augustine Catholic Church
Let the spirit move you at DC’s oldest black Catholic congregation. Clad in Kenti cloth and sporting soloists just waiting to bust their lungs, the 165 members of the St Augustine gospel choir rock the house every Sunday at 12:30pm. The mass is long, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun and spiritually nourishing to boot. For calmer but equally beautiful music, come for 10am mass, when the church chorale sings traditional Catholic hymns. Founded in 1858, St Augustine’s congregation moved to the Gothic-revival building at 15th and V Sts NW in 1961. It was a bold move, and marked a merger with an all-white congregation; the joined churches became known as Sts Paul & Augustine. T…
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St Andrew's Cathedral
The French Gothic St Andrew's Cathedral was King Kamehameha IV's personal homage to the architecture and faith of the Church of England. Following the tradition of the church's English founder, the Hawaiian king and his consort, Queen Emma, founded the Anglican Church of Hawaii in 1858. King Kamehameha V had the cornerstone laid in 1867 four years after the death of Kamehameha IV on St Andrew's Day - hence the name.
The construction of stone and glass was shipped from England. The impressive window of hand-blown stained glass forms the western facade reaching from the floor to the eaves. In the right-hand section of the stained glass the Reverend Thomas Staley, the first …
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Waine'e Church
The first stone church in Hawaii, Waine'e Church was built in 1832 and cursed with a run of bad luck. First the steeple collapsed in 1858, then in 1894 royalists enraged that the minister supported Hawaii's annexation torched it to the ground. A second church, built to replace the original, burned in 1947, and the third was blown away in a storm a few years later. One might get the impression that the old Hawaiian gods didn't take kindly to the house of this foreign deity!
The fourth version, however, has been standing since 1953 and still holds regular Sunday services.
The adjacent cemetery holds as much intrigue as the church. Here lie several notables: Governor Hoapili,…
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Kaulu Paoa Heiau
The vague remains of Kaulu Paoa Heiau stand just five minutes' walk from Ke'e Beach. Here, beneath a cliff face, large stones create a long flat grassy platform where a thatched-roof hula halau (school) once stood. In ancient Hawai'i this halau was Kaua'i's most sacred; students aspiring to learn hula came from all of the Hawaiian Islands and the legendary Kaua'i chief Lohi'au trained here.
Present-day hula halau (troupes) still leave lei and other offerings to Laka (goddess of hula) in crevices in the cliff face.
To find the remains of the heiau, take the path on the western side of the beach. Follow the stone wall as it curves uphill and you'll reach the heiau almost imm…
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Ulupo Heiau
The building of Ulupo Heiau, a sizable, open-platform temple of stones piled 30ft high and 140ft long, is attributed to menehune, the little people who legends say created much of Hawaii's stonework, finishing each project in one night. Fittingly, Ulupo means 'night inspiration.' It's thought to have been a luakini (place for human sacrifice). From the path across the top of the heiau, hikers get a view of Kawainui Marsh.
In front of the temple is an artist's rendition of the site as it probably looked in the 18th century.
Ulupo Heiau is a mile south of Kailua Rd, behind the YMCA. Coming up the Pali Hwy from Honolulu, take Uluoa St, the first left after passing the Hwy 72…
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Mary Baker Eddy Library & Mapparium
The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity is an odd amalgam, housing the offices of the internationally regarded newspaper the Christian Science Monitor, as well as one of Boston’s hidden treasures, the intriguing Mapparium. The Mapparium is a room-size, stained-glass globe that visitors walk through on a glass bridge. It was created in 1935, which is reflected in the globe’s geopolitical boundaries. The acoustics, which surprised even the designer, allow everyone in the room to hear even the tiniest whisper. Second-floor galleries deal with the ‘search for the meaning of life, ’ both on a personal and global level. The heart of the library’s collections,…
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First Unitarian Church
Low-down and rough around the edges aren’t usually meant as compliments, and they’re not usually applied to a church. But George Percy’s down-to-earth 1888 design for a cathedral in rough-hewn stone was considered appropriate by the progressive Universalists, whose current church committees include a pagan interest group and gay marriage advocacy. The 1970–74 annex built by Callister Payne & Rosse is a modernist eye-catcher that’s conceptually consistent with the older structure: a low, concrete-slab building that makes no secret of its construction. The design for the annex owes an obvious debt to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, as well as local …
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