Big Island · South Kona
St. Benedict's Painted Church
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St. Benedict's Roman Catholic Church (commonly The Painted Church) is a small wooden mission church in the Hōnaunau area, hand-painted inside between approximately 1899 and 1904 by Belgian Catholic missionary Father John Berchmans Velghe. One of two hand-painted folk-art Catholic churches in Hawaiʻi (the other: Star of the Sea Painted Church in Kalapana, built 1927–28 by Father Evarist Gielen — both Belgian Sacred Hearts missionaries, both same order as Father Damien De Veuster of Molokaʻi). Velghe came to Hawaiʻi in the 1890s, built St. Benedict's 1899–1902, painted the interior 1899–1904, returned to Belgium in 1904. The interior is a folk-naive trompe l'oeil rendering of a European Gothic cathedral: painted columns, vaulted ceiling, stained-glass-effect windows, perspective-painted alcoves; multiple Bible-scene murals (Christ in Majesty above the altar, the Last Supper, saints, Catholic theological scenes); decorative botanical and architectural elements throughout. Materials are house paints and oils — practical for a remote rural mission, fragile under repeated flash photography. Active congregation; Sunday Mass continues; free to visit; donations welcome. The two surviving Hawaiian painted churches (St. Benedict's in Kona, Star of the Sea in Puna) together represent the entire genre of hand-painted folk-art Catholic churches in Hawaiʻi.
This is an active Catholic congregation — Mass continues here on Sundays. Be quiet inside; treat as a working church, not a museum. Do not touch the walls; the painted surfaces are house paint and oils on wood, more than a century old. Do not use flash close to the murals — repeated flash exposure damages the paint Father Velghe used. Donations support ongoing preservation work and are welcome. The church is at the end of Painted Church Road, about a mile mauka of Highway 11.