The life and times of St. Damien of Molokai are being presented in blockbuster musical style in Belgium, his native country.

The Roman Catholic priest, born Jozef De Veuster in 1840 and best known in Hawaii as Father Damien, came to the Kalaupapa peninsula on Molokai in 1873 to minister to its Hansen’s disease patients, who were outcast in Hawaii because their condition was thought to be contagious and incurable. Damien (Damiaan in Dutch) was diagnosed with the disease 11 years later, but continued to serve his congregation until his death in 1889. He was canonized in 2009. Hansen’s disease has been found to be curable.

“Damiaan: Musical Spectacle” premieres Wednesday in Scherpenheuvel, a town about an hour east of Brussels, presented by Historalia, a theater company devoted to historical drama. The two-hour-plus musical features a cast of 160 people and runs Wednesdays through Saturdays through Sept. 2, with one Sunday staging on Aug. 20.

The website for the production, Damiaan.be, quotes director Luc Stevens describing the musical as “Damiaan … with a smile, a tear! About his life, but also about the beauty, the misery and the connection that can be created by the people who have been pushed aside by society.”

Father Damien continues to be a source of inspiration in Belgium. He was voted the Greatest Belgian in 2005, and a museum has been built in his birthplace in Tremelo, about 20 miles from Brussels. For more, go to damiaanmuseum.be/en.