The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea is a province of the Anglican Communion. It was created in 1977 when the Province of Papua New Guinea became independent from the Province of Queensland in the Church of England in Australia (officially renamed the Anglican Church of Australia in 1981)When it followed the 1955 decision of the Church of England in Canada. following Papua New Guinea's independence in 1975.
History Founding Britain assumed sovereignty over southeast New Guinea in 1888 and the General Synod of the Church of England in Australia (now the Anglican Church of Australia) then resolved that "the recent annexation of portion of New Guinea imposes direct obligation upon the Church to provide for the spiritual welfare both of the natives and the settlers."Noel Gash and June Whittaker, A Pictorial History of New Guinea. Milton, Queensland: The Jacaranda Press, 1975, p. 161. In 1889, A. A. Maclaren was appointed the first Anglican missionary to the region and in 1890 visited with Copland King.Gash et al., 161-62. They purchased land at Samarai for a mission station but Maclaren died at the end of 1891 and King withdrew to Australia;Gash et al., 162 in 1892 King returned to Dogura and built a mission house and two South Sea Islands teachers joined him in 1893 and were placed at Taupota and Awaiama; in 1894 a teacher was placed at Boiani.Gash et al., 162. In 1898 Montagu John Stone-Wigg was appointed Bishop of New Guinea and spent ten years there, establishing stations at Wanigela and Mukawa on Collingwood Bay in 1898 and Mamba at the mouth of the Mambare River in 1899: by 1901 there were eleven stations along the coast of north Papua (in what are now Northern (Oro) and Milne Bay Provinces) and Anglican influence had extended along of the coast.
Ss Peter and Paul Cathedral in Dogura, Milne Bay Province, is the largest Anglican church in Papua New Guinea. It seats 800, was consecrated in 1939 three years before the outbreak of war in the South Pacific and survived the traumatic Japanese occupation of Papua New Guinea during World War II.Dogura Anglican Cathedral, Milne Bay Province. Retrieved 1 August 2009.
Second World War and recovery
The Japanese had put ashore troops in Papua near Gona by July 1942 with a view to taking Lae and Salamaua.Bruce Adams. Rust in Peace: South Pacific Battlegrounds Revisited. Sydney: Antipodean Publishers, 1975, 93. The Japanese did not harass or occupy Dogura mission itself and services continued in the cathedral throughout the war, with congregations amply enlarged by visitors from the Australian and American armed forces.EWM Kelly, The Story of Dogura 1891–1977 (London: Papua New Guinea Church Partnership, 1980), 24-25. However, the Anglican Church elsewhere fared less well. In Anglican terminology the Martyrs of New Guinea were eight Anglican clergy, teachers and medical missionaries killed by the Japanese in 1942,Anglican Board of Missions: The New Guinea Martyrs. Retrieved 20 October 2007. the Anglican Bishop of New Guinea (then still a diocese of the ecclesiastical Province of Queensland) Philip Strong (Bishop from 1936 to 1962) having instructed Anglican missionaries to remain at their posts despite the Japanese invasion. Three hundred thirty-three church workers of various denominations were killed during the Japanese occupation of New Guinea.
A statue of Lucian Tapiedi, the one indigenous PapuanThe term "Papua" strictly speaking refers as an alternate term to the whole island of New Guinea; in general anglophone parlance the region has generally been referred to as "New Guinea". Britain de facto ceded the administration of British New Guinea, the southeastern quadrant of the island, to Australia after the Australian federation in 1900 and Australia renamed it "Papua". After Australia seized German New Guinea in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War it administered the whole eastern half of the island of New Guinea together with the New Guinea Islands albeit that former German New Guinea was initially a League of Nations and then a United Nations trust territory. The designation of the southeast quarter of the island as "Papua" persisted and the territory was long designated "The Territory of Papua and New Guinea." Mild nationalist sentiments in Papua led the founders of the soon-to-be-sovereign state in the 1970s to retain "Papua" in the name of the country; the matter is mildly confused further nowadays when the former Netherlands New Guinea, on the western half of the main island of New Guinea, is deemed to be "Papua." among the Anglican martyrs of New Guinea, is installed among the niches with other 20th-century Christian martyrs, over the west door of Westminster Abbey in London. The statue of Lucian Tapiedi stands second from right.
The Martyrs of Papua New Guinea are remembered in the Church of England with a commemoration on 2 September.
Postwar recovery was hindered by the 21 January 1951 eruption of Mount Lamington, which devastated Higatura, which contained the Martyrs' School and the main mission centre, where a diocesan synod was in progress — both were destroyed — and Sangara, the Northern District Headquarters, where everyone was killed.Gash et al., 304.
Martyrs' School was subsequently re-established at Popondetta, where its eponym for obvious reasons came generally to refer to the hundreds of victims of the Mount Lamington eruption who died precisely because they were involved in church work at the time of the eruption.
Present Since it was historically part of the ecclesiastical province of Queensland, the Anglican Board of Mission - Australia (ABM-A; previously the Australian Board of Missions) has provided ongoing personnel and material support to the church. Today that support takes the form of funding for theological training, ministry, evangelism and building the church's capacity for community development and enhanced provision of vital social services such as education and health, including HIV/AIDS.
The Anglican mission was not well funded in years past and it did not compare favourably with other Christian denominations in Papua New Guinea in terms of health and education services. Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Congregational and Methodist missions elsewhere in the country established plantations and other commercial enterprises by way of funding mission activities and were able to recruit Polynesian mission staff from elsewhere in the South Pacific. The Anglican mission, centred in Oro and Milne Bay, which were in early years less amenable to commercial enterprise and without a substantial mission presence elsewhere in the South Pacific, lacked these resources and depended on mission funds and personnel in Australia and England.
There are two church-affiliated high schools, Martyrs' Memorial School in Popondetta, Northern (Oro)The Constitution of Papua New Guinea sets out the names of the 19 provinces at the time of independence. Several provinces, including Northern, have changed their names; such changes are not strictly speaking official without a formal constitutional amendment, though "Oro" is universally used in reference to that province. and Province and Holy Name School in Dogura, Milne Bay Province, and numerous primary schools in Northern and Milne Bay Provinces.
The church operates Newton Theological College, a theological seminary for the training of clergy in Popondetta and, in co-operation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea and the Gutnius Lutheran Church (i.e. Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod), Balob Teachers' College in Lae.
Membership In accordance with early concordats among European missionaries by which they agreed not to engage in undue competition with each other, Anglican missionary activity was largely confined to the Northern and Milne Bay Districts of Papua; the Oro (Northern) Province remains the only civil province of Papua New Guinea of which a majority of the population are Anglican.
There are pockets of Anglicans in the Western Highlands (and James Ayong, Archbishop of Aipo-Rongo — Mount Hagen — was the former primate), in the western extremity of West New Britain and of course, significantly, in Port Moresby where the core constituency of Oro and Wedau people is supplemented by foreign residents of the city.Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea Diocese of Port Moresby website: St Martin's Boroko. Retrieved 27 June 2009.
Australian bishops
Prior to 1977, when Papua New Guinea was a diocese of the (Church of England in Australia) Queensland Province, the bishops of New Guinea included: Montagu John Stone-Wigg, (1898–1908) Gerald Sharp, (1910–1921) Henry Newton, (1922–1936) Sir Philip Strong, (1936–1962) David Hand, (1963–1977; Hand had previously been Strong's coadjutor since 1950). As diocesan bishop, Hand had assistant bishops: George Ambo (from 1960 onwards), John Chisholm (1964–1967), Bevan Meredith (consecrated 26 February 1967), Henry Kendall (consecrated 24 February 1968), Jeremy Ashton (consecrated 2 May 1976) and Rhynold Sanana (consecrated 9 May 1976).Consecration details
At the creation of the independent province in 1977, the one Diocese of New Guinea was divided in five; Hand became Bishop of Port Moresby and also became the first archbishop.
Archbishops The first archbishop and Primate of Papua New Guinea was David Hand, the last Australian bishop. Succeeding primates also retained their diocesan sees until the consecration of Joseph Kopapa, who was primate from 2010 to 2012. Before his election to the primacy, Kopapa was Bishop of Popondota — but, prior to the primatial election, it was decided that the primate would have no diocesan responsibilities and would take on a solely national role. The last archbishop, Archbishop Migi, was acting diocesan bishop of the islands during a vacancy in See. after Archbishop Migi's resignation in May 2020 due to ill health (and later died in October 2020.). Senior Bishop Nathan Ingen became Primate (Acting) on 11 May, 2022 till present.
19771983 (ret.): David Hand, Bishop of Port Moresby 19831989 (ret.): George Ambo, Bishop of Popondetta 19891995 (ret.): Bevan Meredith, Bishop of the New Guinea Islands (1977–ret.) 19962009 (ret.): James Ayong, Bishop of Aipo-Rongo (1995–2009) 20102012 (ret.): Joseph Kopapa (non-diocesan) 20132017 (ret.): Clyde Igara (non-diocesan) 20172020 (ret.): Allan Migi (non-diocesan; caretaker Bishop of the New Guinea Islands) 2022 –present: Nathan Ingen (Acting Primate; Bishop of Aipo Rongo Diocese)
Diocesan structure The Archbishop of Papua New Guinea is both metropolitan and primate. The polity of the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea is episcopalian, as with all Anglican churches. The church maintains a system of geographical parishes organised into dioceses. There are five dioceses, each headed by a bishop.
There are no metropolitical dioceses as such and the primate and Archbishop of Papua New Guinea may be any one of the five diocesan bishops, who concurrently retains his designation as bishop of his diocese. (Unlike in some other Anglican provinces, all clergy and bishops are male.)
The dioceses are: Diocese of Port Moresby
The Diocese of Port Moresby (initially called the Diocese of Southern Papua) includes the entirety of Papua (i.e. the former British New Guinea, the southeastern quarter of the island of New Guinea) apart from Milne Bay and Northern (Oro) provinces. Her cathedral is at St John's, Port Moresby Bishops: 1977–1983: David Hand (Archbishop; diocese aka "Southern Papua") 1983–1997: Isaac Gadebo (elected May 1983) 1998–2001: Michael Hough 2002–2006: Peter Fox 2007–2014: Peter Ramsden (consecrated 25 March 2007) 2015–10 August 2019: Denny Guka (consecrated 24 May 2015 at St Martin's, Boroko; removed from Holy Orders 10 August 2019) 2024–present: Wilfred Kekea (Bishop Elect; yet to be consecrated)
Diocese of Popondota