Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea

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."[5] In 1889, A. A. Maclaren was appointed the first Anglican missionary to the region and in 1890 visited with Copland King.[6] They purchased land at Samarai for a mission station but Maclaren died at the end of 1891 and King withdrew to Australia;[7] 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.[8] 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 480 kilometres (480,000 m) of the coast.[8]

Ss Peter and Paul Cathedral[9] 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.[10]

Statue in Brisbane, Australia of Raphael Aimbari, an Oro man, leading a blinded Australian soldier during the New Guinea Campaign

The Japanese had put ashore troops in Papua near Gona by July 1942 with a view to taking Lae and Salamaua.[11] 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.[12] However, the Anglican Church elsewhere fared less well. In Anglican terminology the New Guinea Martyrs were eight Anglican clergy, teachers and medical missionaries killed by the Japanese in 1942,[13] 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.

The 20th-century Christian martyrs, Westminster Abbey

A statue of Lucian Tapiedi, the one indigenous Papuan[14] 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.[15]

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.[16]

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.

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.

St Martin's Church, Boroko, Port Moresby

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.

Coastal village Anglican church in Oro (Northern) Province

There are two church-affiliated high schools, Martyrs' Memorial School in Popondetta, Northern (Oro)[17] 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.

St John's Cathedral, Port Moresby, 2013

The Diocese of Port Moresby (initially called the Diocese of Southern Papua)[28] 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[29]

Bishops:

• 1977–1983: David Hand (Archbishop; diocese aka "Southern Papua")[2]
• 1983–1997: Isaac Gadebo (elected May 1983)[30]
• 1998–2001: Michael Hough[31]
• 2002–2006: Peter Fox
• 2007–2014: Peter Ramsden (consecrated 25 March 2007)[32]
• 2015–10 August 2019: Denny Guka (consecrated 24 May 2015 at St Martin's, Boroko; removed from Holy Orders 10 August 2019)[33][34]
• 2019–present: currently vacant

The Diocese of Popondota has its see at the Cathedral of the Resurrection, Popondetta; its territory is the Northern (Oro) Province.

Bishops:

• 1977–1989:[2] George Ambo (since 1977) — first indigenous Papua New Guinean bishop[35] (assistant bishop of New Guinea, 1960–1977; Archbishop, 1983–1989)
• 1990[36]–?: Walter Siba
• 1995–1 June 2002: Reuben Tariambari[37]
• 2003–2005: Roger Jupp (elected 31 December 2002)[38]
• 2006–2010: Joe Kopapa (elected 10 October 2005)[39]
• 2010–present: Lindsley Ihove

Milne Bay Province makes up the Dogura diocese; Dogura itself is the location of the Cathedral of Ss Peter and Paul, the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea's only traditional European-style cathedral of substantial size and built of masonry, which was consecrated on 29 October 1939.[40]

Bishops:

• 1977–1990:[2] Rhynold Sanana
• ?-1992[41] Blake Kerina
• 1992[42]–?: Tevita Talanoa
• 2010–2013: Mervin Clyde Igara
• 2014–present: Tennyson Bogar

The diocese has its see city in Mount Hagen, Western Highlands Province.

Bishops:

• 1977–1986: Jeremy Ashton[2] [43]
  • 10 August 1980 – ?: Blake Kerina, assistant bishop[20]
• 1987[44]–1995: Paul Richardson
• 1995–2009: James Ayong (archbishop, 1996 onwards)
• 25 April 2010[45]–present: Nathan Ingen

The diocese's see city was formerly in Rabaul, though since Rabaul's destruction by volcanic eruption in 1992 the de facto see city has become Kokopo, ENB.

Bishops:

• 1977–1995: Bevan Meredith[2] (archbishop, 1990 onwards)
• 1996–1998: Michael Hough
• 2000–2020: Allan Migi (archbishop and acting bishop from 2017–2020)
• 2021–present: Reginald Makele[46]