Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea

Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea
Primate	Clyde Igara
Headquarters	Lae, Morobe Province
Territory	Papua New Guinea
Members	c. 167,000
Website	acpng.org.pg

The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea is a province of the Anglican Communion. It was created in 1976 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) following Papua New Guinea's independence in 1975.

The first Archbishop and Primate of Papua New Guinea was David Hand, the Bishop of Port Moresby. Joseph Kopapa was Primate from 2010 to 2012. Before his election to the primacy, Kopapa was Bishop of Popondota. Prior to the primatial election, it was decided that the primate would have no diocesan responsibilities and would solely take on a national role. His successor as Bishop of Popondota was Lindsley Ihove. Kopapa was succeeded by Clyde Igara, elected on 14 June 2013.

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." In 1889 A.A. Maclaren was appointed the first Anglican missionary to the region and in 1890 visited with Copland King. They purchased land at Samarai for a mission station but Maclaren died at the end of 1891 and King withdrew to Australia; 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. Montagu John Stone-Wigg was appointed Bishop of New Guinea and spent 10 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 km of coast. The Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul 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.

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