Bahá'í Faith in Tonga

The Bahá'í Faith in Tonga started after being set as a goal to introduce the religion in 1953, and Bahá'ís arrived in 1954. With conversions and pioneers the first Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly was elected in 1958. From 1959 the Bahá'ís of Tonga and their local institutions were members of a Regional Spiritual Assembly of the South Pacific. By 1963 there were five local assemblies. Less than forty years later, in 1996, the Bahá'ís of Tonga established their paramount Bahá'í school in the form of the Ocean of Light International School. Around 2004 there were 29 local spiritual assemblies. The 2015 estimate of the World Religion Database ranked the Bahá'ís at 3.5% of the national population, though as recently as 2006 the Tonga Broadcasting Commission maintained a policy that does not allow discussions by members of the Bahá'í Faith of its founder, Bahá'u'lláh on its radio broadcasts.

In 1953 the twelve existing Bahá'í National Spiritual Assemblies were asked by Shoghi Effendi, then head of the religion, to help spread the religion. The community of the United States was to attempt to bring the religion to Tonga. In Tonga, the Bahá'í community grew much like it did in other Pacific communities — first the community emerged through the acts of both pioneers and converts and then grew by spreading through family and tribal groups or clan-structures.

Australian Stanley P. Bolton was the first Bahá'í to arrive in Tonga — he arrived on 25 January 1954. American Dudley M. Blakely, nephew of Lua Getsinger, and wife Elsa also pioneered to Tonga on 12 July 1954. Each earned the title Knights of Bahá'u'lláh for their service to the religion. Blakely was a designer and worked as an adviser to the Tongan government contributing to a number of buildings and furnishings as well as stamps and coins for the government. In 1961 he had designed a five-stamp special issue set commemorating mail deliveries to the islands changing from the era of the fishing boat to airmail. In 1962 he designed a set of the first gold coins in Polynesia. He designed Tonga's first decimal coin set in 1965.

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