Episcopal Press and News

The Church of the Province of New Zealand Fillers

Diocesan Press Service. October 1, 1962 [III-7A]

Comprised of 9 dioceses with 11 bishops and 630 clergy, the Church of the Province of New Zealand has 112,000 communicants.

The first Christian service in New Zealand was held on Christmas Day, 1814.

The General Synod of 1961. elected the Rt. Rev. N.A. Lesser as Primate and Archbishop .of New Zealand.

A Maori is appointed by the bishops of the dioceses of the North Island of New Zealand as Bishop of Aotearoa and is suffragan to the Bishop of Waiapu. The present Bishop of Aotearoa is the Rt. Rev. Wirema N. Panapa, consecrated in 1951.

The first mission school for Maoris was opened by the Rev. Samuel Marsden on Bay of Islands in 1816.

The Province of New Zealand has two missionary districts: Melanesia, founded in 1861, and Polynesia, founded in 1908.

New Zealand was discovered by the Dutch navigator, Tasman, in 1642. It was 199 years later that the first diocese, Auckland, was founded.