Wellington, New Zealand/Geneva
14/8/2017
Lutherans in New Zealand mark 500 years of the Reformation
Lutheran World Information (LWI) – When the dawn of the first day of 2017 broke on the remote Chatham Islands, 700 km east of mainland New Zealand, 40 Lutherans gathered for a worship service to welcome the jubilee year – 500 years of the Reformation.
“You are invited to be here together with us, just as we too will begin a year-long marking and celebration of God’s reforming grace and love,” said Bishop Mark Whitfield at the opening event at the Lutheran Church in New Zealand.
Several months later, the church organised an ecumenical worship service, tree planting, films and lectures in its largest centres. Other activities are also planned and still being arranged.
The origins of the Lutheran Church in New Zealand date back to February 1843, when five Lutheran missionaries from the Gossner Mission in Berlin, Germany, arrived on the Chatham Islands, or the Rekohu archipelago, to minister to the local Moriori[1] inhabitants.
“With only 800 baptised people among a population of 4.5 million, the Lutheran Church in New Zealand has undertaken to organise an impressive number of Reformation anniversary events, both at the national and the local level,” said Whitfield.
We are doing the very best we can with a limited number of resources and opportunities to ensure that New Zealand is informed about this jubilee year and, above all, about the Gospel that lies at the foundation of the Reformation,” added Bishop Mark Whitfield of the Lutheran Church in New Zealand.
In June, the biennial convention of the Lutheran Church in New Zealand in Wellington decided to devote one day to the anniversary celebrations with an ecumenical worship service and a Reformation dinner. The joint worship service took place in the capital, in the Roman Catholic cathedral, and was co-hosted by Cardinal John Dew and Bishop Whitfield. An important outcome of this initiative was the first dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics in New Zealand.
A few days before Reformation Day, which falls in October, Whitfield will lead Lutheran evening prayers to be held at the Anglican cathedral in Wellington. During the service the cathedral choir will perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s Reformation festival cantata from Eine feste Burg (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), which is one of the best-known hymns of the reformer Martin Luther.
The Lutheran World Federation has called on all its member churches around the world to mark the anniversary, which has given rise to the most diverse jubilee events. This August, LWF General Secretary Dr. Martin Junge took part in some of these activities during his visit to the LCNZ and the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA).
The LCNZ is a regional part of the LCA and an associate member church of the LWF since 1994.
The New Zealand Lutheran bishop Mark Whitfield. Photo: LCNZ
Photo: Lutheran Church in New Zealand
[1]Moriori – the name given by the Maori. Wai-ta-hanui – the oldest known people in New Zealand, who lived here before the arrival of the Maori. At one time they were quite numerous, with 200 separate clans. By 1988 only 140 people remained. Their ancestors were also known as moriore or urukehu – “people of the west.” Typologically – red-haired, with fair skin, hazel eyes. They sailed over from some great land in the west that sank into the ocean. The Maori told that the Moriori had laid out irrigated terraces, fortifications on hilltops and monumental walls (e.g. the Kaimanawa Wall). The last stronghold of the Moriori people was on the Chatham Islands, about 500 miles east of New Zealand. They were still encountered by European seafarers in the early 19th century. In 1835 the Maori arrived on the islands and made everyone into slaves, ate them and destroyed them. To the Maori civilisation are ascribed such objects and finds as the anomalous Waverley Stone (found in 1925), the Kaimanawa Wall and the standing stones of the Waipoua Forest. https://infogram.com/the-moriori-genocide-1g143mn34x53pzy