"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts of the Apostles 1:8
the moravian mission to the chatham islands 1843
Johannes Evangelists Gossner (1773-1858) Founder of the Gossner Lutheran Mission in Berlin of Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed background.
One of the greatest fruits of the Reformation movement was the birth of lay missionary work. A principal instigator of this movement was Count von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) the founder of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine which was based in Herrnhut in Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire. The movement he founded was both evangelistic and ecumenical, following both the Augsburg Confession and the traditional creeds as well as its own Confession of Unity of the Bohemian Brethren. Their motto read: 'in essentials unity; in non essentials liberty; in all things love'. The Moravians were the first large scale missionary movement of the Protestant era, founding three hundred missionary settlements worldwide in the early nineteenth century. Their missions took them to the Caribbean, North America, Africa and the Middle east. The missions were sent out from the Gossner Mission in Berlin which sought young men from craftsmen class and every cless and to train them in a shorter and less expensive manner than in training in seminaries. The candidates would then become missionary assistants as well as deacons and catechists while helping missions with all their practical skills.
the work of the engst and baucke families in chathams
Johannes Engst Chatham Islands 1874 Photo William H. Rau US Astronomical expedition to observe the transit of Venus
In 1841, five Moravian missionaries and their families were sent out from the Gossner Mission mission to evangelise in New Zealand. They were led by Franz Schirmeister. Not finding a place to preach in New Zealand they continued on their travel, and went literally to ' the ends of the earth'. They arrived at the most easterly populated place on the earth called the Chatham Islands - or in the native Moriori language called Rēkohu. This remote archipelago was 800 miles east of Christchurch in New Zealand in the Pacific. Arriving there in February 1843 they establised a mission on the north coast of Chatham Island, but decided to live apart from each other in order to relate to the local Maori and Moriori people. Two of the mission Johann Baucke and Johannes Gottfried Engst and Baucke's son decided to build a mission house of the bottom of Mount Maunganui. Using local materials including burnt shells of pipi plants, local stone from the volcanic cone of the mountain and local wood they build a mission house. Their mission - similar to the early missionaries in New Zealand of Kendal - proved unsuccessful and all of the missionaries returned to Europe apart from Bauke and Engst with their wives and their families who decided to remain on the islands. They taught skills of farming, and sharecropping and taught literary skills to the locals.
planting seeds thAT OTHERS MIGHT reap
William Johannes Baucke ( 1848-1931) son of Moravian Missionaries
William Baucke, son of the Missionaries wrote about the school his mother Maria set up. He wrote:
Father and his party founded their station a bare stone's throw from the Shera home (a mixed Maori-Moriori settlement at Te Whakaru) , where we youngsters brothers and sisters-freely mingled with this racially diverse youth-company, learning both Moriori speech with equal facility. For in those days, the Moriori, when apart Maori, conversed in their own vernacular. Our mother, entering on the labours of mission wife, set apart one room for a daily school, at which this agglomerate of yellow, brown, and white attended on equal terms.
'For,' said this pious soul, and impressed it on her children, 'if God created all things and saw that they were good, He created pagans also. Whence, then, have we the authority to adversely re-classify His work? (1)
Baucke left the island when his wife died while Engst stayed on the island living in the mission house and farming the land. Together with his son he taught the local Moriori and Maori large scale horticulture, growing orchard trees, vegetables and macrocarpa, while developing sheep farming , ship building and teaching skills of literacy. Engst retired when he was eighty and moved to the settlement of Te One where he died. It is not surprising that the Mission House which still stands holds great historical significance for the island. Locals with the help of outsiders have sought to maintain the mission house, rebuilding its and walls and creating supports the ceiling. It represented benevolence and kindness.
While the Lutheran mission failed to win any converts it is still true that 'one sows, another reaps'. ( John 4:37).
Father and his party founded their station a bare stone's throw from the Shera home (a mixed Maori-Moriori settlement at Te Whakaru) , where we youngsters brothers and sisters-freely mingled with this racially diverse youth-company, learning both Moriori speech with equal facility. For in those days, the Moriori, when apart Maori, conversed in their own vernacular. Our mother, entering on the labours of mission wife, set apart one room for a daily school, at which this agglomerate of yellow, brown, and white attended on equal terms.
'For,' said this pious soul, and impressed it on her children, 'if God created all things and saw that they were good, He created pagans also. Whence, then, have we the authority to adversely re-classify His work? (1)
Baucke left the island when his wife died while Engst stayed on the island living in the mission house and farming the land. Together with his son he taught the local Moriori and Maori large scale horticulture, growing orchard trees, vegetables and macrocarpa, while developing sheep farming , ship building and teaching skills of literacy. Engst retired when he was eighty and moved to the settlement of Te One where he died. It is not surprising that the Mission House which still stands holds great historical significance for the island. Locals with the help of outsiders have sought to maintain the mission house, rebuilding its and walls and creating supports the ceiling. It represented benevolence and kindness.
While the Lutheran mission failed to win any converts it is still true that 'one sows, another reaps'. ( John 4:37).
THE pacifism OF MORIORI and conversion TO CHRISTIANITY
A group of Moriori pictured in 1910.
The Moriori before the arrival of the Europeans had been a violent society with many battles and fueds between different whanau. After the instruction of Moriori Chief Nunuku-Whenua however, the Moriori adopted a policy of complete pacifism. Even when parties of Maori arrived from the mainland in 1835 brandishing 'muskets, clubs and tomahawks' and confiscating vast tracts of land they did not return violence for violence. They decided on the contrary in almost 'biblical fashion' to 'turn the other cheek' and even to become 'vassals' in their own land, with many Moriori dying as a result of the violence of the invaders. In 1862 a group of elders wrote to New Zealand Governor Grey seeking the restoration of confiscated land described the Maori invasion:
'Such [was] the manner of living adopted by our race up to the eventful year the Maori came from New Zealand.[in 1835]. November must have been the month, for we were drinking honey from the flax-flowers when they landed at Whangaroa ... in the month of December they spread all over the island, slaying the people in the north, at Waiteki [Waitangi], Waikanini, and at other places. The footsteps of the invaders were upon all parts ..
never were the teachings of the Son of Man more gladly welcomed than when the missionaries reached the Wharekauri [ Maori for Chatham] islands.(2)
Anglican and Wesleyan Missionaries arrived in the Chathams in 1842 and both the Moriori and the Maori received the new teachings of the Gospel in great numbers. In a revival similar to that of the East Coast Maori in New Zealand, nearly all Moriori became Christian, and all but one of the warring Maori tribes accepted the gospel. Tribal conflict ceased and canibalism was eliminated. The community also accepted that the Laws which came from Britain had been 'inspired by the Scriptures'.(3) In another letter to Grey one wrote' Friend - greetings to you with the law of England and the law which comes from the Scriptures. England holds the cause of God and a cannibal people cannot rise and refute the law of England because God is the source of Pakeha law. (4)
Today Christianity is the largest religion in the Chathams with approximately one third identifying as Christian. (5) There are two Catholic Churches ( St Teresa of Liseaux on Chatham and Our Lady of the Antipodes on Pitt Island) with St Augustines Anglican Church on Chatham. There is also a Chatham Islands Christian Fellowship and a Ratana Church.
'Such [was] the manner of living adopted by our race up to the eventful year the Maori came from New Zealand.[in 1835]. November must have been the month, for we were drinking honey from the flax-flowers when they landed at Whangaroa ... in the month of December they spread all over the island, slaying the people in the north, at Waiteki [Waitangi], Waikanini, and at other places. The footsteps of the invaders were upon all parts ..
never were the teachings of the Son of Man more gladly welcomed than when the missionaries reached the Wharekauri [ Maori for Chatham] islands.(2)
Anglican and Wesleyan Missionaries arrived in the Chathams in 1842 and both the Moriori and the Maori received the new teachings of the Gospel in great numbers. In a revival similar to that of the East Coast Maori in New Zealand, nearly all Moriori became Christian, and all but one of the warring Maori tribes accepted the gospel. Tribal conflict ceased and canibalism was eliminated. The community also accepted that the Laws which came from Britain had been 'inspired by the Scriptures'.(3) In another letter to Grey one wrote' Friend - greetings to you with the law of England and the law which comes from the Scriptures. England holds the cause of God and a cannibal people cannot rise and refute the law of England because God is the source of Pakeha law. (4)
Today Christianity is the largest religion in the Chathams with approximately one third identifying as Christian. (5) There are two Catholic Churches ( St Teresa of Liseaux on Chatham and Our Lady of the Antipodes on Pitt Island) with St Augustines Anglican Church on Chatham. There is also a Chatham Islands Christian Fellowship and a Ratana Church.
The Moravian Mission House on Chatham Island 2023
( photo Krstina Hoeppner Wellington NZ CC BY SA 2.0)
1. King, Michael. Moriori: A people rediscovered. Penguin 1989 p.98
2. Ibid. p115-6
3. Ibid p.116
4. Ibid p.116
5. Stats NZ 2023
2. Ibid. p115-6
3. Ibid p.116
4. Ibid p.116
5. Stats NZ 2023