Religion

New Zealand’s Muslim community suffered an horrific attack when a self-proclaimed ‘white nationalist’ opened fire on worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch. Fifty people were killed and 41 wounded, one of whom died six weeks later.

Dr Penny Jamieson’s rise through church ranks was rapid. The first women were ordained to the Anglican priesthood in New Zealand in 1977. Jamieson was ordained and appointed to a Wellington parish in 1985.

The first and so far only visit to New Zealand by a Bishop of Rome was significant for both Catholics and the wider community.

In the first half of 1959 Billy Graham and his associate evangelists Leighton Ford, Grady Wilson and Joseph Blinco held crusades in New Zealand and Australia which attracted large audiences.

This was the first temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the southern hemisphere.

Frederick Bennett, who had a Ngāti Whakaue mother and an Irish father, was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1897. He spent 13 years as superintendent of the Māori mission in Rotorua before moving to Hastings for mission work in Hawke’s Bay.

Founded in 1918 by Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana (1873–1939), the religious movement that bore his name gave hope to many dispossessed Māori and later became a political force.

James Liston, the assistant bishop of Auckland, was found not guilty of sedition following a high-profile court case.

Mother Aubert, known initially in her religious life as Sister Mary Joseph, was appointed to a newly established order at Hiruharama (Jerusalem) on the Whanganui River

In Christchurch, 30 Catholic Irishmen attacked an Orange (Protestant) procession with pick-handles, while in Timaru, 150 men from Thomas O’Driscoll’s Hibernian Hotel surrounded Orangemen and prevented their procession taking place.

A British patrol was ambushed by Pai Mārire fighters near Ōakura. The heads of the seven men killed were taken around the North Island by Pai Mārire disciples to encourage enlistment in the movement.

The Matilda Wattenbach brought 352 Nonconformist (non-Anglican Protestant) immigrants from England. Another 315 landed from the Hanover a week later, and six more immigrant ships had arrived by 1865.

Nine Sisters of Mercy arrived in Auckland on the Oceanie with Bishop Pompallier and a number of priests.