Commemoration of the New Guinea Martyrs

September 2019

The ABM Sydney Committee hosted an event, The Feast of the Commemoration of the New Guinea Martyrs, on Saturday 7^th September, 2019, at St Paul’s Anglican Church in Burwood, Sydney.

The celebrant was the Reverend James Collins, rector of St Paul’s, with special guest preacher the Right Reverend Cameron Venables, Bishop of the Western Region in the Diocese of Brisbane.

New Guinea Martyrs Day is observed in the Anglican calendar worldwide on 2 September to honour twelve Anglican clergy, nurses, teachers and other Christian workers who were executed during the Japanese occupation of Papua, New Guinea and other parts of Melanesia in 1942 and 1943. Also remembered on this day are the seven martyred Brothers of the Melanesian Brotherhood, killed during the civil conflict in the Solomon Islands in 2003.   

At St Paul’s, candles were set up in the transept for the Martyrs of PNG and the Melanesian Brothers killed in the Solomon Islands, and lit during the service. Approximately 90 people attended from parishes around Sydney.

 

Above, Fr James Collins, rector of St Paul’s Burwood, with Bishop Cameron Venables, and below, the candles lit in the transept of the church. © Moya Holle, 2019.

© Edwina Waddy, 2019

 

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