The Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACoM)

In 1861 Bishop George Selwyn formed the missionary Diocese of Melanesia within the Church of the Province of New Zealand and John Coleridge Patteson was consecrated the first Bishop of Melanesia. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG, now USPG) provided an annual grant for this work.

The Church today has eight dioceses across The Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. It is estimated that one quarter of the population in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are Anglican. The current Archbishop is the Most Revd Leonard Dawea, Bishop of Temotu.

The Board of Mission oversees social and community development work and includes health and education (including adult literacy), community development, child protection, working with people with disabilities, gender programmes, family violence programmes, responding to climate change and disaster risk reduction.

The Church is home to four religious orders: The Melanesian Brotherhood (with communities in the Solomon Islands and the Southern Region); the Society of St Francis; the Community of the Sisters of Melanesia and the Community of the Sisters of the Church. Ini Kopuria formed the Melanesian Brotherhood in 1925, a religious order established along the lines of the Franciscans. This is the largest Anglican religious order in the world with over four hundred confessed Brothers and many Novices.

Website: https://www.acom.org.sb/