Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea - Worship and Liturgy

Worship and Liturgy

Liturgical translations into local languages, such as Wedau, Ubir, Mukawa and Binandere, were an early part of the first missionaries' work. Today, a local variant of the Book of Common Prayer is used in the simplified English of the Good News Bible and with similar illustrations. A conundrum for the church has been the question of an appropriate common liturgical language in the Papua New Guinean environment of radical, even extreme, multiculturalism. New Guinea Pidgin is an official language of the country and is spoken and understood by more Papua New Guineans than any other, but it is little known in the Anglican heartland of Oro and Milne Bay Provinces. An anglophone Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea hymn book was published in the early 1980s which contains a strictly limited number of hymns from a variety of traditions.

The churchmanship, as demonstrated by the Papua New Guinea Prayer Book, is Anglo-Catholic: the normative Sunday service is the Eucharist, commonly referred to as "Mass"; Mattins is virtually unknown; clergy are addressed as "Father" (there are no women clergy, although the United Church has ordained women for many years, substantially based as it is among New Guinea Islands cultures which have a tradition of strong women leaders and matrilineal inheritance). Religious orders — the Melanesian Brothers and the Anglican Franciscans — play a considerable role in the life of the church. Oro tapa cloth is a characteristic feature of church decoration and liturgical vestments, as befits a denomination substantially characterised by Oro people, and church festivals are often marked by congregants appearing in traditional Oro dress, with Oro drumming and singing.