Kiribati Protestant Church
notability. (July 2022) ) |
The Kiribati Protestant Church (KPC) and earlier, the Gilbert Islands Protestant Church, is a
Protestant Christian denomination in Kiribati. With approximately 10,000 members,[1] and 136 congregations,[1] the KPC was the second-largest religious group in Kiribati before creation of the new Kiribati Uniting Church and accounts now for approximately 8 percent of the population of the country.[2]
Because of their remoteness and the few European presence, the
Congregationalist
denomination.
In 2014, after a Church Bi-annual Assembly (Maungatabu), which was held on the island of Arorae, the initial Kiribati Protestant Church changed its name to Kiribati Uniting Church. The word "uniting" should reflect that the church would like to become now a union of several Protestant denominations in Kiribati, including Congregationalists, Evangelicals, Anglicans, and Presbyterians, but this move provoked an immediate scission and the following recreation of the original KPC.
The current head of KPC is Baranite Kirata (PI).
References
- ^ a b c World Council of Churches: Kiribati Uniting Church, oikoumene.org, accessed 2015-10-07.
- ^ "Australia – Oceania :: Kiribati — The World Factbook – Central Intelligence Agency". www.cia.gov. Retrieved 2020-06-23.
Further reading
- Alaima T., & alii (1979). Kiribati: Aspects of history. Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific, Institute of Pacific Studies.
- Garrett, J. (1992). Footsteps in the sea: Christianity in Oceania to World War II. Suva: University of the South Pacific.
- Goodall, N. (1954). A history of the London Missionary Society 1895–1945. London: Oxford University Press.
- Macdonald, B. (1982). Cinderellas of the empire: Towards a history of Kiribati and Tuvalu. Canberra: Australian National University Press.
External links
- Thomas Scarborough, Kiribati Protestant Church (K.P.C.): 2003 report on the church from a South African missionary from the London Missionary Society