Te Pouhere Sunday
This Sunday is Te Pouhere
Sunday, a day set aside by the General
Synod / Te Hinota Whanui to celebrate the adoption of our a revised
Constitution / Te Pouhere in May 1992, which established our three-Tikanga
Church.
Our
first constitution was agreed to in June 1857, by a general conference held in
Auckland. This allowed the Anglican Church in New Zealand to become an
autonomous province with the right to create its own structures and appoint its
own bishops. This constitution was a radical piece of work, offering a balance
between diocesan and general synods, and establishing a synodical form of government
which allowed bishops, clergy and laity equal voice in the decision making processes.
It caused a lot of disquiet in the mother church.
Sadly
no Maori were present at this conference or at the first General Synod in 1859.
The Native Church remained under CMS until after the New Zealand Wars when responsibility
was handed over to the settler church. Māori continued to struggle to have any
voice at General Synod, or to have much say in the ministry among Maori for
over 100 years.
The website for the AnglicanChurch in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia - Te Hāhi Mihinare ki Aotearoa kiNiu Tireni, ki Nga Moutere o Te Moana Nui a Kiwa offers the following overview of how our new constitution came to be.
“Bicultural Development and Partnership
Since the 1970s the Maori people
in New Zealand have moved out of the shadow of European dominance and
assimilationist policies. The Church of the Province of New Zealand committed
itself to a re-examination of the principles of bi-cultural development and
partnership stemming from a re-consideration of the Treaty of Waitangi signed
in 1840 between the British Crown and the Maori tribes of New Zealand. In 1978
Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa originally set up in 1928 with a bishop acting as
suffragan to the Bishop of Waiapu, was inaugurated as a semi-autonomous body
with representation in the General Synod for the first time. A more
comprehensive review of the implications of the Treaty of Waitangi was
undertaken in 1984, and a Commission was set up to examine the constitution.
The General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui adopted a
revised constitution in 1992, which provides an opportunity for each of the
three partners, tikanga (= way, style, or cultural model) Maori, tikanga Pakeha
(European), tikanga Pasifika, to express its mind as an equal partner in the
decision-making process of the General Synod and to exercise mission and ministry
to God's people within the culture of each partner. With the adoption of this
constitution, the Church of the Province of New Zealand became The Anglican
Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia/ Te Hāhi Mihinare ki Aotearoa ki
Niu Tireni, ki Nga Moutere o te Moana Nui a Kiwa. The seven dioceses in New
Zealand and the Diocese of Polynesia remain unchanged, but within Te
Pihopatanga o Aotearoa five Hui Amorangi (= regional bishoprics) were
established, and four bishops have been ordained to serve those areas in
conjunction with the Bishop of Aotearoa.”
Today
we celebrate Te Pouhere. “Pou” means post, like the large posts that hold up a
whare nui; and “here” means to guide. Te Pouhere is the framework that guides
how we live, pray, meet together; and how we give freedom to each partner to
join in Christ’s mission in their own cultural context. We celebrate that God
is still at work, inviting us to deepen our relationship with one another, and
to learn from each other what it means to be followers of Christ in the South
Pacific.
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