Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island is located approximately 900 miles east of Australia (1 mile = 1.609 kilometers) in the southwest Pacific Ocean, and as an external region and dependency, it is part of the Common wealth of Australia. It has no established religion since Section 116 of the Australian constitution prohibits the Commonwealth from establishing a state religion or imposing religious observances. According to the 2006 census, of the approximately 2,000 residents of Norfolk Island, 593 identified as members of the Church of England, 370 reported having no religion, and 308 declined to answer the question. There is a significant Catholic population (214), and other Protestant denominations include the Uniting Church in Australia (198), Seventh-Day Adventists (60), Australian Christian Churches (17), and Jehovah's Witnesses (15), with 15 residents belonging to a non-Christian religion. Actual attendance has become relatively low, and many ministers are only temporarily assigned to the island.

The English explorer James Cook found these 13 square miles uninhabited in 1774 and claimed the island for Britain. From 1788 to 1814 and again from 1825 to 1855, the island served as a penal settlement. Norfolk Island was virtually abandoned again for 13 months, until Queen Victoria gave the land to the 194 residents of Pitcairn Island, who had outgrown its 1.7 square miles, and they formed the first free settlement on Norfolk Island. The Pitcairners were the descendants of the mutineers of the well-known HMS Bounty, a British merchant ship, including English sailors and Tahitians; the Tahitians were mostly women who had married the sailors and converted to Christianity. Over half of the islanders today are Pitcairn progeny, and their story remains central to the cultural history of Norfolk Island; in fact, along with English, their official language is “Norf'k,” a blend of 18th-century English and old Tahitian. While some Tahitian traditions remain part of cultural celebrations, the religious beliefs and practices of their Tahitian ancestors are largely absent from Norfolk Island today.

The mutineers had established Seventh-Day Adventism on Pitcairn Island before bringing it to Norfolk Island, and some of their descendants identify as such today. In 1867, the Church of England set up the Melanesian Mission, a missionary agency supporting Anglican churches in the geographical region of Melanesia, which was then headquartered in Norfolk Island. Though the headquarters have moved, the mission continues today, providing financial and staffing support for the Church of the Province of Melanesia, an independent province of the Church of England.

[Page 935]Catholic missionaries also visited the Island during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Currently, Norfolk Island, like Australia, is becoming increasingly secularized: In the 1996 census, 13% identified as having no religion, compared with 18% in 2001 and 20% in 2006.