page_title: Carl Sylvius Völkner
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Carl Sylvius Völkner / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Emma Völkner, wife of Missionary Carl Sylvius Völkner (19th century)
context_page_description: Carl Sylvius Völkner was a German-born Protestant missionary in New Zealand who was hanged and decapitated at his church grounds on the east coast of the North Island in what became known as the Völkner Incident.
context_section_description: Völkner was born in Kassel, Electorate of Hesse (now Germany) c. 1819 and was one of several missionaries sent to New Zealand by the North German Missionary Society after training at the missionary college at Hamburg.
  He arrived in New Zealand in August 1849 and worked initially with fellow German Protestant missionary Johann Riemenschneider, in Taranaki. In 1852 he offered his services to the Church Missionary Society (CMS). For several years he worked as a lay teacher in lower Waikato.
  He married Emma Lanfear, sister of a CMS missionary on 29th of June 1854. In 1857, he became a naturalised citizen. Völkner was ordained a deacon in 1860. In 1861, he became a priest and took charge of the CMS mission station at Ōpōtiki in August that year. There he worked among Te Whakatōhea, who built a church and a school for him.
caption: Emma Völkner, his wife
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