page_title: Religion in New Zealand
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in New Zealand / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The chiefs Waikato and Hongi Hika with missionary Thomas Kendall in England, oil painting by James Barry, 1820. National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington (Ref:G-618)
context_page_description: Religion in New Zealand encompasses a wide range of groups and beliefs. Almost half of New Zealanders stated they had no religion in the 2018 census and 6.7 percent made no declaration. However, Christianity remains the most common religion; 37 percent of the population at the 2018 census identified as Christian. Around six percent of the population is affiliated with non-Christian religions. Hinduism is the second-most popular religion, claiming 2.6 percent of the population, and Sikhism is the fastest-growing faith.
  Before European colonisation the religion of the indigenous Māori population was animistic. The first Christian service was conducted by a French priest, Paul-Antoine Léonard de Villefeix, on Christmas Day, 1769. Subsequent efforts of missionaries such as Samuel Marsden resulted in most Māori converting to Christianity. The majority of 19th-century European migrants came from the British Isles, establishing the three dominant British Christian denominations in New Zealand – Anglicanism, Catholicism and Presbyterianism.
context_section_description: The first Christian service conducted in New Zealand waters was likely to have been Catholic liturgies celebrated by Father Paul-Antoine Léonard de Villefeix, the Dominican chaplain of the ship Saint Jean Baptiste commanded by the French navigator and explorer Jean-François-Marie de Surville. Villefeix was the first Christian clergyman to set foot in New Zealand, and probably said Mass onboard the ship near Whatuwhiwhi in Doubtless Bay on Christmas Day 1769. He is reported to have also led prayers for the sick the previous day and to have conducted Christian burials.
  New Zealand's religious history after the arrival of Europeans saw substantial missionary activity, with Māori generally converting to Christianity voluntarily (compare forced conversions elsewhere in the world). The Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) sent missionaries to settle in New Zealand. Samuel Marsden of the Church Missionary Society (chaplain in New South Wales) officiated at its first service on Christmas Day in 1814, at Oihi Bay in the Bay of Islands, considered to have been the first preaching of the gospel in New Zealand. The CMS founded its first mission at Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands in 1814 and over the next decade established farms and schools in the area. In June 1823 Wesleydale, the first Wesleyan Methodist mission in New Zealand, was established at Kaeo, near Whangaroa Harbour. Jean Baptiste Pompallier arrived in 1838 and became the first Catholic bishop in New Zealand. With a number of Marist Brothers, Pompallier organised the Catholic Church throughout the country. In 1892 the New Zealand Church Missionary Society (NZCMS) formed in a Nelson church hall and the first New Zealand missionaries were sent overseas soon after.
  Though in England the Anglican Church was an established state church, by the middle of the 19th century even the Anglicans themselves sometimes doubted this arrangement, while the other major denominations of the new colony (Presbyterians, Methodist and Catholics, for example) obviously preferred that the local situation allowed for all their groups.
  The first recorded communal Jewish service in New Zealand was held on 7 January 1843 in Wellington, although individual Jews were amongst earlier explorers and settlers.
  Waves of new immigrants brought their particular (usually Christian) faiths with them. Initial denominational distribution very much reflected the fact that local immigrant communities started small and often came from comparatively small regions in the origin countries in Great Britain. As a result, by the time of the 1921 census, no uniform distribution existed amongst non-Māori Christians, with Presbyterians as the dominant group in Otago and Southland, Anglicans in the Far North, the East Cape and various other areas including Banks Peninsula, while Methodists flourished mainly in Taranaki and the Manawatu. Catholicism meanwhile was the dominant religion on the West Coast with its many mining concerns, and in Central Otago. The Catholic Church, while not particularly dominant in terms of pure numbers, became especially known throughout the country in the early and middle 20th century for its strong stance on education, establishing large numbers of schools.
  Beginning in the mid-1960s church membership and attendance declined, and in 2013 42% of the population said they had no religion. Immigration since 1991 has led to rapid growth in the number of adherents of religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, particularly in Auckland.
  According to a 2019 survey, nearly four in ten New Zealanders lacked trust in evangelical Christians.
caption: This 1820 painting shows Ngāpuhi chiefs Waikato (left) and Hongi Hika, and Anglican missionary Thomas Kendall.
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