The Chatham Islands


History: Although the missionaries who went to the Chatham Islands from Berlin failed to convert enough souls to create a thriving congregation, two denominations were more successful. As we were jokingly told about this church on Pitt Island, it was open to all-comers provided they were Catholic. The New Zealand historian, Michael King, has said of the church of Our Lady of the Antipodes: “As becomes the Chathams, it is fittingly austere.”