Martyrs of New Guinea

( Eight missionaries and two Papuan martyrs who died at the hands of Japanese invaders in 1942. The first Protestant missionaries to Papua New Guinea were sent by the London Missionary Society in 1870. Anglican missionaries reached New Guinea in 1891. In 1898 the Anglican Diocese of Papua New Guinea was established and remained a missionary diocese of the Church of England in Australia until 1977, when an autonomous Anglican province, the Church of the Province of Papua New Guinea, was established. During World War II Christian missionaries and the natives of New Guinea suffered greatly from the Japanese invaders. The martyrs of New Guinea are commemorated in the Episcopal calendar of the church year on Sept. 2.