The British sailor John Fearn was the first European to visit the island, which he named Pleasant Island. In 1888 the island was annexed by Germany. After World War I Nauru came under Australian trusteeship, and during World War II under Japanese control. After the war Australia recovered the island. The origins of the Nauru Church date back to 1887, when Timoteo Tabwia, its pioneer missionary and a Gilbert Islander, landed on the island under the auspices of the ABCFM. He preceded white resident ABCFM missionaries Philip A. and Salome Delaporte, who studied the unique language of Nauru and began Bible translation and a hymnbook with the help of the Nauruan high chief, Timothy Detudamo. After discovery of the island’s rich reserves of calcium phosphate in 1900, the deposits were mined by British, German, and Australian-based companies, which gave patronage to the church and supported the ABCFM. After 1917 the London Missionary Society (LMS) took over from the ABCFM. Congreg church government, promoting lay deacons as preachers and teachers, closely aligned the island’s local church congregations with the work of the Congregational Union of Australia, especially after many Nauruans suffered a period of severe trial and exile in Chuuk (Truk) and Pohnpei (cf. Federated States of Micronesia) under Japanese occupation during World War II. LMS white resident missionaries from Australia and New Zealand gave leadership until Nauru’s first internationally trained and locally born minister, Itubwa Amram, was ordained and returned to the island in 1956. The church gained full autonomy from the LMS, though it preserved links with Australia and the International Congregational Council. Many Gilbertese Prot came to work in the phosphate industry and received pastoral care and opportunities for worship in their own language. Movements toward full church autonomy and political status, independent of the postwar Australian UN mandate, were led by Prot Nauruan chiefs and church deacons. Nauru’s national independence and full repossession of the phosphate industry followed in 1968. Today the phos phateindustry is declining and reserves will run out soon. The exploitation has left 80% of the island uninhabitable and non-arable. The church has assumed its place in the Pacific Conference of Churches and the Council for World Mission (CWM). Most Nauruans have links with the Congregational Church; there are also Independent and RCath congr on the island.
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