Evangelical Christian Church of the Land of Papua ( id, Gereja Kristen Injili Tanah Papua, abbreviated as GKITP) is a

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

denomination in Indonesia, particularly in western Papua region. The denomination is the single largest church in Irian where about 30% of the population belong to it. Its motto is from the Epistle to the Ephesians 5:8 "For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light" (

NRSV The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches.human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

and

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in the region, the church plays a significant role. It has a presbyterian-synodal model of church government, the synod is the highest governing body. The church had 650,000 members and 1869 parishes. The church belong to the

World Communion of Reformed Churches The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Calvinist churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Chris ...

History

In 1855 two

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missionaries arrived in northwestern

Irian New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

. This was the Gossner Mission. In 1962 the Utrechtische Zendingsvereeining of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands took over the work.

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missionaries assisted by teachers and preachers from other islands. The work progressed slowly. In 1907 a great revival started, and there were thousands of converts. The mission spread to the whole island. The period between 1907 and 1942 was gradual development. During the Japanese invasion no General Assembly was held. In 1950 the first Irianese were ordained. In 1956 the first Synod was held and seven years later the Dutch missionaries left the island.

References

Evangelical denominations in Asia Members of the World Communion of Reformed Churches Reformed denominations in Indonesia {{Indonesia-stub