James Ayong

Who is James Ayong?

James Simon Ayong, born in a cave in Kumbun, West New Britain in 1944, has been the Anglican Archbishop of Papua New Guinea since 19 June 1996. As Archbishop, Ayong also is the Primate of The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea. He has served as a parish priest in rural and metropolitan Papua New Guinea and — unusually among indigenous Papua New Guinean clergy — studied overseas, in England.

Archbishop Ayong is the first prelate in the church of Papua New Guinea to come from elsewhere in the country than the eastern Papuan heartland of the country's Anglican Church.

At the time of his birth Australian New Guinea was under occupation by the forces of Japan during World War II and Japanese forces and Papuan tribesman sympathetic to the Japanese cause had recently executed the New Guinea Martyrs.