Johann Flierl

Who was Johann Flierl?

Johann Flierl, was a pioneer Lutheran missionary in New Guinea. He established mission schools and organized the construction of roads and communication between otherwise remote interior locations. Under his leadership, Lutheran evangelicalism flourished in New Guinea. He founded the Evangelical Lutheran Mission in the Sattelberg, and a string of filial stations on the northeastern coast of New Guinea including the Malahang Mission Station.

He was educated at the mission seminary in Neuendettelsau, in Kingdom of Bavaria. Prior to finishing his education, the Neuendettelsau Missionary Society sent him to the Bethesda mission, near Hahndorf, in western Australia, where he joined an Old Lutheran community. While there, he felt called to serve in the newly established German protectorate, Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. On the journey to New Guinea, he founded the Hope Vale Mission Station in Cooktown, Queensland. In Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, he established a lasting Lutheran presence at the missionary stations of Simbang, near Finschhafen, another on Tami, and a third, on the Sattelberg in the Huon Peninsula, plus several filial mission stations along the coast of the present-day Morobe province.