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Carl Sylvius Völkner
Carl Sylvius Völkner trained at the missionary college in Hamburg and was sent to New Zealand in 1849 along with other Lutheran missionaries by the North German Missionary Society. He worked with Johannes Riemenschneider at Warea in Taranaki, and then joined the Anglican - Church Missionary Society, working as a lay teacher in the lower Waikato. He was ordained deacon by Bishop Selwyn in 1860 and priest in 1861.
In 1861 he took charge of the CMS Station in Opotiki to work among Te Whakatohea. He had considerable success and was adopted as a member of the iwi. He helped build a church and a school there. Then died a violent death at the hands of members of his own congregation. Völkner was hung by Maori as a spy for passing on Maori troop movements to Governor Grey during the NZ Wars. A letter in his own hand proves his guilt. He did not die for his faith, but for betrayal of Maori during a time of war.
BORN: 1819
Kassel,
Germany
DIED:2 March 1865, Opotiki,
New Zealand.
Mokomoko, Rangatira, Opotiki
Following Völkner's death, British troops mounted a punitive expedition against Te Whakatohea.. Five Maori, including Mokomoko, a chief of Te Whakato-hea, were arrested. Shipping and granaries were destroyed, and the tribe’s best land was confiscated.
Mokomoko denied involvement in the death, but was condemned and executed. Legal and historical research supports the claim of Maori oral tradition that Mokomoko was not present during Volkner's execution. Mokomoko's death was a grave miscarriage of justice. In the late 1940s compensation was paid for the excessive confiscations, and in 1988 Mokomoko’s family were permitted to exhume his remains from Mt Eden gaol for burial on his ancestral marae. In July 1990 Mokomoko’s descendants petitioned the government for a full acquittal not just a pardon, which could imply guilt. The acquittal was granted in June 1992. He was survived by 2 of his 3 wives and 6 children.
BORN:
New Zealand
DIED: 17 May 1866,
Mt Eden,
Auckland,
New Zealand
Carl Volker had been listed in the Anglican NZ Calendar as a priest-martyr. In 1988 they decided to remove him from the saints list, but the Bishop of Aotearoa halted the removal because he had seen the beginnings of a process of reconciliation, he stated:
“To say that the hurt is gone, is not true. But the bones of our ancestors have come home and are laid to rest - we are now in a state of forgiveness.”
