Puti Murray, first Maori woman priest in the Anglican Church
Hyfler/Rosner
New Zealand Press Association
November 7, 2005
HEADLINE: PIONEER MAORI WOMAN PRIEST DEAD AT 83
Wellington, Nov 6 - Puti Murray, first Maori woman priest in
the Anglican Church, has died at the age of 83.
Church spokesman Lloyd Ashton said tonight Rev. Murray died
yesterday (Saturday) in Otaki where she was a delegate at
the bi-annual national hui of the church she had served for
much of her adult life.
She died moments after seconding a motion seeking a
relaxation of customary fishing regulations so marae and
Maori communities could raise funds for their hui.
She was held in such respect that the hui business was
abandoned when she died.
Rev Murray, who had Te Aupouri and Ngati Kahu ties, was
ordained in 1978 and spent almost 10 years helping some of
the most deprived people in the country through her ministry
at the Church of the Epiphany, in Otara, South Auckland.
She then retired to Te Kao, in the far north but soon
returned to South Auckland to establish and direct an
Anglican Church sanctuary for abused women and children.
The Archbishop of the Anglican Church, the Most Rev
Whakahuihui Vercoe, was among the first to pay tribute.
We will never lose sight of the fact that she was a true
pioneer.''
Once Rev Murray Puti had got the sanctuary up and running,
she returned to the far north in the early 1990s.
Even then she hardly slowed down, continuing to play an
active role in the Maori church and in Maori community life.
Puti Kapa was born in Te Kao in 1922, and grew up there and
in Pamapura, south of Kaitaia. She went to Hukarere Girls'
College near Napier, and later married D'Arcy Murray.
After her husband died, she was accepted for training at St
John's College in Auckland.
After graduation, and ordination by the then Bishop of
Auckland, the Rt. Rev. Eric Gowing, she served her curacy at
All Saints, Ponsonby, before heading a few miles south to
become the vicar of the Church of the Epiphany in Otara.
She worked closely there with the Department of Social
Welfare to help struggling families and to defuse community
tensions.
Among her innovations was the establishment of three
residential homes for Otara street kids.
She arranged for some of her parishioners to be the
parents'' in these homes.