Gospel Day in 2024

When is Gospel Day?

Gospel Day (Te Aso ote Tala Lei) is a public holiday in Tuvalu on the Monday after the second Sunday in May.

A common holiday in the Pacific islands, Gospel Day marks the arrival of the first missionary in May 1861.

Traditions of Gospel Day

Christianity came to Tuvalu in 1861 when Elekana, a deacon of a Congregational church in Manihiki, Cook Islands, became caught in a storm and drifted for eight weeks before landing at Nukulaelae on May 10th 1861. Elekana began preaching Christianity. He was trained at Malua Theological College, a London Missionary Society (LMS) school in Samoa, before beginning his work in establishing the Church of Tuvalu.

In 1865, the Rev. A. W. Murray of the LMS, a Protestant congregationalist missionary society, arrived as the first European missionary; he also evangelised among the inhabitants of Tuvalu. By 1878 Protestantism was considered well established, as there were preachers on each island.

The introduction of Christianity ended the worship of ancestral spirits and other deities (animism), along with the power of the vaka-atua (the priests of the old religions).

Today the Congregational Christian Church of Tuvalu, which is part of the Calvinist tradition, is the state church of Tuvalu with its adherents comprising about 97% of the 10,837 inhabitants of the archipelago.

The Constitution of Tuvalu guarantees freedom of religion, including the freedom to practice, the freedom to change religion, the right not to receive religious instruction at school or to attend religious ceremonies at school, and the right not to "take an oath or make an affirmation that is contrary to his religion or belief".