Gloriavale Christian Community
christian community in New Zealand
The Gloriavale Christian Community is a small and isolated community located at Haupiri on the West Coast of the South Island in New Zealand. It had a recorded population of roughly 468 as of the 2023 census. It has operated on a property owned by the registered charitable Christian Church Community Trust since 1991.
Gloriavale was founded in 1969 by travelling evangelist Neville Cooper ("Hopeful Christian"). Originating as the Springbank Christian Community, the group established a settlement called Gloriavale in the South Island's West Coast Region during the 1990s. Gloriavale Christian Community became self-sufficient with its own school and various agricultural, tourism, and transportation businesses including a short-lived airline called Air West Coast.
Cooper served as leader (known as "Overseeing Shepherd"). Following his 1995 conviction on three counts of indecent assault and subsequent prison sentence, he remained as leader until his death in 2018. He was succeeded by Howard Temple, who served as leader until August 2025, when he resigned after pleading guilty to 12 charges of indecently assaulting young women and girls. The current leader of Gloriavale is Stephen Standfast.
“Gloriavale Christian Community” enters the record as christian community in New Zealand. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gloriavale, Christian and Community can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5571503. Authority coordinates are -42.604, 171.700. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2023, 1991, 1969 and 1995.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gloriavale Christian Community” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.