The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea came into existence as a discrete province of the Anglican Communion when the Anglican Province of Papua New Guinea was separated from the Anglican ecclesiastical Province of Brisbane, Australia, in 1975 immediately prior to PNG's independence. Its first Archbishop and Primate was David Hand, the Bishop of Port Moresby. In accordance with early concordats among European missionaries by which they agreed not to engage in undue competition with each other, Anglican missionary activity was largely confined to the Northern District of Papua and the Oro (Northern) Province remains the only civil province of Papua New Guinea of which a majority of the population are Anglican.

Historically the Anglican mission was not well funded and it did not compare favourably with other denominations in terms of health and education services. Although it was historically part of the ecclesiastical province of Brisbane, today its overseas support appears to be substantially from England, notably by the Papua New Guinea Church Partnership, formerly the New Guinea Mission.

In Anglican terminology the New Guinea Martyrs were eight Anglican clergy, teachers and medical missionaries killed by

The churchmanship of the denomination is Anglo-Catholic; the Anglican Church participates in the Melanesian Council of Churches and maintains especially close ties with the Evangelical Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches.