Rangiātea Church is a Māori Anglican church located in Ōtaki, in the Kāpiti Coast District on the North Island of New Zealand. The original church was completed in 1851. On 7 October 1995 the church was destroyed by arson. At the time of its destruction, the church was the oldest Māori Anglican church in New Zealand.
A replica of the destroyed building was completed in 2003; however, historic carvings were lost.
Te Rauparaha (c. 1760s – 27 November 1849) was a Māori rangatira, warlord, and chief of the Ngāti Toa iwi. One of the most powerful military leaders of the Musket Wars, Te Rauparaha fought a war of conquest that greatly expanded Ngāti Toa southwards, receiving the epithet "the Napoleon of the South". He remains one of the most prominent and celebrated New Zealand historical figures.
Born probably in the 1760s, Te Rauparaha's conquests eventually extended Ngāti Toa authority from Miria-te-kakara at Rangitikei to Wellington, and across Cook Strait to Wairau and Nelson. He participated in land sale and negotiations with the New Zealand Company at the beginning of the colonisation of New Zealand. An early signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi, Te Rauparaha was later central to the Wairau Affray in the Marlborough district, considered by many to be the first of the conflicts in the New Zealand Wars. Shortly before he died he led the building of Rangiātea Church in Ōtaki.