The Community of the Sisters of Melanesia, more usually called The Sisters of Melanesia, is the third order for women to be established in the Church of Melanesia, which is the Anglican Church of Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The first women's order was the defunct Sisters of the Holy Cross, whose members transferred to the Roman Catholic Church in 1950. In the late 1960s, the then bishop of the Diocese of Melanesia hoped to establish a group of women Franciscans in Honiara. They could not come, but the Community of the Sisters of the Church came and prospered.