The (INC; stylized as ; ; ) is a Christian new religious movement founded in 1913, and registered by Felix Manalo in 1914 as a sole religious corporation with the Insular Government of the Philippines.
Seen as a rigid, authoritarian, exclusivist, highly centralized, and apocalyptic church,Filipino Church Gains Foothold in Valley, Spars With Archdiocese : Religion: Authoritarian Iglesia ni Cristo, which disputes Catholic beliefs, relocates to Panorama City.How an influential Philippine church could shape the Marcos-Duterte riftFaith and politics: You Cannot Spell Inconsistency Without INCSpace and power: Religious worlding and the rise of Iglesia ni Cristo the INC describes itself to be the one true church and the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus, whereby all other Christian churches are apostatic. According to INC doctrine, the official registration of the church with the Philippine government was on 13 July 1914, by Felix Manalo—who is upheld by members to be the last messenger of God in the End Times—was an act of divine providence and the fulfillment of biblical prophecy concerning the re-establishment of the original church of Jesus in the Far EastPalafox, Quennie Ann J. "First Executive Minister of the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ)." National Historical Institute. Archived from the original on 13 February 2012. concurrent with the coming of the seventh seal marking the end of days.
By the time of Manalo's death in 1963, the INC had become a nationwide organization with 1,250 local chapels and 35 cathedrals.Sanders, Albert J., "An Appraisal of the Iglesia ni Cristo" in Studies in Philippine Church History, ed. Anderson, Gerald H. (Cornell University Press, 1969) As his successor, Manalo's son, Eraño Manalo, led a campaign to grow and internationalize the church until his death on 31 August 2009. His son, Eduardo V. Manalo, succeeded him as Executive Minister. The 2020 Philippine census reported that 2.8 million were adherents of the INC, making it the fifth (5th) largest denomination in the Philippines behind the Roman Catholic Church, Islam, Evangelicalism, and Protestantism.
History During the American colonial era of the Philippines, there were a variety of rural anti-colonial movements, often with religious undertones, and American Protestant missionaries introduced several alternatives to the Catholic Church, the predominant church during the Spanish colonial period.
Felix Manalo
Felix Manalo, born on 10 May 1886, as Felix Ysagun to Mariano Ysagun y Villanueva and Bonifacia Manalo y Cruz in Taguig, Philippines,Felix Y. Manalo: From Taguig to top three religion was baptized into the Catholic Church. Manalo's baptismal record, however, cannot be found, as records of his parish date back only to June 1886. Manalo became dissatisfied with Catholic theology in his teenage years. At the age of seven, Manalo was said to have attended classes under a certain "Maestro Cario" in Manila. However, his studies were interrupted by the Philippine Revolution in 1896, prompting him not to pursue further formal education, and turn to farming and hatmaking instead. According to the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, the establishment of the Philippine Independent Church (also called the Aglipayan Church), one of the enduring results of the Revolution, was his major turning point. Still, Manalo remained uninterested since its doctrines were mainly Catholic, although at the time he found himself aligned with colorumism, a syncretism of Christian and animist beliefs popular among Filipinos. In 1904, he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, entered the Methodist Florence Nicholson Seminary, and became a lay preacher for the Methodist Mission. He also explored various Christian denominations, including the Presbyterian Church (where he studied in the Ellinwood Bible School), Iglesia ni Cristo 1901 (Christian Mission), and finally the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1911, where he served as a lay preacher. After being antagonized by fellow Adventists for his colorum past, and being reprimanded for his elopement with his future wife (they were married in a different church), Manalo left Adventism in 1913, and associated himself with atheist and agnostic peers.
In November 1913, Manalo secluded himself with religious literature and unused notebooks in a friend's house in Pasay, instructing everyone in the home not to disturb him. He emerged from seclusion three days later with his newfound doctrines. Manalo, together with his wife, went to Punta, Santa Ana, Manila, in November 1913 and started preaching. He also returned to his hometown Taguig to evangelize, where he was ridiculed and stoned at his evangelistic meetings with locals. He later baptized a few converts, including some of his persecutors, along the Pasig River on 25 December 1913. They formed the first members of the church. He eventually attracted more followers. Among those he invited to become ministers of his new church would be Bishop Nicolas Zamora of IEMELIF, who was then leading an 11,000-member Methodist church (Zamora refused the offer). Prompted by concerns that his evangelism and propagation efforts for the new church might be illegal, Manalo later registered his new church as the Iglesia ni Kristo (INK; ; ) on 13 July 1914, at the Bureau of Commerce as a corporation sole, with himself as the first executive minister, Pedro Inocencio as bishop, Tomas de la Cruz as evangelist, and Serapio Dionisio as deacon. Expansion followed as INC started building congregations in the provinces in 1916, with Pasig (then in Rizal Province) having two locales established. On 25 December 1918, coinciding with the fifth (5th) anniversary celebration of the church, Manalo was ordained as a minister by the following bishops and pastors: Alejandro Reyes (IEMELIF), Victoriano Mariano (IEMELIF), Gil Domingo (Iglesia de los Cristianos Filipinos), Guillermo Zarco (Presbyterian Church), Emiliano Quijano (Iglesia ni Cristo 1901), Nicolas Fajardo (Evangelical Church), Roque Bautista (Evangelical Church).Iglesia Ni Kristo 5th Year Anniversary Letter of Invitation And Ordination Of Felix Y. Manalo Dated December 25, 1918 The first three ministers of the INC were ordained thereafter, in May 1919, namely Justino Casanova (pangulo ng lupon), Federico Inocencio (kagawad ng lupon), and Teodoro Santiago (kalihim ng lupon). Before leaving for the United States in August 1919, he visited the INC congregations and left the newly-ordained ministers in charge of the church until his return to the Philippines in 1921. Manalo went twice to the United States to study religion in Protestant-managed schools, first in 1919, and later in 1938. Early church members were said to be mostly uneducated, illiterate, and coming from the lower socioeconomic classes, the ministers included.
In response to the separation of congregations led by INC ministers Teofilo Ora, Januario Ponce, and Basilio Santiago, which severely divided the emerging church primarily in the provinces such as Bulacan and Nueva Ecija, Manalo's title as the Sugo () was introduced to church doctrine in 1922, after interpreting that Manalo is the "angel from the East" mentioned in . Ora and the ministers who went with him clashed with Manalo in terms of doctrine, such as the decreasing relevance of Jesus Christ in the INC preaching (paksa), and how the church was run, particularly in light of reported abuses and immorality. Other changes by this time included the eventual rejection of cassock (sutana) as clothing for ministers. Manalo's authority over the church was so pervasive that outsiders termed the church as the Iglesia ni Manalo () and its adherents "Manalistas" for their "fanatical" obedience to the church administration. By 1924, INC had about 3,000 to 5,000 adherents in 43 or 45 congregations in Manila and six nearby provinces. Church growth, however, came with more troubles. In 1928, INC Minister Nicolas Perez of Bulacan led another significant split across church ranks. Perez protested against abuses of the church, the changing doctrine on vices and jewelry, and the controlling nature of the church administration that discourages open-mindedness and critical thinking among its members. According to Teodoro Santiago, the third INC Minister to be ordained in the church, Manalo began to openly reject the deity of Christ around the year 1932, but still maintained that Jesus is Lord (Panginoong Hesukristo). By 1936, INC had 85,000 members. This figure grew to 200,000 by 1954. A Cebu congregation was built in 1937—the first to be established outside of Luzon, and the first in the Visayas. By 1938, Manalo threatened the INC brethren that he would leave the church and start anew, prompting a circular issued by Teodoro Santiago to submit their respective explanations (salaysay) to keep the church united. During World War II, Manalo was offered by the Japanese to lead the all-Filipino Evangelical Church of the Philippines (福音教会). His refusal led to Japanese suspicion and surveillance, to the point that Manalo acceded to the Japanese demand to have Prudencio Vasquez, division minister of Nueva Ecija and later of Bicol, as the Executive Minister of the Iglesia ni Cristo. This was formalized through a circular issued on 29 June 1942.Pasugo, October 1965. Manalo resumed being the Executive Minister after the war. The first mission to Mindanao was commissioned in 1946. On 15 March 1948, the church was formally reconstituted through amendments to its Articles of Incorporation as the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC), with a twofold name (Iglesia Ni Cristo and Church of Christ) used in English-speaking countries. Meanwhile, its first concrete chapel was built in Sampaloc, Manila also in 1948. Adherents fleeing for the provinces away from Manila, where the Japanese forces were concentrated during World War II, were used for evangelization. By 1950, Manalo himself claimed that the INC had 2 million members.Pasugo, December 1955. The 1960 Census in the Philippines, however, showed adherents totaling to 270,104. By 1955, the overall educational attainment of INC members had also improved, with an estimated 35 percent of its total membership being considered literate. This, however, is lower than the national literacy rate of 75 percent in the same year. As Manalo's health began to fail in the 1950s, his son Eraño began taking leadership of the church. Manalo died on 12 April 1963.
International expansion
While Felix Manalo during his lifetime was convinced on keeping the INC as exclusively Filipino, a reinterpretation and change in doctrine regarding Isaiah 43:5 prompted the INC to expand to the Western world, or what INC doctrine called the "Far West" (Malayong Kanluran). However, it must also be noted that this region, geographically speaking, would have been farther east of the Philippines instead of west.Does Isaiah 43:5 refer to the restoration of the church in the Philippines? Still, the global expansion pushed through. It would be on 27 July 1968, when Eraño Manalo officiated the inaugural worship service of the church in Ewa Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii—the first mission of the INC outside the Philippines. The following month, INC established the San Francisco congregation. INC reached Europe through the United Kingdom in 1971 and Canada in 1973. INC established its first congregation in South Africa in 1978. INC established congregations in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in 1990; Rome, Italy, on 27 July 1994; Jerusalem, Israel, on 31 March 1996; and Athens, Greece, on 10 May 1997. In 1998, INC established 543 congregations and missions in 74 countries outside the Philippines.