Iglesia Ni Christo
The Iglesia ni Christo ("Church of Christ") was founded in the Philippines in 1913 by Felix Manalo (1886–1963). Manalo was raised a Roman Catholic but as a teenager was influenced by a secretive local spiritual sect, as well as by Methodist and Presbyterian churches, the Church of Christ, and Seventh-Day Adventism. Following a religious experience, he founded the Iglesia ni Christo, which he incorporated with twelve followers in 1914. In 1922 he proclaimed that he was God's final messenger, and around 1930 he began to preach the church's most controversial claim, that Christ was not divine.
The church aggressively sought new members and after World War II expanded rapidly: it claimed 60,000 adherents in 1948 and 200,000 in 1960. The church also expanded outside the Philippines, particularly in Philippine diaspora communities in Hawaii and California. In 2002 it is second only to the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, with 2,500 congregations in the Philippines and several hundred more overseas. Its worldwide membership is estimated at between three and six million.
In part because of its perceived anti-Christ and anti-Trinitarian doctrines, its secrecy, and its aggressive proselytizing, the church has received much attention from organizations that oppose cults. Much of what is known of the church is from what it publishes in its magazine, Pasugo, which began publication in 1939 and is now available in Pilipino and English.
Further Reading
Let Us Reason. (2002) Iglesia ni Christo. Retrieved 15 April 2002, from: http://www.letusreason.org/Igleidir.htm .
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