22/04/2026
On April 21, 1899, the Presbyterian Mission headed by Reverend James B. Rodgers became the first official Protestant mission to arrive in the Philippines from the United States. This comes in the midst of the Filipino-American War, and would occur after the first recorded worship service in the Philippines, which was presided by Methodists, conducted on August 28, 1898. Rodgers's congregation would eventually constitute the Ellinwood Malate Church, and in extension, establish the Ellinwood Bible School (later merged with the Methodist Florence Nicholson Seminary to form the Union Theological Seminary by 1920).
One of Ellinwood's early students would be Felix Manalo in 1907, who would leave the Presbyterians a year later to join the Disciples of Christ (Church of Christ, or Iglesia ni Cristo 1901). Six years after studying in Ellinwood, on December 25, 1913, Manalo established the new church called Iglesia ni Kristo (INK, later Iglesia ni Cristo by 1948) with the baptism of their first members along Pasig River.
Rodgers, meanwhile, would continue serving in the Philippines until his death in April 1944.
It was the Presbyterian Church in the United States, now known as the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which sponsored the said Presbyterian Mission in the Philippines. Later on, they were the first to propose the creation a comity agreement with other Christian missionaries who would come subsequently to preserve the peace of evangelism between denominations, and to ensure that churches would not overlap in their mission fields. By April 26, 1901, the different Protestant Christian churches in the Philippines formally united under the collective name Iglesia Evangelica (Evangelical Church). As for the Presbyterians, they had the following provinces as their mission areas: Rizal, Cavite, Laguna, Tayabas, Batangas, Camarines Norte, Albay, Sorsogon, Masbate, Cebu, Leyte, Bohol, Negros Oriental, Samar. Manila itself was to be divided among the member denominations.
The Presbyterians were also credited for the creation of Silliman University on August 28, 1901, the anniversary of the first recorded worship service in the Philippines. Named after the philanthropist Dr. Horace Silliman, it was the first Protestant Christian school in the Philippines.
Religious nationalism, meanwhile, caught up with the Presbyterians in the Philippines. In 1913, following the example of Bishop Nicolas Zamora and his Methodist congregation (IEMELIF), Reverend Gil Domingo, Sr. spearheaded the establishment of a self-sustaining Presbyterian church led by Filipinos with Iglesia Evangelica de los Cristianos Filipinos (Evangelical Church of the Filipino Christians). On January 3, 1932, Domingo's church heeded the call for unification, and joined the Iglesia Evangelica Unida de Cristo (United Evangelical Church of Christ, also known as Unida Christian Church) with five other churches.
On December 25, 1918, Reverend Domingo was one of the bishops and pastors who ordained Manalo as minister of the Iglesia ni Cristo ("sa tungkuling pagka-Pastor at Tagapamahala ng Iglesia").
During the Second World War, segments of the Presbyterians under Unida and other previous church unions (such as the United Evangelical Church or UEC) joined the Japanese-sponsored Evangelical Church of the Philippines (福音教会). According to INC history, Manalo rejected the Japanese offer for him to lead the church union. Reverend Dr. Enrique Sobrepeña, Sr. was elected as its first and only Presiding Bishop in April 1943.
After the Second World War, significant remnants of the American era Presbyterian churches joined the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) when it was organized on May 25, 1948.
Presbyterianism would have a resurgence in the Philippines with the arrival of Korean missionaries. In March 1977, Reverend Kim Hwal-young (Gerardo Kim) of the Presbyterian Church in Korea (HapDong) began to preach the Gospel in the Philippines, thus becoming regarded as the first Korean Christian missionary in the country.*
When he saw how few missionaries were in the Philippines at the time (there were six Korean missionaries for the period 1973-1981), he reportedly prayed for a hundred missionaries to be made available to evangelize in the archipelago. By the time the Presbyterian Church of the Philippines was established in 1987, there were 266 Korean missionaries serving in the Philippines.
On June 29, 1983, the Korean-sponsored Evangelical Presbyterian Mission, primarily through the efforts of Reverend Gerardo Kim and Reverend Park Kiho (Timothy Park), founded the Presbyterian Theological Seminary (PTS). The institution began to offer its Doctorate in Ministry by 2018.
In 1979, Reverend Kim Yoo-shik (Joseph Kim), also of the Presbyterian Church in Korea (HapDong), came to the Philippines to evangelize, the second Korean Christian missionary on record to follow Reverend Gerardo Kim's mission in the country. By 1983, however, he forged a separate path from his fellow HapDong missionary to spearhead the establishment of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the Philippines, and in extension, the All Nations College. Their collective efforts to share the Word of God sparked a new Korean wave of evangelism for Reformed theology in the Philippines.
Learn more about the Evangelical movement: https://history-ph.blogspot.com/2017/01/evangelicalism.html
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*Note: Although Reverend Han Sang-hyu of the Methodist Theological University in Seoul arrived in the Philippines in 1973 to preach the Gospel, he only had a student visa at the time, while Reverend Kim Hwal-young had a missionary visa. Reverend Han was instrumental in the establishment of the Korean Union Church of Manila a year after, in 1974.
