The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines is a church of free thinkers and free believers coming together in community to learn to live with love, justice, compassion, and peace. According to new research, the Philippines is one of the possible homelands of the Polynesian peoples that occupied islands as far as New Zealand and Australia on the South, Latin America on the East, and as fa
r West as Madagascar. Gifted with a culture well adapted to tolerance and goodwill, the Philippine Unitarian Universalists naturally formed a community that welcomed many beliefs including indigenous, animistic, and faith healing practices that had arisen in the Philippines as a way to liberate people from oppressions, historical, political, and economic.
The beginnings of this religion was viewed as vague, renegade, or an outlier in the lens of the well-established hierarchies and orthodox structures of a majority of religious organizations. Toribio Quimada was a Minister discovered the Universalist Church of America in an unusual way. His connection to them addressed his needs for books and religious education materials. This made his superior furious and eventually he was excommunicated in this church. He and his loyal colleagues decided to affiliate with the most liberal faith in the West, the Unitarian Universalist Association in the USA. The UUA helped him with all the necessary paper works for the registration of his new church under the Securities and Exchange Commission. In April 1955, the Universalist Church of the Philippines was born in Nataban, San Carlos City, Negros Occidental. In 1985 the church was renamed the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines, Inc. Toribio Quimada applied to be a member of the UUA and in 1988, the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines was officially became part of the UUA as the only non-American member congregation. UUCP maintains its independence but keeping a relationship that is not dependent on the UUA having its own constitution and bylaws but cooperates with it to enrich the culture of tolerance and faith in humanity all over the world. The UUCP national office is currently located in the friendly environment of Dumaguete City. It has about thirty small congregations in different towns and cities in the Negros Island and one congregation in mainland Manila. UUCP being a non-dogmatic and progressive thinkers often accused of being a heretic and a cult rather than a true church. It maintains its pluralistic views on faith and spirituality and welcomes everyone regardless of their faith beliefs. The Eight Principles guide every member in their relationship with one another, with the Divine, and with the Universe. Unitarian Universalism offers a welcoming faith community that put LOVE at the center of its faith and many ministries!
