The Aglipayans

Comfortably dressed in undershirt and shorts, the Supreme Bishop was drinking ice-cold beer in his Manila house when the official word was brought to him: the Manila Court of the First Instance had at last declared him head of the Philippine Independent Church. Tall, chain-smoking Bishop Isabelo de los Reyes promptly sent out a directive calling for a Supreme Council of Bishops in July to set about making Aglipayanism the national church of the Philippines.

"Just a Stepfather." Popularly known as the Aglipayans (rhymes with lions), the Philippine Independents began as a protest against the Roman Catholic Church's 19th Century policy of limiting most native Philippine priests to posts as parish assistants. There had been agitation against the abuses of the Spanish friars since 1860, but it was not until 1902, after a delegation to Madrid got a cold shoulder from the Papal Nuncio, that a group of Socialist-minded Philippine Catholics decided that the Pope was no longer their spiritual "father, but just a stepfather." A revolutionary, excommunicated priest named Gregorio Aglipay was proclaimed Supreme Bishop. Almost overnight, membership in the new church jumped to nearly 3,000,000.

For 38 years, until his death at 80 in 1940, tough Bishop Aglipay worked to weld his loyal dissidents into a permanent, functioning church. Aglipay's chief concern was with the problem of the "apostolic succession." The Roman Catholic Church had consecrated no native bishops by the time the Aglipayans broke away, and though Aglipay lost no time in having himself consecrated by a group of "presbyters," the procedure did not seem to him quite "valid." Negotiations with the Episcopalians and with the Old Catholics in Switzerland broke down, and eventually the friendship and prompting of Philippine Civil Governor William Howard Taft led Bishop Aglipay into the fold of the American Unitarian Association, of which he became an honorary vice president.

Strong Nations Only. But mostly the Aglipayans stuck to a kind of Popeless Catholicism in matters of faith and worship. By the time war broke out in 1941, membership had fallen to 1,500,000, served by about 340 priests, 50 student priests, 20,000 deaconesses. Supreme Bishop Santiago Fonacier, Aglipay's successor, elected to play ball enthusiastically with the Japanese occupying forces. As a result, he was ousted by the General Assembly in 1946, and eight months later Bishop Reyes was elected Supreme Bishop.

For the past four years, Reyes and Fonacier have been fighting through the courts the question of who is supreme, and, incidentally, whether the Aglipayans will continue their uncomfortable liaison with Unitarianism or confirm an alliance with the Episcopal Church arranged in 1947. Though Fonacier plans to appeal, the decision of the court in favor of Reyes seems to have placed the 320 churches and 1,000 chapels of the Aglipayan Church within the Episcopalian fold.

Fifty-year-old Bishop Reyes announced last week that he planned to make his church 'a truly Catholic and Apostolic national church of the Philippines, like the Church of England for the British." He added: "It's only strong nations that can become independent in their religion. It's the weak nations that listen to foreign religious authorities like the Pope."

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