Delegation Will Attend Installation of Abellon
Episcopal News Service. April 27, 1982 [82104]
NEW YORK (DPS, April 27) -- A U.S. Episcopal delegation headed by the Rt. Rev. Donald Davies, Bishop of Dallas, will attend the installation of the new Prime Bishop of the Philippine Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop John M. Allin announced here.
The installation is scheduled for May 10 at the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. John in Quezon City near Manila.
On that date the Rt. Rev. Richard Abbelon, Bishop of the Diocese of Northern Philippines, will be instituted as Prime Bishop of the Philippine Episcopal Church. In this post he succeeds the Rt. Rev. Constancio Manguramas, Bishop of the southern diocese. According to the canons of the Church in the Philippines, the Prime Bishop is elected for a period of three years.
Davies, who is president of Province VII, is a member of the Executive Council's World Mission Committee and the Standing Commission on World Mission of the General Convention.
The delegation also includes the Rt. Rev. David B. Reed, Bishop of Kentucky and chairman of the Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations. He is a long-time participant in the Wider Episcopal Fellowship, the group of non-Anglican churches in full communion with the Episcopal Church.
Also a member of the delegation is the Rev. Canon Oliver Garver, ordinary to Bishop Robert C. Rusack of Los Angeles and noted for his deep concern for the ministry of the Church with Asian Americans and Pacific Islands people in the United States.
While in the Philippines the Episcopal delegation will call on the Supreme Council of Bishops of the Philippine Independent Church with which the Episcopal Church has had a concordat since 1961.
Allin said that the delegation will convey his personal greetings to the bishops and will explore various matters concerning the implementation of the concordat of full Communion. The Independent Church claims about three million members.
The Episcopal Church in the Philippines is a product of the missionary work of the U.S. Episcopal Church. The first Anglican service on record was conducted by a U.S. Army chaplain in 1898, at the time of the Spanish-American war.
A few months later missionaries arrived and in 1901 the first bishop, the Rt. Rev. Charles Brent, was consecrated.
After a long missionary effort on the part of the Filipinos and Americans the Church grew to the point that it became necessary to divide the country into three dioceses. Thus, in 1972 the dioceses of Northern, Central and Southern Philippines were constituted.
Since then, plans for autonomy have been greatly improved. At the present time, the three bishops -- and almost all the clergy -- are native Filipinos.
"We hope that in a not too distant future our Church here will become self-governing, self-propagating and self-sustaining," said Abellon at the time of his election as Prime Bishop.