Philippine Independent Church Creates North American Diocese: New Questions Raised on Relationship with Anglican Communion
Episcopal News Service. August 7, 1990 [90207]
Ruth Nicastro
The Philippine Independent Church (PIC) has organized a new Diocese of the United States and Canada. The formation of what for the PIC is an official overseas diocese occurred in Los Angeles on July 25 during a special convention held concurrently with meetings of the Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry (EAM) consultation (see separate story in this issue of ENS).
The PIC and the Episcopal Church maintain a relationship of full communion that was established by a concordat approved by the 1961 General Convention. The relationship takes on a new dimension in view of the recent friendly separation of the former dioceses in the Philippines from the Episcopal Church and their becoming an independent province of the Anglican Communion, the Philippine Episcopal Church (PEC).
Both the PIC and the dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines came into being at almost the same time shortly after the turn of the century, but in different ways. The PIC grew out of the struggle of Filipinos in the late 19th century to be independent from the Spanish rule that had lasted nearly 400 years and also from the Roman Catholic Church, which was closely identified with Spanish domination.
In 1902 the PIC declared itself an indigenous church, independent from Rome, and its clergy presided over congregations occupying former Roman Catholic church buildings. However, as a result of the Spanish-American War, the Philippines had become a colony of the United States in 1898.
In 1906, the U. S. government declared that all the occupied church structures had to be returned to the Roman Catholic Church. The new PIC was left with no property, but an even stronger nationalistic and independent perspective.
The PIC maintained its catholic beliefs and practices, but because of the break with the Roman Catholic Church, gradually became bereft of an episcopacy. In 1947 the PIC General Assembly petitioned the Episcopal Church to bestow upon three of its clergy the gift of apostolic succession, to which the Episcopal Church agreed. The Episcopal Church also agreed to allow PIC candidates to be trained at its St. Andrew's Seminary in Manila.
Thus the relationship between the two churches is a warm one, and the 1961 concordat has been closely observed on both sides. Through the years, pastoral oversight has been provided to several American PIC congregations by Episcopal Church bishops, and many PIC congregations in the United States meet in Episcopal Church buildings.
Meanwhile, early in the 1900s, the Episcopal Church sent a missionary bishop, Charles Brent, to the Philippines to work among the largely unchurched population in some parts of the country, particularly the mountain regions of the north and the heavily Muslim sections of the south. By mutual agreement, Brent did not work in those areas where the PIC was already established.
From Brent's work, Episcopal Church congregations grew up that eventually became strong enough to be organized into dioceses. Those dioceses, their members and bishops, were active participants of the eighth province of the Episcopal Church and of the General Convention. As local concerns increased, so did the desire for an independently governed church. The Philippine dioceses petitioned the General Convention to be recognized as an autonomous province in the Anglican Communion.
After several years of detailed negotiations, the Philippine Episcopal Church (PEC) became an independent Anglican province in May of 1990, amid festivities that involved many participants from the United States.
While the new PEC (itself the fruit of the labors of American Episcopal missionaries) is comprised entirely of the approximately 200,000 members of its congregations within the Philippines, the 3.5-million-member PIC currently finds itself in a missionary role.
About 5 percent of the population of the Philippines are PIC members. Church officials presume that the same ratio holds true for the approximately 800,000 Filipinos now living in the United States and many others living in Canada. These are the potential members of the newly organized Diocese of the United States and Canada.
The PIC congregations in Canada and the United States have been part of a missionary diocese until now. That diocese became one of 34 regular dioceses of the PIC at its organizing convention in Los Angeles. The new diocese is headed by Bishop Vic Esclamado, who had been serving as interim bishop, appointed by the PIC Supreme Council of Bishops. His appointment was ratified by the first vote taken at the organizing convention.
In addition to the appointment of a bishop, the convention set up the structures to administer the life of the new diocese. There were also considerable discussion and planning regarding administration of the enormous new jurisdiction, which Esclamado agreed would not be easy. Esclamado will also have to do a great deal of traveling to his scattered congregations from his headquarters in Chicago, where he has lived and served as a priest and church official for more than 20 years.
With the establishment of the PEC as an independent province, a new era has arrived in church relationships in the Philippines, said PIC Obispo Maximo Pasco.
"We have to go slowly," Pasco said. "I must strive to nurture the relationship we have started under our Lord Jesus Christ." The 1961 concordat of full communion with the Episcopal Church is presently a complication to that relationship. The PIC has indicated its wish for a new concordat with the PEC. Many PIC members, including Esclamado, said that they believe a new agreement is not necessary because the PEC was a part of the Episcopal Church when the existing document was signed.
"Our relationship with the PEC already exists because of the relationship with the Episcopal Church," Esclamado said. "Intercommunion has already been accepted."
Another problem that both Pasco and Esclamado acknowledged is that the concordat was arrived at by church leaders and is little understood by the membership of either church.
Pasco and the Most Rev. Richard Abellon, prime bishop of the PEC, have already held meetings regarding the future of the relationship. They have appointed a joint panel to discuss the matter.
The panel operates, Pasco said, "in a spirit of love and openness." Its mandate is to "spell out the learnings from past experiences and make more meaningful our relationship."
Pasco said that he believes groundwork exists for continuing relationships in the 1961 concordat and also in an agreement signed in Honolulu in 1985 by the PIC and the Episcopal Church. That agreement was the result of several years of careful negotiation following the Episcopal Church's 1976 decision to ordain women to its priesthood and episcopate. The PIC does not ordain women.
By the 1985 mutual agreement, neither church accepts into its ranks dissident clergy (nor, by extension, congregations) of the other. That agreement is essential, all parties feel, both in the Philippines and in the United States.
"The concordat and the Honolulu agreement were the first and second steps," Pasco said. "We are now endeavoring to solidify the foundation already laid in our further determination of God's will for us."