Death of Bishop Isabelo de los Reyes
Diocesan Press Service. October 22, 1971 [96-3]
MANILA, The Philippines -- The Most Reverend Isabelo de los Reyes, Supreme Bishop of the Philippine Independent Church, died here suddenly on Sunday, October 10.
Funeral services were held from the Cathedral of the Philippine Independent Church in Manila on Sunday, October 17. At the request of the Rt. Rev. John E. Hires, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. A. Donald Davies, Bishop of the Diocese of Dallas, represented the Episcopal Church at the service.
The father of Bishop Reyes, for whom he was named, was an outstanding lay leader active in the formation of the Philippine Independent Church in 1902 when a large number of Filipinos withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church.
For the first 45 years of its history, the Independent Church was cut off from the historic episcopate, because no Filipino Bishops held jurisdiction in the Roman Church at the time of the separation. Nevertheless, Isabelo de los Reyes was trained for the ministry of the Philippine Independent Church and exercised his pastoral office for many years until he became Supreme Bishop in 1946. In April, 1948, three Bishops of the American Episcopal Church consecrated him in the Anglican Episcopate, upon the authority of the House of Bishops.
Today there are approximately 2.5 million members of the Philippine Independent Church, which is a part of the Wider Episcopal Fellowship, composed of churches possessing the historic episcopate with which the Churches and Provinces of the Anglican Communion are in full communion or in a relation of intercommunion.
The Rt. Rev. Stephen Bayne, former Deputy for Overseas Relations of the Episcopal Church and former Executive Officer of the Anglican Communion, and now a professor at General Theological Seminary in New York City, said of Bishop de los Reyes:
"Bishop de los Reyes remains in my memory as one of the bravest and truest men I ever was privileged to know. Son and namesake of a distinguished patriot and journalist who was 'the catalyst of the Philippine Independent Church', the Bishop was a devoted priest in the hardest times of persecution and poverty. In 1946 he became Supreme Bishop. On his shoulders lay the burden of bringing the scattered and war-torn church back into peace and united witness and out of its lonely isolation into the world-wide fellowship of Christians. By his patient, unfailing faithfulness he led his household into the full communion with our church established just 10 years ago, and then, in the succeeding years, guided their new strength in mission and in the ever-greater part they play in their nation and ecumenically as well. May he rest now in joy and light, and may God provide for the millions of Philippine Christians who have lost a magnificent father in God."
Bishop de los Reyes is survived by his wife and ten children.