It was a small treat to see that the Episcopal Church has a feast day for Gregorio Aglipay.
Certainly a fascinating figure, Aglipay who was born in 1860 and died in 1940, was a priest and fervent Filipino patriot, one of the leaders of the revolution, who led a schism from the Roman Catholic Church, founding the Philippine Independent Church. All the original clergy had been Roman Catholic priests. Following his election as their supreme bishop in 1903, the clergy laid hands on Aglipay and invoked the holy spirit to make him their bishop. Not acceptable by traditional Catholic theology concerned with the “historic Episcopate,” and its tactile succession, this didn’t matter to the living church who saw the devotion of this man and the movement he inspired, and which touched the hearts of so many Filipinos and inspired a spiritual revolution as well as a political one…
The church Aglipay led, while remaining Catholic in form, was deeply influenced by Aglipay’s progressivism, his revolutionary politics, and his unitarian theology. And remained so for several decades following his death. His own spiritual path led him to reject the divinity of Jesus and with that the doctrine of the trinity. During his life there were cordial relations with the American Unitarian Association, and in 1931 the Unitarian seminary Meadville Lombard awarded him an honorary doctorate.
According to one online source his developed theology asserted “God is a universal and intelligent force, the principle of all life and movement. Satisfaction of human needs is achieved through work rather than prayer. All reward and punishment for virtuous or evil behavior occur in this life. The origin of the universe is explained as development and not creation because matter has no beginning.”
There were tensions within the church from the beginning between Aglipay’s liberals and more traditional members. Eventually there would be a schism and after the bishop’s death the courts awarded the name and assets to the trinitarian faction. In 1961 the Philippine Independent Church joined world wide Anglicanism when its bishops were re-consecrated in their traditional line.
Today the Philippine Independent Church is the second largest denomination in the Philippines.
The unitarian branch broke into several factions, and today I cannot find any online reference to an existing body. A sadness…
Still, considering all, I am just pleased as punch the ever delightful Anglican communion has named a Unitarian revolutionary to their calendar of saints.
Only appropriate, I think…
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