The Episcopal Church in the Philippines [ECP] traces its  beginnings to the American Occupation of this country in 1898 when chaplains from the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. joining the occupation forces, landed in these shores and celebrated the first Episcopal service. Three years later, a Missionary District of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA [PECUSA] was established in the Philippines, with Charles Henry Brent as its first Bishop. Initially considering himself as chaplain to an occupation force, Bishop Brent intensified missionary work in the country, following a policy of “not putting an altar over another altar”, thus, moving to hinterlands where lies the un-churched peoples or un-`altar’ed places. That missionary strategy largely explains why the ECP, which now has around 170,000 members spread out in 593 local congregations, is largely concentrated among indigenous peoples in the Cordillera in the northern part of the country and in the island of Mindanao.

ECP became a Missionary Diocese in 1965. On May 1, 1990, with five constituent Dioceses, it was inaugurated as an autonomous Church Province of the Anglican Communion (AC). The Anglican Communion is composed of those duly constituted national churches worldwide, independent from each other, but, are in communion with the historic See of Canterbury, England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the symbolic head of Anglicans everywhere.