Our Diocese

HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE OF ANTIPOLO

General Information from Catholic Hierarchy.org    GCatholic site - Antipolo Parishes

The Diocese of Antipolo, born in the eighth decade of the 20th century, at the cusp of a new millennium, looks back on a 400-year history of faith and mission even as it continues to strive to be a life-giving and vibrant community faithful to its vision.

Mission and journey are words known and cherished by the People of God in this stretch of land at the fringe of a bay east of Manila, blessed with manifold landscapes – a terrain of rugged mountain slopes, foothills and caves, of rivers, falls and bays, and vast emerald valleys.

The gift of Faith was brought to this part of Luzon by men who came to preach and to teach. Men who had journeyed across the seas and through rivers, coming into their villages and homes to set up with and amongst them the first mission stations that would later evolve into evangelized communities and local churches – which would eventually go forth on mission as well.

Their patroness is the Blessed Virgin Mary, beloved and revered throughout the Philippines and by all Filipinos as Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje – Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage. An apt endearment for a maternal presence, represented by the image that was brought to them from afar – for a mother who had chosen her place among this journeying people, consistently guiding and inspiring them and drawing so many others to a loving devotion to her through centuries and generations.

Early Years in Rizal: Voyage of the Franciscans

The entire territory of the Diocese of Antipolo used to be part of what had then been established as the Archdiocese of Manila, the first ecclesiastical province in the entire country, whose jurisdiction originally covered the entire Philippines. This was in the era, and even for centuries after, that Catholicism was first brought by the Franciscans to the towns that are now part of the Diocese of Antipolo.

The Franciscans or the Order of Friars Minor (OFM) was the second religious congregation to settle in the Philippines after the Augustinians. Fifteen Franciscans arrived in Manila on July 2, 1578 and initially stayed with the Augustinians, the first religious men on the Islands, in their convent in San Agustin in Intramuros. By August 1, the Franciscans had built their own convent and church, also in Intramuros, which they dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels.

Formed after the missionary heart and spirit of their founder, St. Francis of Assisi, these early Franciscan friars went posthaste about their task of evangelization and proclamation of the Gospel. Within that same year, prompted by this mission, they ventured beyond Intramuros and founded their first mission settlements in the areas that now comprise the provinces of Pangasinan in the north, Albay in the south, and what would later be known as the province of Rizal in the southeast.

The Franciscans were the first missionaries, though not the first Spaniards, to arrive in the bay towns of Rizal. Early records indicate that Spanish soldiers under the command of Capt. Juan Maldonado had already ventured into this area of the Luzon mainland in 1572 and had come upon an organized settlement of villagers. They chose this to be the center of the colonization and administration of the area, calling it Rinconada de Morong or Pueblo de Morong. With the other smaller settlements close by, they referred to the entire length of coastal villages as La Laguna.

The first priests to come upon this stretch of lakeside towns were Fr. Juan de Placencia, OFM and Fr. Diego Oropesa, OFM, who were among the 15 Franciscans who arrived in the Philippines in 1578. By then, Moron (Morong) and Taitai (Taytay) were already established settlements with organized political and economic systems, and were part of La Laguna.

It was amidst these communities that the friars put up the first mission stations. The center of their missionary activity was in Taytay, but around it were sitios or small clusters of families. Wherever they found these sitios – families already gathered into neighborhood communities – the missionaries built chapels where they could welcome the people, meet them for catechesis, and share the gifts of faith and worship. These sitios would later develop into the towns of Baras, Tanay, Pililla, Cardona, Binangonan and Teresa.

After the Christianization of the coastal areas, the missionary journey proceeded inland from the bay. For the missionaries, the crude mountain trails from Morong and through Baras and Tanay became the main avenues leading to frontier lands, and these areas too became part of the mission territory.

These moves were providential, because in time the Franciscan missionaries realized that Taytay was frequently subjected to heavy floods, so the mission center had to be moved to higher ground – in a town they would call Antipolo.

In a place known as Boso-Boso, they built a small chapel where the people came for catechism classes and where liturgical celebrations were held. It is to the site of this first chapel, where the image of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage was first enshrined, that the present seat of the Diocese traces its beginnings.

While they had earned their place in the religious history of the Diocese and their legacy will forever be part of the matrix of political life of the towns that flourished around their churches, the Franciscans did not remain for very long in the area. In 1591, they turned over administration of the mission settlements to the Jesuits, the third religious congregation to

come to the Philippines.

The Jesuits stayed on to establish more mission centers and settlements. And, as the local Church flourished and distinct parishes were created, they continued working with the secular clergy in ministering to the spiritual needs of the people.

Creation of the Diocese: Fruit of a Pastoral Journey of the Holy Father

The Old Church of Antipolo.

For centuries after the dawn of Christianity in these lakeside settlements and mountain villages, through the unfolding of their political and social history, the parish towns on this side of the capital city were part of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Manila.

In time, the towns were structurally organized into what was referred to as the Episcopal District of East Rizal, which for many years was under the care and administration of an Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Manila.

In February of 1981, however, another journey marked a historic turning point for the Episcopal District of East Rizal. Like the bearers of the light of Faith who first came to the Philippines, and later to the towns of Rizal in the 16th century, Pope John Paul II arrived in the Philippines with a mission – and with a mindset that would change the destiny of the Church on this side of the vast Archdiocese of Manila.

Coming to the Philippines on a Pastoral Visit and for the Beatification of the first Filipino saint, Lorenzo Ruiz, and his companion martyrs, the Holy Father personally witnessed the situation and realities of the Philippine Church in the Archdiocese of Manila and was mindful of the needs of a ministry to such a vast and growing population.

Even as he reminded the People of God in the Philippines of their distinct mission in the world, born of their unique gift as the only Christian nation in Asia, he also noted ways in which to energize and animate the local Churches. One of these ways was to create new dioceses, weaning them from the larger mother jurisdictions, in order to enable them to craft their own vision and seek, as a separate empowered community of clergy and faithful, to define and pursue their own mission.

And thus, faithful to this goal, barely two years after he walked with and amongst Filipinos in their own land, Pope John Paul II announced during his Angelus Message on January 24, 1983, the creation of a new diocese, the Diocese of Antipolo, and the appointment of its first Bishop, Most Rev. Protacio G. Gungon, who until then was Auxiliary Bishop of Manila.

The Birth of the Diocese: Gathering the Flock for Pilgrimage

Bishop Gungon and Cardinal Sin.

The Diocese of Antipolo was formally established and canonically erected on June 25, 1983 through a Papal Bull. Carved from the Archdiocese of Manila, the new Diocese comprised the parishes of only one of what was then seven Episcopal Districts of the premier archdiocese in the Philippines. But the Diocese of Antipolo’s original geographical area of 1,859 square kilometers was almost 70 percent of the Archdiocese of Manila’s total land area of 2,800 square kilometers.

From Manila’s 28 vicariates and 171 parishes, Antipolo was established with three vicariates and 21 parishes.

At the time of its establishment, the territorial jurisdiction of the Diocese of Antipolo comprised the eastern part of Rizal, specifically the towns of Antipolo, Angono, Baras, Binangonan, Cainta, Cardona, Jalajala, Montalban, Morong, Pililla, San Mateo, Taytay, Tanay and Teresa. It also initially included the entire city of Marikina and portions of the city of Pasig, namely Greenpark Village, Karangalan Village, Manggahan, Romeo-Marietta, Rosario and Santolan.

However, with the creation of the Diocese of Pasig in 2003, exactly 20 years after the birth of the Diocese of Antipolo, the area that belonged to Pasig City naturally became part of the new Diocese, leaving Antipolo with 1,828 square kilometers.

The first Bishop of the Diocese was a pastor who knew well the flock he was to tend. As a young priest back from studies abroad, the parish he had first ministered to as a pastor for seven years was San Ildefonso in Tanay, Rizal. Appointed to the episcopacy in 1977, he was named Auxiliary Bishop of Manila and assigned Bishop-in-Charge of Antipolo, the biggest Episcopal District of the Archdiocese.

Bishop Protacio G. Gungon had turned 58 only five days before he marked the launching of a new journey – one he would embark on with a pilgrim people who would seek to chart their own path as one community.

On June 25, 1983, at the Cathedral-Parish of the Immaculate Conception, in ceremonies officiated by Manila Archbishop Jaime L. Cardinal Sin and the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Bruno Torpigliani, marking the formal and canonical erection of the Diocese of Antipolo, the Bishop and the faithful began a voyage uniquely their own, as a diocesan Church.