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The Philippines is the fifth largest Christian country on earth,〔Most Christians reside in the United States with 246.8 million, followed by Brazil with 175.8 million, Mexico with 107.8 million, and Russia with 105.2 million.〕 with about 85% of the population being adherents. It is also one of two predominantly Roman Catholic nations in Asia (the other being East Timor), and is the third largest Catholic country in the world. Based on the Philippine Census for the year 2000, an estimated 85.5% of Filipinos are Christians which consists of 80.1% Roman Catholic, 1.8% Evangelical, 0.7% Iglesia ni Cristo, 1.1% Aglipayan, and 2.2% other Christian groups including other Protestant denominations (Baptist, Pentecostal, Anglican, Methodist, and Seventh Day Adventist) as well as Orthodox. Between 5%-11%〔http://www.ncmf.gov.ph/〕 of the whole country is Muslim; about 1% to 2% are Buddhist; 1.8% of the entire population adheres to other independent religions, while 1% to 11%〔http://www2.ttcn.ne.jp/~honkawa/9460.html〕 are irreligious. ==History== Early Christian presence in the Malay archipelago and the Philippine Islands may be traced to Arab Christian traders from the Arabian Peninsula. These traders had trade contacts with early Malayan Rajahs and Datos that had ruled these various Islands. Early Arabians had heard the gospel from Peter the apostle at Jerusalem (Acts 2:11), as well as evangelized by Paul's ministry in Arabia (Galatians 1:17) and also by the evangelistic ministry of St Thomas. Later, these Arab traders along with Persian Nestorian traders, stopped by the Philippines on their way to Southern China for trade purposes. However no solid efforts were made to evangelize the native population. With the spread of Islam in Arabia, much of the Christian heritage of Arabia had ended and the Arab travelers focused more on spreading Islam to Mindanao, through which they transmitted the knowledge of Jesus as a prophet to the Moro people. In 1521, the Portuguese navigator and explorer Ferdinand Magellan under the service of Spain came across the Philippines while searching for the Spice Islands. Ferdinand Magellan and his men landed in Cebu Island in central Philippines.〔Russell, S.D. (1999) 〕 At this time period, almost nothing was known to the West of the Philippines and so information on most pre-Hispanic societies in the islands date to the early period of Spanish contact. Most Philippine communities, with the exception of the Muslim sultanates in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, were fairly small and lacking in complex centralised authority. This absence of centralised power meant that a minority of Spanish explorers were able to convert larger numbers of indigenous peoples than attempting such in larger, more organised, dominions such as the Indianised or Theravada Buddhist kingdoms in mainland Southeast Asia, the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian Archipelago. With his arrival in Cebu on March 17, 1521, his first attempt was to colonise the islands and to Christianise its inhabitants. The story goes that Magellan met with Rajah Humabon, ruler of the island of Cebu, who had an ill grandson. Magellan (or one of his men) was able to cure or help the young boy, and in gratitude Humabon allowed himself, his chief consort Humamay, and 800 of his subjects to be baptised ''en masse''. In order to achieve this, Spain had three principal objectives in its policy towards the Philippines: the first was to secure Spanish control and acquisition of a share in the spice trade; use the islands in developing contact with Japan and China in order to further Christian missionaries’ efforts there; and lastly to spread their religion. After Magellan died, the Spanish later sent Miguel López de Legazpi. He arrived in Cebu from New Spain (now Mexico), where Spain introduced Christianity and colonisation in the Philippines took place. He then established the first Permanent Spanish Settlement in Cebu in 1565. This settlement became the capital of the new Spanish colony, with Legazpi as its first governor. After Magellan, Miguel López de Legazpi conquered the Islamised Kingdom of Maynila in 1570. The Spanish missionaries were able to spread Christianity in Luzon and the Visayas but the diverse array of ethno-linguistic groups in the highland areas of Luzon avoided Spanish annexation owing to their remote and difficult mountainous region. Sultanates in Mindanao retained the Islamic faith, which had been present in the southern Philippines since some time between the 10th and 12th century, and had slowly spread north throughout the archipelago, particularly in coastal areas.〔Russell, S.D. (1999) 〕 This resistance to Western intrusion makes this story an important part of the nationalist history of the Philippines. Many historians have claimed that the Philippines peacefully 'accepted' Spanish rule; the reality is that many insurgencies and rebellions continued on small scales in different places through the Hispanic colonial period. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Christianity in the Philippines」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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