Church says domed performance hall world’s biggest

Manila: A domed hall with a seating capacity of 55,000, and now said to be the world’s largest, was completed after almost three years of construction, in time for the centennial celebration of a non-Catholic church group which is politically influential, sources said.

The Philippine Arena of Church of Christ (Iglesia ni Cristo or INC), worth $175 million (P7.65 billion or Dh637.5 million) and built on a 75 hectare property in Bocaue and Sta. Maria, in northern suburban Bulacan, was completed on May 30, way ahead of INC’s 100th year bash on July 27, said Hanwha Engineering and Construction, a South Korean firm.

Philippine Arena’s 35,948-square-metre domed roof was built with a high level of structural expertise, said Hanwha.

In a show of force, INC has several mega-infrastructure projects done ahead of its centennial year. It now owns EVM Convention Centre and INC Museum on Central Avenue, suburban Quezon City. Inside INC’s Central Office Complex in Quezon City are the Honorata G. Manalo Building, which houses INC’s legal and finance departments and the Pilar Manalo-Danao Multi-Media Centre. INC’s other infrastructure projects include a 20,000-seat Philippine Stadium, and the Philippine Sports Centre.

Also being built is INC’s College of Evangelical Ministry on Central Avenue.

In December 2013, it established its first INC School for Ministry in Sacramento, California.

From 2009 to 2013, INC has inaugurated two offices in Burlingame, California. and in Heathrow, London. It has dedicated 44 of its 485 worship buildings outside of the Philippines in the same period.

In September 2011, INC spent $700,009 for 50 parcels of land in Scenic, South Dakota, the development of which is also related to its centennial celebration.

It launched a film on the life and success of INC founder Felix Manalo (1886-1963) at the Quezon City Sports Club in November 2012.

Every year, INC has been holding simultaneous Grand Evangelical Missions nationwide. The event is known to create horrendous traffic jam in Metro Manila.

Before every elections, politicians troop to INC’s office because of INC’s capacity to demand block voting from its three million members. It is the third largest church group in the Philippines, second to Islam which has five million followers. Eighty-eight pe rcent of Filipinos belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Non Catholic Protestant churches also belong to the minority.

INC was founded by the elder Manalo in 1914, when he was 28. At the time of his death at 77 in 1963, he had established 35 INC cathedrals and 1,250 local chapels.

He was succeeded by son Erano Manalo, and, after the latter’s death in 2009, by grandchild Eduardo Manalo.