It is amazing to me after looking at the encyclopedia references you gave me to Iglesia ni Christo and Manalo that none of them mention his relationship to the Restoration Movement churches of the 19th century who can be traced back to the Campbell-Stone (et.al.) Movement which was intended to restore the primitive church of Christ in faith and deeds and practice. The reason is that that fellowship which is now divided into three main streams: Disciples of Christ, and Church of Christ acapella. The latter defected from the former officially about 1910 but was already a separate fellowship in a united communion through the last part of the 19th century. The Disciples of Christ sent missionaries to the Philippines just before 1900. The Disciples reflected the lack of faith that was characteristic of the mainline denominations who had accepted "modernism" and espoused what was known as the social gospel prominent among Protestants from the late 1800 through the mid 1900s. Among the Bible believers among those missionaries was one Lesley Wolfe who established a number of churches named Church of Christ, -Iglesia ni Cristo in Tugalog. This conservative fellowship of Bible believers (orthodox in their views) suffered the recall of their Bible believing missionaries to be replaced by planters of better crops and growers of better pigs. It was actually from Filipino preachers that the third fellowship of the group was born, -- churches of Christ and Christian churches (independent). They had been part of the Disciples movement but defected and created a rallying point that true to the Bible churches in that larger fellowship could look to without starting a denomination. Many independent churches withdrew by 1920 and left to be known as Independent churches of Christ and Christian churches. It is from this independent movement of churches with no central headquarters or national organization and particularly the congregation known as Crusada Iglesia ni Cristo in Manila (Quiapo) that Manalo learned his concepts of a "restored church" after he was bapized by Lesley Wolfe and learned other things like immersion baptism for the remission of sins and the name of his Church, the Iglesia ni Cristo, deemed to be the "true" and "restored" name of the church.
I am not sure of his relationship to other denominations when Lesley Wolfe met and baptized him but it was from the churches of Christ that he adapted the teachings of restoring the true church of the Apostles, and then started the cult of the Angel of the East in Revelation. I had not actually heard of his claim to be the ravenous bird.
The church buildings that he built make his cult the most visible in the Philippines. They are very similar to Mosques with minarets and other embellishments, with beautiful domes and colors adorning these extradinarily huge and impressive edifices. Until the 1980's the entrances of the fenced grounds were flanked by machine gun turrets manned by armed guards which were not removed until after strong government pressure. When I saw them for the first time the turrets were still there sans machine guns. Attendance at all services is required of the members and they will seek evidence of attendance at a sister church to show at home, if they happen to be away traveling. Not difficult to receive since there are so many of them in the Philippines. But because of the name they will sometimes show up at our congregations seeking a paper to prove they attended a service away from home.
The fellowship that I am a part of (churches of Christ among the "independents") has gone on to train and ordain 1,000's of Filipino evangelists in five Bible College’s that I know of, and there are now, not hundreds, but thousands of Iglesia ni Cristo churches (that is a redundancy) in the Philippines and due to immigration the Filipino’s have their own convention among the Christian churches, most but not all by any means living on the west coast. None of these Filipino churches of Christ share anything but the name with the Manalo churches.
Incidently, Lesley Wolfe was imprisoned by the Japanese in Manila for the duration of WWII and weighed 70 pounds at the time of liberation. He died 3 months after liberation.
