Manuel Tómas Sánchez Papers

Religion influences the ethics, values and social behaviors of a group or country. During 1898, Puerto Rico experienced dramatic changes in all aspects of life, among them a religious transformation. The Catholic Church found competition from other religious denominations that were evangelizing and proselytizing Puerto Ricans, losing its hegemony and monopoly as the official religion of the island. Even Puerto Rican migrants in New York City were exposed to the “newer religious groups”. Manuel Tomás Sánchez became a member of the Pentecostal Church in 1932 and became an important figure in the religious conversion of many Puerto Ricans to his faith, unknowingly securing a place in the History of the Puerto Rican Diaspora.

Sánchez was born in Guánica, Puerto Rico on February 25th, 1907. He was the son of Bernardo Sánchez and Carmen Guzmán. His family migrated to New York City in the spring of 1927, where they moved to 95 Union Street near the Brooklyn piers, a district that received among the largest number of Puerto Ricans at the turn of the 20th century.

Sánchez followed in the footsteps of his mother by joining the Pentecostal Church pastured by Amado in 1932. His wife, Pilar Fernández, who he married in 1929 and the mother of their fifteen children, joined the Pentecostal church as well. On February 5 1933, he and his colleagues founded the Spanish Pentecostal Church, located at that time at 31 Atlantic Avenue, and re-named it Iglesia Pentecostal Antioquía , in 1959. The following year he became Pastor of the Antioch Church that today is located at 201 Atlantic Avenue. From that moment on he devoted his life to serving his church. During this period his mother and his wife were crucial in the process of attracting eighty new congregation members and converts.

Reverend Sánchez was the founding member of his church in 1933 and became the Pastor of the Antioquía Church from 1934 to 1989 with more than two hundred followers. Sánchez officially became a licensed advocate in 1935 and a license preacher of the Pentecostal Church in 1939. Finally, he was honored “Pastor Emeritus” from 1939 until the day he died on October 24, 1991. Sánchez was one of the founders and President of the Spanish Eastern District of the Assemblies of God for thirteen years, and was ordained a minister by Reverend Demetrio Bazán, Superintendent of the Latin American District Assemblies of God in 1943.

The Antioch Church under Sánchez adopted “Dulce compañerismo,” a term that he translated from the “Sweet Fellowship” from his American Pentecostal brothers. It was done to show solidarity and work in collaboration with his brothers in the church. Sánchez followed all the basic tenets of Pentecostalism at his Antioch Church. Ministers in the Pentecostal Church are first among equals with the congregation. Like the members of his Church he belonged to the working class. In the Pentecostal Church, women are active participants engaging in all religious activities, including the possibility of serving as preachers and/or ministers. The church created a community and a sense of belonging beyond the compound of the temple. All the religious services were conducted in the language spoken by the members. In this case they used Spanish as it was spoken among Puerto Ricans. They also incorporated other elements of the Puerto Rican culture. In the music they adopted the term “boleritos santificados” that translated to “holy little boleros,” a musical genre common to latino populations of the time. They also incorporated typical Puerto Rican musical instruments into the religious services. Indeed, these were some of the reasons why for many Puerto Ricans being in the church felt like being at home.

Reverend Sánchez together with other ministers led the way to creating a movement that now consists of more than one thousand churches in the region. The Antioch church to date has produced over thirty pastors. The legacy of Reverend Manuel Tomás Sánchez to the Pentecostal Church was that he notably helped to spread the movement, contributing to the rapid growth of the Pentecostal Church among Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics. On April 18, 2009 the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street was named after him in recognition of his exemplary life and dedication to the Pentecostal Church.

Sources:

Notes from unpublished manuscript by Rev. Manuel T. Sánchez. Compiled by Carmen Sánchez. April 15, 2003.

R. L. Ortiz, Jr. (Sito). Preserving Identity: Puerto Rican Shifts from Catholicism to Pentecostalism. Presented at Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College, CUNY, Spring 2009. 28 pp.

www.antiochchurchag.com