Frederick Ernest Mebius (1869-1945):

Protestant missionary to Bolivia (1898-1900) and El Salvador (1910-1945)

The emergence of the Free Apostolic Movement among Mebius’ followers and
the founding of the Assemblies of God in 1930 and
the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) in 1940
By Clifton L. Holland
Last modified on 15 November 2020

Photo provided by Enrique Barrillas

Family background
Mebius was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, in 1869, and he died in San Salvador in
1945 at age 76. He was 5 feet 8 inches tall and had blue eyes.
Father: Charles Frederick Ernest Mebius
Born: 1828 in Meissan, Germany
Died: 03 August 1893 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Mother: Jeannette Martin

Born: 1840 in Dublin, Ireland
Died: 19 July 1919 in Sidney, British Columbia, Canada

The Mebius family may have been affiliated with one of many Christian denominations on
Vancouver Island, where the city of Victoria is located in British Columbia. Officially, the
population of the city of Victoria in 1891 was 16,841 inhabitants. The first Congregational
churches were established as early as 1859, while the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches
were well established by that date, followed by the first Methodist churches in 1857 on Van-
couver Island. The Presbyterian Church was established in Victoria in 1864. By 1901, there were
a growing number of Lutherans and Baptists on Vancouver Island. See “Religion” in 1901
Census results for Vancouver Island:
https://hcmc.uvic.ca/~taprhist/search/searchcensusreligion.php?start=40&orderby=name&order=
ASC&show=n&year=

In 1886, the Canadian Pacific Railway reached the Pacific coast, and the following year, the
British Columbia Conference of the Methodist Church was organized as the governing body of
Methodism on the west coast. By this time, there were four self-supporting congregations and 25
missions (including nine Indian and one Chinese), with a total of 1,975 members. At the turn of
the century, the Methodist Church in B.C. had 52 ministers, 12 probationers (qualifying for
ordination), 92 congregations, and 5,496 members. Given Mebius’ later affiliation with the
Christian & Missionary Alliance in New York state, his family were probably affiliated with the
Methodist Church and aligned with the Holiness movement in the USA and Canada.

Early Education
According to Herbert S. Syverson, a missionary with the Church of God (Cleveland, TN),
Mebius was “a former Canadian schoolteacher” before arriving in El Salvador, sometime
between 1904 and 1910, based on some historical accounts.
Also, Mebius probably studied for a year at the Missionary Training Institute in Nyack, New
York, during 1897 prior to leaving New York City on 10 May 1898 via steamship bound for
Panama before travelling on to Peru and Bolivia a few months later to begin his missionary
service with the Christian & Missionary Alliance. He probably travelled across Canada via the
Canadian Pacific Railway from Vancouver to Toronto, then south to New York City and up the
Hudson River to Nyack.
The Missionary Training Institute of Nyack, New York, was founded in 1882 by Dr. Albert
Benjamin Simpson (1843-1919) for training laypeople to become missionaries without having to
study in a seminary. Simpson, a former Canadian Presbyterian minister, became the founding
pastor of the independent Gospel Tabernacle (founded in 1889) in New York City, a church in
the heart of the city, where all—the poor, homeless, sick, and displaced—were welcome. Later,
he and his associates founded the nondenominational Christian and Missionary Alliance
(C&MA) in 1897 as part of the Holiness movement. The C&MA was founded as a society fully
devoted to experiencing the “deeper life” in Christ and completing the Great Commission
(Matthew 28:18-20). Having also personally experienced a miraculous physical healing,
Simpson would go on to coin the foundation of the Alliance’s doctrine—The Fourfold Gospel:
Christ our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King.

Mebius in Bolivia: 1898-1900

Mebius travelling to New York City, where he boarded a steamship on 10 May 1898 bound for
Colón, Panama, en route to Peru and Bolivia where he was reported to be the only Protestant
missionary in the country (Source: The Christian and Missionary Alliance bulletin, 7 September
1898, p. 235). He returned to NYC in late 1899 and was reported to be on furlough by 20
January 1900 (Source: The Christian and Missionary Alliance bulletin, 20 January 1900, p. 41):

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Source: The Christian and Missionary Alliance bulletin, 7 September 1898, p. 235.

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Chronology of Mebius from 1900 to 1910
1900 – He was 31 years of age at the time of his return to NYC from Bolivia.
1901 – Mebius was married in Seattle, Washington, on 21 January 1901, to Mary J. Farris (born
in Tennessee in 1872); at the time of her marriage in 1901, she already had a daughter, Christine
Farris, who was born in 1897 when Mary was 25 years of age.

Image provided by Enrique Barrillas

1902 – Frederick and Mary’s first child, James, was born in 1902 in California when Mebius was
33 years of age.
1904 – Possible date of Mebius’ first arrival in El Salvador (according to Williams and Ingram).
Some sources reported that Mebius arrived in El Salvador in 1904 via Guatemala with CAM
missionary Robert H. Bender, but the official record shows that Bender and his family returned to
El Salvador in July 1905 by steamship after a brief furlough in California, according to the CAM
bulletin. Bender first arrived in El Salvador in 1897 and remained there until 1914 when his wife’s
health forced him to retire from the field. He returned in 1924 and served until his death there in
1934.

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1906 – Frederick and Mary’s second child, Ernest, was born in 1906 in Texas, when Mebius was
37 years of age. If Mebius did in fact travel to El Salvador in 1904 (there is no official government
record of him entering the country during the period 1900-1910), he must have returned to El Paso,
Texas, at least nine months previous to Ernest’ birth in 1906. Mebius could have been in El
Salvador during part of 1904-1905.
1910 – In the 1910 Population Census for the state of Texas, Frederick was listed as “Fred
Mebius,” age 40, born in 1870 in Texas (the correct date was 1869 in Canada). Mebius’
occupation was reported as “teacher-missionary” while living in El Paso, TX, in 1910. It is
possible that Mebius served as a missionary in Mexico (or El Salvador) prior to 1910, although
there is no historical record to support that assertion.
1910 – By this date there were Pentecostal believers in El Salvador, according to several eye-
witnesses. The Rev. Lemuel C. Barnes, Superintendent of the Northern Baptist Convention for
Latin America, during his visit to the region at the end of 1910 and the first months of 1911,
informed his superiors about the presence of Pentecostal believers who “spoke in tongues,”
which was of great concern for the older non-Pentecostal missionaries, CAM and the American
Baptist Home Mission Society (ABHMS). Source: “Breve historia de la Iglesia Bautista en El
Salvador,” Comisión de Historia: Daniel Monroy, Smith, Gómez y Contreras (San Salvador, 1996).

In 1913, Amos Bradley, a missionary with the Pentecostal Holiness Church Foreign Mission
Board in Guatemala, arrived in San Salvador and remained until 1916 when he returned to his
former work in Guatemala. During his ministry in El Salvador he carried out some evangelistic
and pastoral tasks in the towns of Juayúa and Ahuachapán. He confirmed the existence of
numerous Pentecostal churches in San Salvador and in the interior by 1913.
Source: “The Work of Pioneer Pentecostal Holiness Missionary Amos Bradley in Central America, 1908-
1955” by Clifton L. Holland, Director of PROLADES (March 29, 2012).

1910 – Missionary Amos Bradley, in Guatemala, reported the following in July 1910 in The
Bridegroom’s Messenger (August 15, 1910, Volume 3, Number 68, page 4):
A brother from Mexico has just arrived [in San Jerónimo, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala] who received
his Pentecost about one year ago [1909, while living in El Paso, Texas]. We are trusting the Lord
will bless through his coming. His name is Mebius. He has been to South America as a missionary
under the Alliance work [Christian & Missionary, 1898-1900, in Bolivia].

The El Paso Herald (June 25, 1909, p. 9) reported that the Apostolic Church of El Paso under
the leadership of the Rev. M. T. Dye, a former Methodist from Memphis, Tennessee, was part of
“The Great Pentecostal Movement.”
Source: http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/43397970/
In August 1908, Dye was living in San Marcial, New Mexico, where he witnessed the “baptism
of the Holy Spirit” among believers at a nearby mining camp (now abandoned). It is believed
that this Apostolic Church in El Paso was the source of Mebius’ Pentecostal experience in 1909,
as mentioned above by Bradley. This is no doubt that the “Mebius” mentioned by Bradley was
in fact Frederick E. Mebius who resided in El Paso, Texas, according to the 1910 U.S. Census of
Population as of April 15, 1910 (Census Day).

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If Mebius was actually present in El Paso, TX, on April 15, 1910 (Census Day), then he had time
to travel to Guatemala by July 1910 by railroad from El Paso to a Texas port and by steamship to
Puerto Barrios in Guatemala, and then via railroad to El Rancho and overland to San Jerónimo,
Baja Verapaz. Mebius probably continued his journey to El Salvador via the Guatemala railroad
from San Juan (Guatemala) to Santa Ana (El Salvador) via the Salvadoran railroad, and on to
San Salvador where took up residence in late 1910, probably in September or October.

Railroad service in Guatemala and El Salvador. Construction of the first railway in Guate-
mala commenced in 1877 and the first section began operation in 1880, connecting Puerto San
José and Escuintla on the Pacific coast, and being extended to Guatemala City in 1884. The line
to Puerto Barrios, known originally as the Northern Railroad of Guatemala was completed in
1908. The first railroad line in El Salvador was opened between Sonsonate and the port of
Acajutla on June 4, 1882. In the following years, the lines were extended to Santa Ana, San
Salvador and other places.

Mebius in El Salvador: 1910-1945

After his arrival in San Salvador in late 1910, Frederick E. Mebius (age 41), alone with no family
members present, rented a room in Villa Delgado in the municipality of Cuscatancingo in the
northeastern part of San Salvador, where he began to share the Gospel message with the local
inhabitants.

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It was later discovered that Mebius had left his wife Mary and their children in El Paso, Texas, to
travel to El Salvador, no doubt with the intention of bringing his family to El Salvador at a later
date.
With his artistic skills he painted an impressive picture of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and
placed it outside the premises, to attract the attention of people who passed by on the street, and
answering the curious questions of the people. After three church members from the Central
American Mission (CAM) who visited him believed his message, were “baptized in the Holy
Spirt” and joined him, the work began to prosper.

Mebius moved a short time later to the vicinity of the Cerro Verde and Santa Ana volcanos,
where he began his permanent missionary work. Between the years 1910 and 1912 there were
reports of a Pentecostal revival in this region with many conversions, healings and “baptisms of
the Holy Spirit.” It was in Lomas de San Marcelino where Mebius established his first congre-
gation, which became his base of operations for preaching the Pentecostal message that spread to
different places in the western part of the country, especially in the Departments of Santa Ana
and Sonsonate. Mebius and his associates established numerous preaching points there,
especially in rural areas. The new believers met in private homes to read passages from the
Bible, without any formal instruction, engage in fervent prayer, hear words of prophecy,
experience the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and share testimonies of their faith and spiritual experien-
ces with their neighbors. These believers and their congregations became known as the “Free
Apostolic” movement. (Source: Jeter 1990:64).

The districts (“cantones”) of the Municipio de Santa Ana are: Aldea San Antonio, Ayuta, Calzontes Abajo,
Calzontes Arriba, Cantarrana, Comecayo, Cutunay Camones, Chupaderos, El Portezuelo, Flor Amarilla Abajo,
Flor Amarilla Arriba, La Empalizada, La Montañita, Las Aradas, Loma Alta, Lomas de San Marcelino, Los
Apoyos, Monte Largo, Nancintepeque, Natividad, Ochupse Abajo, Ochupse Arriba, Palo de Campana, Pinalito,
Piñalón, Planes de La Laguna, Potrerillos de La Laguna, Potrerillos del Matazano, Potrero Grande Abajo,
Potrero Grande Arriba, Primavera, Ranchador, San Juan Buenavista, Tablón del Matazano, and Valle del
Matazano.

Among Mebius’ first converts were Rodolfo Hurtado and Sotero Navas. It was said that Navas
received the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” one night while he was sleeping and when he awoke,
he was “speaking in tongues.” There were other similar experiences, such as that of a daughter of
Rodolfo Hurtado, María Rodriga Hurtado, with whom Frederick (now known as “Federico”)
Mebius was married (probably in 1917) in Las Lomas de San Marcelino de Santa Ana. She was
from Talcomunca, Izalco, Sonsonate. Together they produced eight children between 1917 and
1935: Juana (1917-1918?), Eduardo Víctor (1919), Arturo, Alfredo Camilo (1924), Federico Jr.,
Alexander, Elena and Olivia Ruth (1935).

As mentioned earlier, Mebius’ first wife Mary Farris and her children were abandoned in El
Paso, Texas, in 1910, when Frederick began his journey to El Salvador. There was no divorce:
Mary and her children never heard from Frederick again, according to the testimony of Mary’s
grandchildren as reported to Enrique Barrillas.

1930 – The Mebius family was living in Las Lomas de San Marcelino. That same year the U.S.
Assemblies of God began its ministry in El Salvador under the leadership of Ralph D. Williams

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and Francisco Ramírez Arbizú, an associate of Mebius, but without the participation of Mebius
who remained independent as part of the Free Apostolic movement.

Photo of the Mebius family ca. 1940 provided by Enrique Barrillas.

1940 – Mebius become affiliated with the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) in association with
missionary Herbert S. Syverson. About 12 of Mebius’ Free Apostolic churches also joined the
CoG along with Mebius (the car in the photo above is believed to belong to Syverson).

1945 – Mebius died on 12 February at age 76 and was buried in the public cemetery at Santa
Tecla.

The beginning of the Assemblies of God in El Salvador

Rafael Williams, in his memoirs Hands That Dug The Well (Springfield, Missouri: RDM, 1997,
pp. 72-73) compiled by his second wife Lois Williams (married in 1976), wrote about Mebius:
“Although we were happy for the eighty brothers who attended our first conference in
Ahuachapán in 1930; and because the goals had been reached, I was a little disappointed by the
absence of a friend, Federico Mebius… The Mebius family stayed in Santa Ana and visited
various mountain groups ... where Mebius shared his teaching on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit
and the people received a great blessing. Beyond this, there was little pastoral care and doctrinal
teaching or instruction, thus the work began to take on various extremes.”

The Central American Mission (CAM) began work in El Salvador with the arrival of Samuel
A. Purdie in July 1896 and Robert H. Bender in April 1897. By 1901, CAM had begun work
among new believers in Santa Ana and founded several local congregations in the region soon
thereafter. The first Baptist church in El Salvador was established in Santa Ana in 1911 by
missionaries of the American Baptist Home Mission Society (ABHMS) in the USA (part of the

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Northern Baptist Convention between 1907-1950), followed by the founding of many other
CAM and Baptist churches in the western region.

According to Williams, “The Lord used Mebius to introduce the apostolic message and brought
several hundred to the Lord and the Pentecostal experience. In the light of how the Lord used
him, I could not understand his indifference regarding establishing the believers in the Word.
From time to time in the three months leading up to the first founding meeting of the Assemblies
of God of El Salvador, I fellowshipped with him considerably. We openly discussed the steps we
should take to bring the believers to a more biblical standard …

There were some believers that I did not expect to be at the initiation conference, but I did expect
Brother Mebius. He had marriage difficulties and perhaps he was not going to be reinstated as a
minister, but I knew he was respected for the great part he had in the beginning. I believed he
would continue in fellowship with this new effort. Imagine my surprise to learn, later that while
we had been at our conference [in 1930], Mebius had met with another group in El Congo [Santa
Ana department] in an effort to organize a separate conference [among the Free Apostolic
churches that he had established earlier]. Source: Williams 1997: 72-73.

After the founding of the Assemblies of God in El Salvador in April 1930, Mebius continued
to minister to the Free Apostolic groups that had not been absorbed by the AoG. At that time, he
resided in Las Lomas de San Marcelino, on the edge of Cerro Verde volcano in Santa Ana
department. Later, he bought a property in the town of El Congo, also in Santa Ana department,
from where he visited the various Apostolic groups on foot or on mule-back. The roads were
bad, either very muddy or very dusty, “but the fiery missionary full of the Holy Spirit was doing
God's work,” according to Williams.

The Council of the Assemblies of God of El Salvador was organized in April 1930 in Ahua-
chapán with representatives of 12 churches of the “Free Apostolic” movement under the super-
vision of Rev. Ralph Williams. But other Free Apostolic churches (about 13 out of a total of 25,
according to Cristóbal Ramírez's book, The Assemblies of God in El Salvador, published in
1972) did not want to be subject to the North American denomination and remained as
independent churches with the support of the Canadian missionary Mebius. Philip Williams
wrote (1997: 181) the following:

Mebius went on to establish some two dozen congregations with approximately 2,000 members by
the late 1920s. In December 1929, the churches split, about half of them remaining under Mebius's
leadership and the other half following the Salvadoran Pentecostal leader Francisco Arbizú and the
Welsh [Assembly of God] missionary Ralph Williams. The latter founded the “Asambleas de Dios”
[de El Salvador], affiliated with the Assemblies of God in the United States, in 1930.
Source: Philip J. Williams, “The Sound of Tambourines: The Politics of Pentecostal Growth in El
Salvador” (pp. 179-200) in Power, Politics and Pentecostals in Latin America, edited by Edward L.
Cleary and Hannah W. Stewart-Gambino (Westview Press, 1997).

Ralph Darby Williams (1902-1982), his wife, Jewyl (1902-1976), and young Owen Robert
(born 1926) arrived in El Salvador on Christmas Eve of 1929 as Assemblies of God missionaries
in Central America. Born in England, Williams was saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit in his

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native land but traveled to the USA to receive training for mission work at Glad Tidings Bible
Institute (later Bethany University) in California. There he met his future wife, Jewyl, who was
also training for ministry. Ralph and Jewyl felt a call to Mexico but that country was closed to
U.S. missionaries. For three years, Ralph and Jewyl trained Mexican workers in San Diego to
return to their native country and plant churches, hoping that soon North American missionaries
would follow them.

Meanwhile, the Pentecostal message had come to El Salvador through an independent Canadian
missionary, Frederick E. Mebius, who was influenced by Charles Parham’s Apostolic Faith
Movement in Kansas and Texas. According to Herbert S. Syverson, a missionary with the
Church of God (Cleveland, TN), Mebius was “a former Canadian schoolteacher who had gone to
El Salvador as a pioneer Pentecostal missionary in or about 1904, when the Pentecostal revival
was just beginning.” Source: Conn 1959:139-140.

“Many received Mebius’ message with open hearts, but without solid biblical instruction and
pastoral guidance the few believers had fallen into dissension and false teaching.” One believer,
Francisco Ramírez Arbizú, was so concerned about the state of the church that he sold his
business and used the money to finance a trip to the USA where he met with Henry C. Ball and
other AoG leaders, asking them to send missionaries to El Salvador to guide his people into
learning solid biblical teachings and principles of church organization.

The Williams family responded to this call and met with Arbizú on Christmas Day, 1929, in
Santa Ana. He greeted them with a shout of praise, “Now we have a shepherd!” Over the next
few weeks, Arbizú took the Williams family on a tour of the fledgling churches that had sprung
up in private homes and make-shift structures of bamboo and palm leaves. Williams could see
that there were many committed believers and he shared Arbizú’s concern at the lack of biblical
knowledge and organization among the scattered flock.

The more he traveled the more he became convinced that it would take at least six missionaries
to disciple the converts and reach the unevangelized. He knew that no other missionaries had
expressed an interest in coming and that the church was not ready to support them even if they
were there. Williams prayed about this and asked the Lord to show him the answer to this
dilemma.

When the answer came it surprised even him: “the missionaries you need are already on the
field!” The answer to his prayer were the very believers he was teaching. They didn’t need to
bring more people from the USA; they needed to raise up the Salvadorian believers to reach their
neighbors, pastor their churches, and send their own workers to the unreached villages around
them.

Williams then began organizing conferences for church workers and held monthly fellowship
meetings so that the workers would have fellowship with other believers from surrounding
villages. Persecution was often great for these believers, who were religious minorities in their
villages. But when the Pentecostal believers came together for conferences and meetings, they
discovered that there were more than 1,000 fellow believers. This knowledge that their numbers
were growing gave them boldness to face their persecutors and to believe that they could
evangelize their own people and plant new churches among them.

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Adapted from: Lois Williams, a biography of Ralph D. Williams, Hands that dug the Well
(Springfield, Missouri: RDM, 1997)

The following words were written by Ralph D. Williams, as recorded in the following document:
http://historiaprotestanteselsalvador.blogspot.com/2014/01/centro-evangelistico-de-san-
salvador.html
We toured the country visiting the Pentecostal groups, which Federico Mebius had led, in trips of
two or three weeks. They were different tours: The coast of Ahuachapán, Cerro Verde, Sonsonate,
Las Lajas, Guayabo, and Las Higueras. We stayed 2 or 3 days in each church, where the national
brothers housed and fed us.
In El Congo there was one of the largest groups of Pentecostal believers. Federico Mebius had led
them and the believers were born out of a Pentecostal revival like the one on Azusa Street in Los
Angeles, USA. I was barely a week after arriving in El Salvador. I had come across new and strange
things for me and had very few acquaintances in the place. A new culture and people to meet.
Arriving at the El Congo meeting we found about 40 or 50 Pentecostal believers gathered in the long
hall and seated on rustic wooden benches. Hymns were sung spontaneously. There were constant
outbursts of worship and speaking in tongues. Several brothers spoke with authority, but without
understanding. Pedro invited me to give a short message. The entire service was made up of
Christian testimonies and songs. At the end of the service it seemed that no one would take care of
where Pedro and I were to sleep. I asked Onofre who would give us a place to sleep that night. There
was no light in the room where we had gathered for worship. Onofre had brought some sheets to
cover us at night when we sleep. We began to get used to the sincere hospitality of believers.
We found few believers in the city of Santa Ana, but we had been told that there were several
groups of Pentecostal believers in the interior of the country. People knew of our arrival and were
waiting for us. We packed our bags with brother Arbizú for our first tour to visit the believers outside
of Santa Ana. The route we were taking was up and down hills. They were coffee plantations with
dusty streets in the summer and in the winter: muddy. Few streets were traveled by vehicles. The
streets had holes that were made by beasts and carts. Many of our trips were on foot. There were few
who owned horses, mules or donkeys. Each one carried their own suitcase… When we got to the
first place, we realized that Angela was going to host us. We were taken to her house in the middle of
the forest. She accommodated us in a private room and offered us delicious food.
Our surprise was when we met for worship. It was a rancho made of straw with rustic wood. The
meeting room was 6 meters long. The benches were made of wooden logs, the light was yellowish
and there was smoke. People were praying loudly, others on their knees, prostrate. From 40 to 50
people gathered. Nobody cared about order or liturgy. They began to sing without instruments; each
one sang in their own tone, rhythm and time. Some sang their own hymn. There was sincerity and
the presence of God was strongly felt. There were exclamations of adoration and in other tongues.
Some believers trembled and writhed in the presence of God. Others prayed for other believers by
laying hands on them. Spontaneous testimonials. Hermano Arbizú took the time and the cult began
to order. We sang, the Bible was read in more order. I was introduced to those present as the
missionary for whom they had prayed that he would arrive from the USA to help in establish order
among the Pentecostal groups scattered about in El Salvador. I felt a genuine confirmation of my
missionary call to the country by hearing his heartfelt words.

During the Great Depression, it was often hard for the AoG churches in the United States to fully
support its missionaries. Many days, the Williams family of six, including four growing boys,
had nothing to eat but black beans and tortillas. But God always provided and good came out of
this situation. The Salvadorian believers began to support the gospel workers through their own

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tithes and offerings, many times taking the ministers and their families into their homes to keep
them from having to pay rent when funds were low.

When AoG missionary Melvin L. Hodges (1909-1988) arrived in El Salvador in 1936 to assist
Williams, he was intrigued by the way the Salvadorians provided so much of the leadership for
their own churches. After Hodges moved to Nicaragua, he began to move the Nicaraguan church
from a paternalistic structure, dependent on North American financial assistance, to one based on
the indigenous church principles modeled in El Salvador. Hodges went on to write the first
missiology text by a Pentecostal, The Indigenous Church (1953), which outlined these principles
which became the standard missiology of the Assemblies of God.
Adapted from: “Ralph Williams, Missionary to El Salvador: Pioneer of the Indigenous
Church Principle,” available at: https://ifphc.wordpress.com/2018/04/12/ralph-williams-
missionary-to-el-salvador-pioneer-of-the-indigenous-church-principle/

The beginning of the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) in El Salvador

In 1940, Federico Mebius (age 71), his wife María and their children were living in poverty and
struggling to survive in El Salvador when two Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) mission-
aries arrived on the scene in February 1940, Herbert S. Syverson from the USA and Charles T.
Furman from Guatemala. “Mebius was mending shoes for a living to support his family but had
been reduced to the level of the natives with whom he worked,” wrote Syverson. During the
1920s Mebius had been the leader of a large and thriving work that became known as the Free
Apostolic movement, but his leadership was gradually reduced to oversee only five small
churches by 1940. Mebius was granted Salvadoran citizenship on 31 January 1940 while living
in Las Lomas de San Marcelino, department of Santa Ana.

Syverson asked Mebius to join him and work together under the auspices of the Church of God
(CoG), which had been established in Guatemala under the leadership of Furman in 1934.
However, it took about eight months for Syverson and his family (wife and three small children)
to relocate from San Diego, California, to El Salvador.
During his first four years in El Salvador, Syverson, who also served as the General Overseer of
the Church of God in Central America, saw very little expansion from the first five local
congregations that Mebius had brought into the CoG. It was more than a year before any effort
was made to formally organize a church, with the first being at Calzontes in the coffee-growing
region of Santa Ana department, where about 100 members and seven local preachers joined the
CoG. Other local churches that were organized by Syversen and Mebius as CoG congregations
in the following towns: Chalchuapa, El Congo y El Arado de Santa Ana; Santa Tecla de La
Libertad; San Luís Talpa de La Paz; Las Higueras de Sonsonate, and numerous less populated
areas. Mebius continued as the principal missionary on the field with Luis González as his
assistant, who did most of the field work, until Mebius’ death in 1945 at age 76.
Source: Conn 1959:140-142.

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In May 1958, the CoG in El Salvador reported 44 organized churches, most of them worship-
ping in their own buildings, and seven established missions, all with nearly 2,500 members and
twice that many adherents. Source: Conn 1959:144.
The following independent denominations were formed by leaders of the Free Apostolic
movement who claimed Mebius as their spiritual father:

The Ephesians 2:20 Free Apostolic Church / Iglesia Apostólica Libre Efesios 2:20 (established in 1936
by Pilar Calderón and Hilario Navarro Portillo in Barrio Agua Caliente de San Salvador), which was later
renamed the Apostles and Prophets Church of El Congo / Iglesia de Apóstoles y Profetas de El Congo
in 1958 in El Congo, Department of Santa Ana, under the leadership of Pilar Calderón (born in 1896 in
Santiago de María, Department of Usulután, formerly a member of Central American Mission churches).
This was the first denomination formally organized among Mebius’ disciples in the Free Apostolic
Movement. In 1978, the denomination was renamed Apostles and Prophets Evangelical Church of El
Salvador / Iglesia Evangelica Apóstoles y Profetas de El Salvador)
http://apostolesyprofetaselsalvador.blogspot.com/ / http://www.ieapes.org/iglesia/historia.html

In 1936, Hilario Navarro Portillo and Pilar Calderón began working together in the Free Apostolic
church in Casería Agua Caliente de Soyapango, Department of San Salvador. It was then that the two
leaders decided to call this nascent Free Apostolic church “Ephesians 2:20.” Neither Calderón nor
Navarro knew the best way to celebrate a service of worship to God, so they began to improvise by
reading a chapter of the Bible in each service, later they thought about reading a verse or portion of the
Scriptures after they opened the Bible on a random page; this is the way they worshiped God in every
meeting. Later, on the occasion of celebrating the Lord’s Supper, Calderón did not agree with the practice
of “feet washing” and this caused Navarro Portillo to separate himself from Calderón and associated
himself with Free Apostolic congregations in the Western region (see below) while Calderón worked in
the Eastern region of the country.

Later, Calderón and his associates organized new churches in Barrio Lourdes and Barrio Santa Anita in
San Salvador; Mejicanos, San Salvador; Cuscatancingo, San Salvador; San Martín, San Salvador; Cantón
El Piche, La Unión; Barrio San Nicolás in San Miguel; Barrio San Sebastián in Santiago Nonualco, La
Paz; Colonia San Antonio in Santa Ana; La Cuchilla in Ciudad Arce, La Libertad; Los Huesos de
Anguiatú, Metaplan, Santa Ana, among others. Source:
http://apostolesyprofetaselsalvador.blogspot.com/2012/11/pedro-g-andrade-resena-historica.html

On 28 August 1978, this denomination adopted the name Iglesia Evangélica Apóstoles y Profetas de El
Salvador / Apostles & Prophets Evangelical Church of El Salvador, with 80 organized churches and
about 3,800 members. After this date, the denomination began to experience rapid growth and to establish
new congregations in the main cities of the country. At the end of the 1980s, there were 227 congrega-
tions nationally and the denominations was present in 171 municipalities of the 264 that existed in El
Salvador at that time. In 2007; it reported 329 congregations with a membership of approximately 75
thousand active members in El Salvador and with affiliated local churches in the USA, Canada, Mexico,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Australia: Source:
http://apostolesyprofetaselsalvador.blogspot.com/2008/04/captulo-ii-cien-aos-de-presencia.html

The Upper Room Apostolic Church / Iglesia Apostólica “El Aposento Alto” (established in 1936-1937
in Cerro Verde, Santa Ana, by Hilario Navarro Portillo, who married Mebius’ daughter Juana; this was
the second denomination organized among Mebius’ disciples in the Free Apostolic movement; in 1978,
this denomination reported 26 organized churches in El Salvador under the leadership of Arturo Martínez
with headquarters in Ciudad Delgado, San Salvador). See the following listing, which may be the current

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headquarters address for this denomination: Iglesia Bethel de la Misión Evangélica Aposento Alto
(MEAA): Parada de la Ruta 24 Sonora, Ciudad Delgado, San Salvador.

Note: Many of the local Assemblies of God congregations use “Aposento Alto” in their names, which
refers to the “Upper Room” where Jesus and his disciples celebrated the “last supper” in
Jerusalem, as recorded in Mark 14:14–15, and where the disciples received the “baptism of the
Holy Spirit” 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus, which is called the Day of Pentecost as
recorded in The Acts of the Apostles 1:13. Also, the first Free Apostolic church that was founded
by Mebius in Cerro Verde, Lomas de San Marcelino (Santa Ana department), was referred to as
the “Aposento Alto” of the Pentecostal movement in El Salvador.

Apostolic Church of God in Christ / Iglesia de Dios Apostólica en Cristo (founded in 1950 in
Cuscatancingo, San Salvador; led by Juan Bolaines Echeverría in 1980)
Apostolic Church of the New Jerusalem / Iglesia Apostólica de la Nueva Jerusalén (Colonia Maraña,
San Salvador, led by Abilio Velásquez Núñez in 1979; was part of the Church of Apostles and Prophets
until 1977)
Alliance of Eph. 2:20 Apostles and Prophets Evangelical Churches / Alianza de Iglesias Evangélicas
Apóstoles y Profetas Efesios 2:20 (founding date unknown; Cantón El Triunfo, San Francisco Gotera,
Department of Morazán)
Council of Apostles and Prophets Evangelical Missionary Churches, Eph. 2:20 / Concilio de Iglesia
Evangélica Misionera Apóstoles y Profetas, Efesios 2:20 (founding date unknown; Cantón Llano de Los
Patos, Conchagua, Department of La Unión)
City of Zion Prophetic Mission Church / Iglesia Misión Profética “Ciudad de Sión” (founding date
unknown; led by Miguel Angel López Eguizábal in 1979; headquarters in El Congo, Department of Santa
Ana; name changed to “Iglesia Misión Profética Internacional Ciudad de Sión”)
Evangelical Christian Church “Eph. 2:20 Apostles and Prophets Mission” / Iglesia Cristiana
Evangélica “Misión Apóstoles y Profetas Ef. 2:20” (founded in 1988 in San Salvador; the result of a
division among the older “Church of the Apostles and Prophets) -
http://www.misionapostolesyprofetas.org/historia.html
Sources: Salvadoran Government Registry of Religious Groups (2016), available at:
https://www.transparencia.gob.sv/institutions/migobdt/documents/143983/download
IINDEF-PROCADES National Protestant Church Directory, 1980 (San José, Costa Rica):
http://www.prolades.com/historiografia/3-El-Salvador/Directorio-Movimiento-Protestante-El-Salvador-
1980.pdf
This national directory reported that there were 1,539 Pentecostal congregations (churches and missions)
in El Salvador, with 65,483 church members, which represented 65.4 percent of the total Protestant
church membership in El Salvador in 1978, compared to 14 percent for the Adventist Family of Churches,
1.5 percent for the unclassified Protestant groups, and 19.1 percent for all the other non-Pentecostal
groups. Many of the Pentecostal congregations (church and missions) listed for the various denomina-
tions in El Salvador began as “preaching points” among the Free Apostolic movement, which was
founded and led by Frederick E. Mebius.

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Below are two graphics that show (1) the progressive growth of the Pentecostal movement in El Salvador
from 1935 to 1978 (Figure 8), and (2) the proportion of Pentecostal membership compared to other
Protestant Families of Denominations in El Salvador in 1978 (Figure 9).

FIGURE 8:
PROPORTION OF PROTESTANT MEMBERSHIP
BY MAJOR FAMILIES, 1935-1978

YEAR 1978
YEAR 1967
YEAR 1960
YEAR 1950
YEAR 1935
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
YEAR 1935 YEAR 1950 YEAR 1960 YEAR 1967 YEAR 1978
LITURGICAL 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 1,0% 2,0%
SEPARATIST 63,0% 34,9% 25,3% 25,9% 17,1%
ADVENTIST 6,8% 5,8% 6,2% 8,5% 14,0%
PENTECOSTAL 30,3% 55,8% 68,5% 64,6% 65,4%
UNCLASSIFIED 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 1,6%

FIGURE 9:
PROTESTANT MEMBERSHIP IN EL SALVADOR
BY MAJOR TRADITIONS, 1978

1,6% 2,0%

17,1%

14,0%

65,4%

LITURGICAL SEPARATIST ADVENTIST PENTECOSTAL UNCLASSIFIED

Source: Clifton L. Holland, Expanded Status of Christianity Country Profile: El Salvador, 1980 (San José,
Costa Rica: PROLADES, original 1981 and updated with graphics in June 2011):
http://www.prolades.com/historiografia/3-El-Salvador/els1980_profile-rev2011.pdf

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During 1977-1979, the PROCADES research team conducted a national study of the Protestant move-
ment in El Salvador during a period of civil unrest, as detailed below, which was published August 1982
(IINDEF-PROCADES 1982). The publication was delated due to concerns among members of the
national coordination committee (led by Mr. Raúl Durán, director of the Salvadoran Bible Society) that
the Directory would be used as a “hit list” by death squads affiliated with the right-wing military govern-
ment to target those opposed to the dictatorship.
IINDEF-PROCADES, Directorio de las Iglesias, Organizaciones y Ministerios del Movimiento
Protestante: El Salvador (San José, Costa Rica: PROCADES, 1982):
http://www.prolades.com/historiografia/3-El-Salvador/Directorio-Movimiento-Protestante-El-Salvador-
1980.pdf
The Salvadoran Civil War

1977 – Guerrilla activities by the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN)
intensified amid reports of increased human rights violations by government troops and right-wing death
squads; General Carlos Romero was elected president.

1979 – General Romero ousted in a coup by reformist officers who installed a military-civilian junta, but
this failed to curb army-backed political violence against leftist sympathizers.

1979-1981 – Around 30,000 people were killed by army-backed right-wing death squads that sought to
destroy the leftist movement.

1980 – The Archbishop of San Salvador and human rights campaigner Oscar Romero was assassinated;
José Napoleón Duarte becomes first civilian president since 1931.

1981 – France and Mexico recognize the FMLN as a legitimate political force; the U.S. government
continued to assist the Salvadoran government whose army continued to back right-wing death squads
who targeted guerrilla leaders and leftist sympathizers.

Sources for Mebius’ biography:

Cristóbal Ramírez, Historia de Las Asambleas de Dios en El Salvador (San Salvador, no date).

Lois Williams, a biography of Ralph D. Williams, Hands that dug the Well (Springfield, Missouri: RDM,
1997)

Luisa Jetter de Walker. Siembra y Cosecha: Reseña histórica de las Asambleas de Dios de México y
Centroamérica (Deerfield, Florida: Editorial Vida, 1990).

“Breve historia de la Iglesia Bautista en El Salvador,” Comisión de Historia: Daniel Monroy, Smith,
Gómez y Contreras (San Salvador, 1996):
http://www.prolades.com/cra/regions/cam/els/ABEL_historia_els.pdf

“The Work of Pioneer Pentecostal Holiness Missionary Amos Bradley in Central America, 1908-1955”
by Clifton L. Holland, Director of PROLADES (March 29, 2012); the Spanish versión is available here:
“La obra del misionero pentecostal pionero Amós Bradley en América Central, 1908-1955,” por Clifton
L. Holland, Director de PROLADES:
http://www.prolades.com/aphila/Revista_APHILA_marzo_2012.pdf

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Clifton L. Holland, World Christianity: Central America and the Caribbean (Monrovia, CA: MARC-World
Vision International, 1981).
Clifton L. Holland, Expanded Status of Christianity Country Profile: El Salvador, 1980 (San José, Costa
Rica: PROLADES, original 1981 and updated with graphics in June 2011):
http://www.prolades.com/historiografia/3-El-Salvador/els1980_profile-rev2011.pdf
IINDEF-PROCADES, Directorio de las Iglesias, Organizaciones y Ministerios del Movimiento
Protestante: El Salvador (San José, Costa Rica: PROCADES, 1982):
http://www.prolades.com/historiografia/3-El-Salvador/Directorio-Movimiento-Protestante-El-Salvador-
1980.pdf
“Ralph Williams, Missionary to El Salvador: Pioneer of the Indigenous Church Principle,” available at:
https://ifphc.wordpress.com/2018/04/12/ralph-williams-missionary-to-el-salvador-pioneer-of-the-
indigenous-church-principle/
Charles W. Conn, Where the Saints have Trod: A History of the Church of God Missions (Cleveland, TN:
Pathway Press, 1959).
Philip J. Williams, “The Sound of Tambourines: The Politics of Pentecostal Growth in El Salvador” (pp.
179-200) in Power, Politics and Pentecostals in Latin America, edited by Edward L. Cleary and Hannah
W. Stewart-Gambino (Westview Press, 1997):
http://www.prolades.com/cra/regions/cam/els/williams_pentecostals.pdf
Enrique Barrillas: http://apostolesyprofetaselsalvador.blogspot.com/2008/04/captulo-ii-cien-aos-
depresencia.html

Enrique Barrillas: “Asi Llegò El Pentecostès: Un capítulo en la historia de El Salvador:”

http://asambleasdedioselsalvador.blogspot.com/

Enrique Barrillas. “Federico Ernest Mebius, 1869-1945: Su Historia” /

http://www.prolades.com/cra/regions/cam/els/mebius_2009.pdf
Other documents by Enrique Barrillas:
http://historiaprotestanteselsalvador.blogspot.com/2014/01/centro-evangelistico-de-san-salvador.html
http://explosion1pentecostal1centro1evangeli.blogspot.com/
http://explosion1pentecostal1centro1evangeli.blogspot.com/2013/11/pentecostes-en-volcan-de-santa-
ana.html
Other sources of information are cited in the text of this document.

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