Pilgrim Holiness Church

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Pilgrim Holiness Church (PHC) or International Apostolic Holiness Church (IAHC) is a Christian denomination associated with the holiness movement that split from the Methodist Episcopal Church through the efforts of Martin Wells Knapp in 1897. It was first organized in Cincinnati, Ohio, as the International Holiness Union and Prayer League (IHU/IAHC). Knapp, founder of the IAHC, ordained and his Worldwide Missions Board sent Charles and Lettie Cowman who had attended God's Bible School to Japan in December 1900. By the International Apostolic Holiness Churches Foreign Missionary Board and the co-board of the Revivalist the Cowmans had been appointed the General Superintendents and the Kilbournes the vice-General Superintendent for Korea, Japan and China December 29, 1905. The organization later became the Pilgrim Holiness Church in 1922, the majority of which merged with the Wesleyan Methodists in 1968 to form the Wesleyan Church.

In 1937, the Emmanuel Association was formed as a result of a schism with the Pilgrim Holiness Church; it became one of the first denominations of the conservative holiness movement.^[2]

Today, two groups of Pilgrim Holiness churches still exist from the secession of the merger in 1968-the Pilgrim Holiness Church, Inc. (of the Midwest) and the Pilgrim Holiness Church of NY, Inc. These two groups are not associated with the Wesleyan Church today but align themselves with the Conservative Holiness Movement. Among many other Holiness children, the Korea Holiness Church, daughter of the IAHC/PHC, has approximately 10,000 churches globally and two million members in the four holiness denominations in 2010.