when did the church of the nazarene start
Church of the Nazarene The First General Assembly held in Chicago, Illinois from October 10–17, 1907 brought together the Eastern and the Western streams. The Western group was the Church of the Nazarene founded in October 1895 in Los Angeles, California by Dr. Phineas F. Bresee, a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Dr Joseph Pomeroy Widney, a Methodist physician, and the second president of the University of Southern California. The Eastern group was the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America, a denomination formed on April 13, 1897 through the merger of two older bodies: The Central Evangelical Holiness Association (organized March 13–14, 1890) and led by Fred A. Hillery and C. Howard Davis; and three churches organized by William Howard Hoople since January 1894, and formed into the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America. On November 12, 1896, these two groups met in Brooklyn, agreed upon a plan of union, which included retaining the name and Manual of Hoople's group.[31] Prominent leaders included Hiram F. Reynolds, Davis, and Hoople.[32] At the time of its merger with the Church of the Nazarene in 1907, the APCA existed principally from Nova Scotia to Iowa and the northeastern United States. The name of the united body adopted at the First General Assembly was Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, and Bresee and Reynolds were elected the first general superintendents.