Assembleias de Deus
| Assemblies of God in Brazil | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Protestant |
| Theology | Pentecostal |
| Leader | José Wellington Bezerra da Costa (President of CGADB) |
| Associations | Assembly of God |
| Region | Worldwide |
| Headquarters | São Paulo, Brazil |
| Founder | Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren |
| Origin | 1911 |
| Congregations | 100,000 |
| Members | 22.5 million |
| Official website | http://www.adbelem.com.br/, http://cgadb.org.br/ |
The Assembléias de Deus (Portuguese pronunciation: [ɐsẽˈblɛjɐz dʒi ˈdeos]) are a group of Pentecostal denominations in Brazil founded by Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren who came to Brazil as missionaries from the Swedish Pentecostal movement. Assembleias de Deus are related to worldwide Pentecostal movement, and some groups are affiliated with the Assemblies of God. Currently, the organization is one of the largest Protestant denominations worldwide.
The Assembléias de Deus began when Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren, two Swedish Pentecostal missionaries departed to Brazil. They arrived in Belém, Pará, where in 1911 founded the Missão de Fé Apostólica, which later changed its name in 1918 to "Assembleia de Deus".
The Pentecostal movement in Brazil had already been started by that time among Italians in São Paulo, by an Italian-American missionary, Louis Francescon, who initiated the Christian Congregation of Brazil (CCB) in 1910. While the CCB spread in the South, the Assembleias de Deus reached the Amazon villages and the semi-arid Nordeste before migrants from the North brought the Church to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in the late 1920s.
Initially the Assembleia de Deus was intimately linked to the Scandinavian Pentecostal movement, led by Lewi Pethrus, who financed and sent missionaries to help Berg and Vingren. The Swedish Pentecostals gave autonomy to the Brazilian Assembleia de Deus in a General Convention in 1932. From that time onward, the American Assemblies of God increased their presence, mainly on doctrinal and teaching spheres, on the Brazilian denomination, but retained its independence from their American brethren. Walter Hollenweger explains such relation as follows: "In the mission statistics of the North American Assemblies of God, the Assembleia de Deus figure as their mission church. In contrast, the Brazilian Pentecostals regard themselves as an independent church."
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