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Ireland, Church of

(Encyclopedia)Ireland, Church of, Anglican church of both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. As a separate body the church goes back to the Reformation when the Irish church was officially reformed along...

church, building for Christian worship

(Encyclopedia)church [Gr. kuriakon=belonging to the Lord], in architecture, a building for Christian worship. The earliest churches date from the late 3d cent.; before then Christians, because of persecutions, wors...

Christian Reformed Church

(Encyclopedia)Christian Reformed Church, denomination formed after the secession of a group from the Reformed Church in America in 1857. Colonists from Holland who began settling in Michigan in 1846 generally becam...

Scotland, Church of

(Encyclopedia)Scotland, Church of, the established national church of Scotland, Presbyterian (see Presbyterianism) in form. The first Protestants in Scotland, led by Patrick Hamilton, were predominantly Lutheran. H...

United Methodist Church

(Encyclopedia)United Methodist Church, religious body formed by the union in 1968 of the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church (see Methodism), with churches in the United States, Africa, and ...

Scientology, Church of

(Encyclopedia)Scientology, Church of, philosophical religion founded by L(afayette) Ron(ald) Hubbard, 1911–86, b. Tilden, Nebr. Hubbard's book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950) first set forth...

Native American Church

(Encyclopedia)Native American Church, Native American religious group whose beliefs blend fundamentalist Christian elements with pan–Native American moral principles. The movement began among the Kiowa about 1890...

Philippine Independent Church

(Encyclopedia)Philippine Independent Church, religious body that separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1902 and rejected the spiritual authority of the pope. It is known popularly as the Aglipayan Church, aft...

England, Church of

(Encyclopedia)England, Church of, the established church of England and the mother church of the Anglican Communion. In the first half of the 19th cent., the Catholic and apostolic character of the Church of Engl...

Calvinistic Methodist Church

(Encyclopedia)Calvinistic Methodist Church, Protestant Christian denomination, closely allied to Presbyterianism. It originated in Wales (1735–36) with the evangelistic preaching of Howell Harris, Daniel Rowlands...