Documents for "Protestant Denominations":

• Advent Christian Church see Adventists.

• Adventists [advent, Lat.,=coming], members of a group of related religious denominations whose distinctive doctrine centers in their belief concerning the imminent second coming of Jesus (see Judgment Day ). The name Adventism is specifically applied to the teachings of William Miller (1782-1849), who predicted the end of the world for 1843, then for 1844. When it did not occur, the Millerites, or Second Adventists, at a meeting at Albany, N.Y., in 1845 adopted a statement...

• African Methodist Episcopal Church Methodist denomination (see Methodism ). It was established in 1816 in Philadelphia with Richard Allen as its first bishop. In 1991 there were about 3.5 million members in the United States.

• African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church Methodist denomination. It was founded in 1796 by black members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City and was organized as a national body in 1821. The church operates in the United...

• Agapemone [Gr.,=abode of love], English religious community of men and women, holding all goods in common. It was founded (c.1850) at the village of Spaxton, Somerset, by Henry James Prince (1811-99), Samuel...

• Aglipayans see Philippine Independent Church.

• Amana Church Society corporate name of a group of seven small villages in E central Iowa, clustered around the Iowa River NW of Iowa City; settled 1855 by members of the Ebenezer Society. The society originated in one...

• Amish Church see Mennonites.

• Anabaptists [Gr.,=rebaptizers], name applied, originally in scorn, to certain Protestant sects holding that infant baptism is not authorized in Scripture and that baptism should be administered to believers...

• Anglican Communion the body of churches in all parts of the world that are in communion with the Church of England (see England, Church of ). The communion is composed of regional churches, provinces, and separate dioceses...

• Anglo-Catholic movement see Oxford movement.

• Armenian Church autonomous Christian church, sometimes also called the Gregorian Church. Its head, a primate of honor only, is the catholicos of Yejmiadzin, Armenia; Karekin II became catholicos in 1999. His rule...

• Arminianism see Arminius, Jacobus.

• Assemblies of God a large group of churches comprising the second largest Pentecostal organization in the United States, founded at Hot Springs, Ark., in Apr., 1914. In doctrine the Assemblies of God affirm the...

• Baptists denomination of Protestant Christians holding a distinctive belief with regard to the ordinance of baptism. Since 1644 the name has been applied to those who maintain that baptism should be administered to none but believers and that immersion is the only mode of administering baptism indicated in the...

• Behmenites see Boehme, Jakob.

• Bereans or Beroeans , members of a Protestant religious sect founded in Scotland by John Barclay c.1773. They took their name from the community mentioned in Acts 17.10-13. They held the main Calvinist...

• Beroeans see Bereans.

• Bible Christians denomination of Methodists in England founded by William O'Bryan. They seceded from the Wesleyan Methodist Church (1815-19) and in 1907 were merged with two other branches in the United Methodist Church...

• Bible societies a movement formed for the translation, printing, and dissemination of the Holy Scriptures; for much of its history it was predominantly Protestant, but there now is considerable Roman Catholic and...

• Brethren German Baptist religious group. They were popularly known as Dunkards, Dunkers, or Tunkers, from the German for "to dip," referring to their method of baptizing. The Brethren evolved from the Pietist movement in Germany. The first congregation was organized there in 1708 by Alexander Mack. Persecution drove them to...

• Brethren in Christ see River Brethren.

• Broad Church see England, Church of.

• Brotherhood of the New Life see Harris, Thomas Lake.

• Brownists see Browne, Robert.

• Burghers in the 18th cent., a party of the Secession Church of Scotland, resulting from one of the "breaches" in the history of Presbyterianism. To qualify as a burgess in certain burghs one was required to take an oath accepting the "true religion presently professed within this realm." Opinion differed as to whether this referred to the Protestant religion in general or to the Established Church. Those in the Secession Church who understood the oath in the former sense were the "Burghers," or the Associate Synod. Opposed to them were the Anti-Burghers, or the General Associate Synod, who refused to take the oath. The two bodies mutually excluded each other in 1747. By the end of the...

• Calixtines see Hussites.

• Calvinism term used in several different senses. It may indicate the teachings expressed by John Calvin himself; it may be extended to include all that developed from his doctrine and practice in Protestant countries in social, political, and ethical, as well as theological, aspects of life and...

• 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, and others. In Wales it is considered to be the only denomination distinctly Welsh in origin,...

• Camisards Protestant peasants of the Cévennes region of France who in 1702 rebelled against the persecutions that followed the revocation (1685) of the Edict of Nantes (see Nantes, Edict of ). The name was probably given them because of the shirts they wore in night raids. Led by the young Jean Cavalier and Roland Laporte , the Camisards met the ravages of the royal army with guerrilla methods and withstood superior forces in several battles. In 1704, Marshal Villars, the royal commander, offered Cavalier vague...

• Campbellites see Campbell, Alexander ; Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

• Catholic Apostolic Church religious community originating in England c.1831 and extending later to Germany and the United States (1848). It was founded under the influence of Edward Irving ; its members are sometimes called Irvingites. Because of their prophetic gifts, 12 apostles (including Henry Drummond ) were in 1835 set aside as officers. They were expected to survive until the Second Coming of Jesus, but the last of them died in 1901. When the apostles began to die, a schism took place in...

• Christadelphians [Gr.,=brothers of Christ], small religious denomination founded in the United States in 1848 by John Thomas. Its members live by the Scriptures and await the second coming of Jesus on earth, who,...

• Christian Catholic Church religious denomination founded (1896) in Chicago by John Alexander Dowie. Its members are sometimes known as Zionites. The church has its center in Zion , Ill., which Dowie founded (1901) as a religious community. In addition to religious and educational activities in Zion, the founder started various industries on a cooperative basis, an...

• Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) sometimes called Campbellites, a Protestant religious body founded early in the 19th cent. in the United States. Its primary thesis is that the Bible alone should form the basis for faith and...

• Christian Endeavor association in evangelical Protestant Churches for strengthening spiritual life and promoting Christian activities among its members. The first Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor was...

• 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 became members of the Reformed (Dutch) church there. A number of these immigrants, dissatisfied with the doctrinal...

• Christian Science religion founded upon principles of divine healing and laws expressed in the acts and sayings of Jesus, as discovered and set forth by Mary Baker Eddy and practiced by the Church of Christ, Scientist. The church teaches that God is good and the only reality, and that sin, evil, and illness are overcome on the basis of this understanding...

• Christian socialism term used in Great Britain and the United States for a kind of socialism growing out of the clash between Christian ideals and the effects of competitive business. In Europe, it usually refers to a...

• Christians name taken by the followers of several evangelical preachers on the American frontier, notably James O'Kelley, Abner Jones, and Barton W. Stone , all of whom were antisectarian. Some congregations joined the Disciples of Christ (see Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) , a body with similar emphasis founded by Thomas Campbell and Alexander Campbell , and the name Christians continued to be applied often to members of the Disciples' church. Other congregations of Christians united as a separate body that ultimately took the name of the...

• Church of Christ, Scientist see Christian Science.

• Church of England see England, Church of.

• Church of the Brethren see Brethren.

• Church of the Nazarene U.S. Protestant denomination established in 1908 through the union of the Church of the Nazarene, based in California; the Association of Pentecostal Churches, a New England group; and the...

• Churches of Christ conservative body of evangelical Protestants in the United States. Its founders were originally members of what is now the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who gradually withdrew from that body following the Civil War. They objected to the use of musical instruments in the church and to the introduction of new titles and more power for the pastors...

• Churches of God, General Conference conservative evangelical Christian bodies, Arminian in faith (see Jacobus Arminius ), with certain Baptist doctrines. The movement originated during revivals held in Harrisburg, Pa., by John Winebrenner, a minister in the German Reformed Church. In 1830 the first cooperative "eldership" was organized by the independent congregations of Winebrenner's founding; a General Eldership of the Churches of God in North America followed in 1845. In 1975 its name became Churches of God,...

• Community of Christ formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, religious group that regards itself as the successor of the church founded by Joseph Smith. They organized in 1852, five years after Mormons under Brigham Young began settling in Utah, formally becoming the Reorganized Church in 1860, with Joseph Smith 3d (son of the Mormon founder), as their first president. Since that time the church has been separate...

• Confessing Church Ger. Bekennende Kirche, German Protestant movement. It was founded in 1933 by Martin Niemoeller as the Pastors' Emergency League and was systematically opposed to the Nazi-sponsored German Christian Church. The immediate occasion for the opposition was the attempt by the Nazis soon after...

• Congregationalism type of Protestant church organization in which each congregation, or local church, has free control of its own affairs. The underlying principle is that each local congregation has as its head...

• Covenanters in Scottish history, groups of Presbyterians bound by oath to sustain each other in the defense of their religion. The first formal Covenant was signed in 1557, signaling the beginning of the...

• Cumberland Presbyterian Church branch of the Presbyterian Church in the United States founded in 1810. In 1906 many of its congregations were united with the main body of the church. It began as a revival movement in the "Cumberland country," a newly settled region of Kentucky and Tennessee. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church has about 88,000 members (1997). In 1869 the 20,000 black members of the pre-Civil War church began to organize...

• Diggers members of a small English religio-economic movement (fl. 1649-50), so called because they attempted to dig (i.e., cultivate) the wastelands. They were an offshoot of the more important group of...

• Disciples of Christ see Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

• dissenters see nonconformists.

• Doukhobors see Dukhobors.

• Dukhobors or Doukhobors [Russ.,=spirit wrestlers], religious group, prominent in Russia from the 18th to the 19th cent. The name was coined by the Orthodox opponents of the Dukhobors, who had originally called themselves...

• Dunkards see Brethren.

• Dunkers see Brethren.

• Dutch Reformed Church see Reformed Church in America.

• England, Church of the established church of England and the mother church of the Anglican Communion.

• Episcopal Church Anglican church of the United States. Its separate existence as an American ecclesiastical body with its own episcopate began in 1789.

• Episcopal Church, Reformed see Episcopal Church.

• Ethical Culture movement originating in the Society for Ethical Culture, founded in New York City in 1876, by Felix Adler. Its aim is "to assert the supreme importance of the ethical factor in all relations of life, personal, social, national, and international, apart from any theological or metaphysical considerations." No definite ethical system is insisted upon, although Adler's own ethical thought has naturally had much influence. The society holds its own religious services, but members may have other...

• Evangelical Alliance an association of Evangelical Christians in a union, not of churches, but of individuals belonging to different denominations and different countries. It was formed to give evidence of the unity...

• Evangelical and Reformed Church Protestant denomination formed by the merger (1934) of the Reformed Church in the United States and the Evangelical Synod of North America. Both of these bodies had originated in the Reformation in...

• Evangelical Church see Evangelical United Brethren Church.

• Evangelical United Brethren Church Protestant denomination created (1946) by the union of the Evangelical Church and the United Brethren in Christ. Both denominations originated early in the 19th cent. and had similarities in...

• Familists religious community founded in Friesland in the 16th cent. by Hendrik Niclaes. Niclaes, a merchant of Münster and originally a Roman Catholic, claimed to have been chosen prophet and prepared by...

• Fifth Monarchy Men religious group active during the time of the Commonwealth and Protectorate in England. They were millenarians expecting the imminent coming of Jesus to rule the earth. His monarchy was to be the...

• Foursquare Gospel, International Church of the fundamentalist Christian Church and evangelistic missionary body organized in California by Aimee Semple McPherson and Minnie Kennedy in 1927. It derived its name from the fourfold teaching of Christ as savior, healer, baptizer, and coming king. The parent church is Angelus Temple in Los Angeles. Ministers are...

• Free Church of Scotland see Scotland, Free Church of.

• Friends, Religious Society of religious body originating in England in the middle of the 17th cent. under George Fox. The members are commonly called Quakers, originally a term of derision.

• fundamentalism 1 In Protestantism, religious movement that arose among conservative members of various Protestant denominations early in the 20th cent., with the object of maintaining traditional interpretations of...

• German Baptist Brethren see Brethren.

• German Catholics religious groups founded in 1844 by dissidents from the Roman Catholic Church. They were led by two excommunicated priests, Johann Czerski of Schneidemühl, Posen, and Johann Ronge of Breslau. The...

• German Reformed Church see Evangelical and Reformed Church.

• Gideons see Bible societies.

• Glassites see Glas, John.

• Harmony Society religious society founded by German Separatists under the leadership of George Rapp. The Harmonists (or Rappites) held property in common and subscribed to the austere doctrines of their leader,...

• High Church see England, Church of.

• Huguenots French Protestants, followers of John Calvin. The term is derived from the German Eidgenossen, meaning sworn companions or confederates.

• Hussites followers of John Huss. After the burning of Huss (1415) and Jerome of Prague (1416), the Hussites continued as a powerful group in Bohemia and Moravia. They drew up (1420) the Four Articles of...

• Hutterian Brethren a body of Christians practicing strict communism based on religious principles. The Brethren are descendants of those Moravian Anabaptists who were followers of Jacob Hutter, a minister from the Tyrol who was burned at the stake in 1536. In the 17th cent. there were a number of Hutterian brotherhoods in Moravia. Persecution drove them...

• Illuminati [Lat.,=enlightened], rationalistic society founded in Germany soon after 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a professor at Ingolstadt, having close affinities with the Freemasons and seemingly organized on a...

• Independents in religion, those bodies of Christians who claim freedom from ecclesiastical and civil authority for their individual churches. They hold that each congregation should have control of its own...

• 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 the same lines...

• Jehovah's Witnesses Christian group originating in the United States at the end of the 19th cent., organized by Charles Taze Russell , whose doctrine centers on the Second Coming of Christ. The Witnesses believe that the event has already commenced; they also believe the battle of Armageddon is imminent and that it will be...

• Latter Day Saints, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of see Community of Christ.

• Latter-day Saints, Church of Jesus Christ of name of the church founded (1830) at Fayette, N.Y., by Joseph Smith. The headquarters are in Salt Lake City, Utah. Its members, now numbering about 5 million in the United States (1997), are commonly...

• Levelers or Levellers, English Puritan sect active at the time of the English civil war. The name was apparently applied to them in 1647, in derision of their beliefs in equality. The leader of the movement and its most indefatigable propagandist was John Lilburne. The Levelers demanded fundamental constitutional reform—a written constitution, a single supreme representative body elected by universal manhood suffrage, proportional representation, and the...

• Lollardry or Lollardy, medieval English movement for ecclesiastical reform, led by John Wyclif , whose "poor priests" spread his ideas about the countryside in the late 14th cent. The church in England was ridden with abuses, especially in the ownership and management of great ecclesiastical properties, and its...

• Low Church see England, Church of.

• Lutheranism branch of Protestantism that arose as a result of the Reformation , whose religious faith is based on the principles of Martin Luther , although he opposed such a designation. When Luther realized that the reforms he desired could not be carried out within the Roman Catholic Church, he devoted himself to questions of faith rather...

• Mennonites descendants of the Dutch and Swiss evangelical Anabaptists of the 16th cent.

• Methodism the doctrines, polity, and worship of those Protestant Christian denominations that have developed from the movement started in England by the teaching of John Wesley.

• Moral Re-Armament see Buchman, Frank N. D.

• Moravian Church   Renewed Church of the Brethren, or Unitas Fratrum , an evangelical Christian communion whose adherents are sometimes called United Brethren or Herrnhuters. It originated (1457) near Kunwald, Bohemia, among some of the followers of John Huss and was originally known as the Church of the Brotherhood. A break between the new brotherhood and the Roman Church occurred in 1467, and persecution drove many of the Brethren out of Bohemia and...

• Mormons see Latter-day Saints, Church of Jesus Christ of.

• National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America cooperative agency of 35 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations. Formed in 1950, with headquarters in New York City, the National Council of Churches is the chief instrument of the ecumenical movement in the United States with a combined membership of around 52 million. It is the national counterpart of the World Council of Churches. Not a governing body, it promotes through a number of activities general spiritual welfare and interchurch cooperation. It has four principal divisions: Education, Communication and Discipleship;...

• New Church see New Jerusalem, Church of the.

• New Jerusalem, Church of the or New Church, religious body instituted by the followers of Emanuel Swedenborg , who are generally called Swedenborgians. Knowledge of Swedenborg's teachings was spread in England largely by two clergymen, Thomas Hartley and John Clowes, and a printer, Robert Hindmarsh. The...

• New Thought popular philosophical movement with religious implications; it affirms "the creative power of constructive thinking." A successor of New England transcendentalism , New Thought grew out of the healing practices of P. P. Quimby and the "mental science" of W. F. Evans, a Swedenborgian minister. From its initial emphasis on the healing of disease it developed into an intensely individualistic and optimistic philosophy of life and conduct. The name...

• nonconformists in religion, those who refuse to conform to the requirements (in doctrine or discipline) of an established church. The term is applied especially to Protestant dissenters from the Church of...

• Oxford Group see Buchman, Frank N. D.

• Oxford movement religious movement begun in 1833 by Anglican clergymen at Oxford Univ. to renew the Church of England (see England, Church of ) by reviving certain Roman Catholic doctrines and rituals. This attempt to stir the Established Church into new life arose among a group of spiritual leaders in Oriel College, Oxford. Prominent...

• Peculiar People an alternate rendering for the biblical phrase "chosen people" (of Israel), applied to numerous Protestant dissenting sects such as the Plumstead peculiars. This group, founded in London in 1838...

• Pentecostalism worldwide 20th-century Christian movement that emphasizes the experience of Spirit baptism, generally evidenced by speaking in tongues ( glossolalia ). The name derives from Pentecost , the Greek name for the Jewish Feast of Weeks, which falls on the fiftieth day after Passover. On this day the Holy Spirit descended upon the first Christians enabling them to "speak in other tongues" (see Acts 2:1-4). Besides glossolalia, Pentecostals promote other gifts of the Spirit ( charismata ), including faith healing, prophecy, and exorcism. Ecstatic experience remains the unifying element of the movement. Pentecostals in America are generally conservative evangelical in their beliefs...

• People's Temple see Jones, Jim.

• Pietism a movement in the Lutheran Church, most influential between the latter part of the 17th cent. and the middle of the 18th. It was an effort to stir the church out of a settled attitude in which...

• Plymouth Brethren group of Christian believers originating in the early 19th cent. in Ireland and spreading from there to the Continent (especially Switzerland), the British dominions, and the United States. One of...

• Presbyterianism form of Christian church organization based on administration by a hierarchy of courts composed of clerical and lay presbyters. Holding a position between episcopacy (government by bishops) and Congregationalism...

• Protestant Episcopal Church see Episcopal Church.

• Protestantism form of Christian faith and practice that originated with the principles of the Reformation. The term is derived from the Protestatio delivered by a minority of delegates against the (1529) Diet of Speyer, which passed legislation against the Lutherans. Since that time the term has been used in many different senses, but not as...

• Puritanism in the 16th and 17th cent., a movement for reform in the Church of England that had a profound influence on the social, political, ethical, and theological ideas of England and America. ...

• Quakers see Friends, Religious Society of.

• quietism a heretical form of religious mysticism founded by Miguel de Molinos, a 17th-century Spanish priest. Molinism, or quietism, developed within the Roman Catholic Church in Spain and spread especially...

• Racovian Catechism see Socinianism.

• Ranters name given to the adherents of an antinomian movement in England about the time of the Commonwealth and Protectorate (1649-59). Its principal teaching was pantheistic, that God is present in...

• Reformation religious revolution that took place in Western Europe in the 16th cent. It arose from objections to doctrines and practices in the medieval church (see Roman Catholic Church ) and ultimately led to...

• Reformed Church in America Protestant denomination founded in colonial times by settlers from the Netherlands and formerly known as the Dutch Reformed Church. The Reformed Church in Holland emerged in the 16th cent., after Calvinism gained influence in the northern provinces of the Netherlands. In 1571 a synod held at Emden laid the foundation for the Reformed Church. A liturgy was formulated along Reformation lines, and a...

• Reformed Church in the United States see Evangelical and Reformed Church.

• Reformed churches in a general sense, all Protestant churches that claim a beginning in the Reformation. In more restricted and more usual historical usage, Reformed churches are those Protestant churches that had...

• Reformed Episcopal Church see Episcopal Church.

• Reformed Presbyterianism see Presbyterianism ; Cameron, Richard.

• Remonstrants Dutch Protestants, adherents to the ideas of Jacobus Arminius , whose doctrines after his death (1609) were called Arminianism. They were Calvinists but were more liberal and less dogmatic than orthodox Calvinists and diverged from the teachings of the Dutch...

• Renewed Church of the Brethren see Moravian Church.

• River Brethren name used to designate certain Christian bodies originating in 1770, during a revival movement among German settlers in E Pennsylvania. In the 1750s, Mennonite refugees from Switzerland had...

• Sabbatarians persons who insist upon strict observance of Sunday as the Sabbath. Societies promoting Sabbatarian objectives include the Lord's Day Alliance of the United States and the Lord's Day Observance Society in England. In the United States, Sabbatarian laws, known as...

• Salvation Army Protestant denomination and international nonsectarian Christian organization for evangelical and philanthropic work.

• 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. However, with the...

• Scotland, Free Church of the secessionist Presbyterian church established as a result of the great disruption of 1843 in the Church of Scotland. The cause of the separation lay in the demand of the laity for a voice in...

• Second Adventists see Adventists.

• separatists in religion, those bodies of Christians who withdrew from the Church of England. They desired freedom from church and civil authority, control of each congregation by its membership, and changes in...

• Seventh-day Adventists see Adventists.

• Seventh-Day Baptists Protestant church holding the same doctrines as other Calvinistic Baptists but observing the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. In the Reformation in England the observance was adopted by...

• Shakers popular name for members of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, also called the Millennial Church. Members of the movement, who received their name from the trembling...

• Social Gospel liberal movement within American Protestantism that attempted to apply biblical teachings to problems associated with industrialization. It took form during the latter half of the 19th cent. under...

• Socinianism anti-Trinitarian religious movement organized in Poland in the 16th cent. by Faustus Socinus. Antecedents of the movement were such Italian humanist reformers as Bernardino Ochino, Georgio Blandrata, and Laelius Socinus , who fled to Poland from persecution first in Italy and then in Calvinist Switzerland. Michael Servetus appears to have influenced their anti-Trinitarian views. Socinianist reformers organized (1556) the Minor Reformed Church of Poland and established Rakow as an intellectual center. Faustus went to...

• Solemn League and Covenant see Covenanters.

• South India, Church of Indian Protestant church, formed in 1947 by the merger of Anglican dioceses in India, Myanmar, and Ceylon (Sri Lanka); the Methodist Church of South India; and the South India United Church, which...

• Taborites see Hussites.

• Tractarian movement see Oxford movement.

• Tunkers see Brethren.

• Unitarian Universalist Association Protestant church in the United States formed in 1961 by the merger of the American Unitarian Association (see Unitarianism ) and the Universalist Church of America. Having largely shared common concerns and positions throughout the 19th and 20th cent., the two churches formed a Council of Liberal Churches in 1953 as a preliminary step to merger. The...

• Unitarianism in general, the form of Christianity that denies the doctrine of the Trinity , believing that God exists only in one person. While there were previous antitrinitarian movements in the early Christian Church, like Arianism and Monarchianism, modern Unitarianism originated in...

• Unitas Fratrum see Moravian Church.

• United Brethren in Christ see Evangelical United Brethren Church.

• United Church of Canada Protestant denomination formed in 1925 by the union of the Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches in Canada. A large number of Presbyterian congregations, however, remain outside the...

• United Church of Christ American Protestant denomination formed in 1957 by a merger of the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches (see Congregationalism ) and the Evangelical and Reformed Church. The constitution for the new body was adopted in July, 1961, thus completing the union. The statement of faith promulgated in 1959 maintains the noncreedal position common to both religious...

• United Methodist Church in the United States, religious body formed by the union in 1968 of the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church (see Methodism ). Emphasizing ecumenism, the newly united church, the second largest Protestant church in the United States, proposed further amalgamation with other Protestant groups. The church also attempted to...

• United Presbyterian Church two denominations of Presbyterianism. 1 In Scotland, the United Presbyterian Church was formed by the union (1847) of the United Secession Church with the majority of the congregations of the Relief Church. In 1900 the United...

• United Zion Church see River Brethren.

• Unity religious movement incorporated as the Unity School of Christianity, with headquarters at Lee's Summit, Mo. Although the movement used the name Unity after 1891, it was founded earlier by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore as a spiritual healing movement, with affinity to Christian Science and close ties with New Thought. Unity strongly affirms its...

• Universalist Church of America Protestant denomination originating in the 18th cent. and represented almost entirely in the United States. Universalism is the belief that it is God's purpose to save every individual from sin...

• Utraquists see Hussites.

• Vaudois see Waldenses.

• Waldenses or Waldensians, Protestant religious group of medieval origin, called in French Vaudois. They originated in the late 12th cent. as the Poor Men of Lyons, a band organized by Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyons, who gave away his property (c.1176) and went about preaching apostolic...

• World Council of Churches an international, interdenominational organization of most major Protestant, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox Christian churches; founded in Amsterdam in 1948, its headquarters are in Geneva,...

• Yorker Brethren see River Brethren.

• Zionites see Christian Catholic Church.