Church union

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the merging of churches. For the Church of England group, see The Church Union.

Church union is the name given to a merger of two or more Christian denominations.[1][2] Such unions may take on many forms, including a united church and a federation.

United churches

Main article: United and uniting churches

A united church is the result of a merger of churches of various denominations. One of the first of these occurred in 1817, when

Prussian Union.[3]

The nineteenth century saw a number of unions between churches of the same tradition. For example, the

Presbyterian in both doctrine and practice.[4]

In the twentieth century many churches merged as a result of the

Ecumenical movement. One of the earliest such unions was in 1925, and formed the United Church of Canada. Other examples include like-minded bodies with a common theological history such as the United Methodist Church - a merger of the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church in the United States.[5]

Federation

A federation is a less centralized union.

One example includes the

Commonwealth of Australia on January 1 of that same year. In his inaugural moderatorial
address, John Meiklejohn made it clear that the ecclesiastical union consciously reflected the political union of the Australian colonies: "We have, by forming this Assembly, formed a Court whose jurisdiction is, as regards territory, equal to, and coterminous with that of the Federal Parliament, and like it, is representative in its character."

This union linked churches of the same denomination in different locations into one body without forming a monolithic national church. The individual state churches also kept their individual identities, rights, and privileges.

The Uniates and the Edinoverie

The term "union" (e.g., the

Pope of Rome, while wishing to maintain their Eastern rites. Such groups are known generically as Eastern Catholic Churches. Their adherents are occasionally referred to as uniates.[7][8]

In a somewhat parallel way, but on a much smaller scale,

Old Believer communities, allowing them to keep their rites while recognizing the authority of the national church. This arrangement is known as Edinoverie.[9][10]

See also

References

  1. ^ Miriam-Webster dictionary website, Union Church
  2. ^ Christianity Today website, article by Patrick C. Rodger, dated November 5, 1965
  3. ^ Oxford University Press, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4 ed.), Ed: Andrew Louth
  4. ^ Edinburgh University Press website, Scottish Church History, Volume 34, Issue 1, The United Secession Church in Glasgow 1820-1847 by R. M. Smith
  5. ^ United Methodist Church website, Formation page
  6. ^ Australian Government website, Newspapers And Gazettes (Sydney, NSW, 1870-1919)
  7. ^ Encyclopedia Of Ukraine website, Uniates
  8. ^ Miriam-Webster Dictionary website, Uniate
  9. ^ Johns Hopkins University Press website, Slavonic and East European Review, Volume 100, Number 4, October 2022
  10. ^ Orthodox Christianity website, article by Vladimir Basenkov
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Church_union&oldid=1177218246"