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Christian Denominations
There are nearly 34,000 (probably more) different Christian and Messianic DENOMINATIONS and CHURCHES in the world today. These may be broken down into six different main blocks:
Antinomian Group of Denominations |
Number of Denominations in Group |
1. Independents |
22,000 |
2. Protestants |
9,000 |
3. 'Marginals' |
1,600 |
4. Orthodox |
781 |
5. Roman Catholics |
242 |
6. Anglicans |
168 |
Total |
33,791 |
Source: World Christian Encyclopedia, Vol.1, pp.16-18 (volume 1) (2001, 2nd edition).
The main denominational tree (excluding messianics and non-orthidix groups)
If you combine the 'Independents' (which are mostly 'Protestant') with the 'Protestants' and 'Anglicans', then 94% of all the 33,791 (that's 31,000+ denominations) are Protestant. What do we mean by these groups of categories? These may be broken down into various large sub-groups as follows which for convenience may be placed into blocks:
The Independents (about 22,000 denominations)
Block 1
- African Independent Apostolic
- Black American Apostolic
- Filipino Apostolic
- Indian Apostolic
- another 8 groups have "Apostolic"
- African Independent Charismatic
- Black American Charismatic
- Chinese Charismatic
- another 14 groups have "Charismatic" or "Neocharismatic"
- African Independent Full Gospel
- Black American Full Gospel
- Chinese Full Gospel
- another 10 groups have "Full Gospel"
- three have something-"grassroots"
- another 20 groups have "house-church network" or
"cell-based network"
- five have "Messianic"-something
- another 14 are something-"neocharismatic"
- another 12 are something-"Oneness pentecostal"
- another 18 are something-"pentecostal"
- another 12 are something-"radio/TV believers [or
"network"]" (i.e. the
"pastor" for these independent Christians is some
personality on radio or TV)
- final 2 on page 17 are something-"Spiritual"
- then we have a couple deliverence/pentecostal groups
- Word of Faith / Prosperity groups
- a couple of "mixed traditions"
- some "Zionist" groups
- Independent Anglicans or Anglo-Catholic groups in both Catholic and
Protestant directions
- Independent Adventists
- apocalyptic or eschatological ("end times") groups
- Independent Baptists
- British-Israelites
- Hidden Buddhist believers in Christ
- some Independent Orthodox groups
- independent Christian Brethren (Plymouth Brethren)
- schismatic Conservative Catholics
- Independent Congregational, Congregationalists
- Independent Disciple, Restorationist, Christian
- Independent Dunkers (Tunker, Dipper)
- Independent Exclusive Brethren (Closed, Strict)
- episcopi vagantes ("wandering" bishops-at-large, very small under 100
members)
- Independent Estonian Orthodox
- Independent Anglican Evangelical
- Independent Fundamentalist
- Gay/Lesbian homosexual tradition (i.e. so-called "gay
churches" such as Metropolitan
Community Churches)
- Independent Greek Orthodox
- Hidden Hindu believers in Christ
- Holiness or Conservative Methodist (non-Pentecostal)
- Independent Hungarian Orthodox
- Independent Jehovah's Witnesses
- Messianic, Jewish-Christian congregations
- Independent "Latin-rite" Catholics
- Independent "Liberal" Catholics (Theosophical, Masonic,
Gnostic)
- another seven Independent Protestant or Orthodox churches
- Hidden Muslim believers in Christ
- Independent Assyrian or Nestorian
- No-Church Movement
- Non-denominational (no church or anti-church groups)
- Old Believer, Old Ritualist
- Old Catholics (i.e. split from Rome after Vatican Council I)
- Old Calendarist (Authentic Orthodox)
- various schisms from Orthodoxy, in Protestant directions
- Orthodox sect/sectarian
- Independent Friends (Quakers)
- three indy "Reformed" groups (Anglican, Catholic,
Orthodox)
- more Independent Reformed or Orthodox
- Independent Spiritualist, spiritists, occultists
- Traditionalist Anglicans
- True Orthodox (Conservative Russian Orthodox)
- Independent Ukrainian Orthodox
- United church (various united bodies)
- community church or union congregation
- ethnic or monoethnic denominations
- independent evangelicals (dispensationalist)
- marginal independent Christian (Black / Third-World)
- isolated radio churches (unorganized)
- single autonomous congregations
Good grief! While the World Christian Encyclopedia does refer to "only" 9000 or so denominations as "Protestant" the source also includes
22,000 or so denominations as "Independent" and if you look at the names of
these "Independent" groups above, you'll see most of them are clearly
Protestant (the "Apostolic", the
"Charismatic", the "Full Gospel", the house or home
churches, the pentecostals, probably all the TV/radio
Christians, and all the independents of other Protestant denominations
listed, etc). None of these are Catholic or Orthodox, but there appear
to be some renegade Orthodox, Anglicans, and schismatic Catholics among
the "Independents." The largest of these Independent
Christians are "White-led charismatic" (17,478,000
members [year 1995], in 2856 separate denominations [year 2000]), "African
independent
pentecostal" (18,943,000 members [year 1995], in 5385 separate
denominations [year 2000]), and "African neocharismatic of mixed traditions"
(1,500,000 members [year 1995], in 3333 separate denominations
[year 2000]). These three
are all Protestant (neither Catholic, nor Orthodox) and account for more
than half (53%) of the 22,000 "Independent" denominations. Another
section of these "Independents" with a decent number of
denominations include (ordered by smallest to largest denominations,
year 2000):
Block 2
- 65 Filipino Charismatic
- 70 Chinese neocharismatic
- 71 Chinese Charismatic
- 78 Black American pentecostal
- 82 Holiness (Conservative Methodist, non-pentecostal)
- 86 Afro-Caribbean Oneness pentecostal
- 92 Latin American Charismatic
- 92 Anglican/Independent Evangelical
- 92 Independent Methodist
- 95 Indian pentecostal
- 96 African Oneness pentecostal
- 96 marginal independent (Black/Third World)
- 99 White-led Oneness pentecostal
- 102 Arab Charismatic
- 133 Black American Oneness pentecostal
- 133 Independent Disciple, Restorationist, Christian
- 136 Independent Reformed, Presbyterian
- 158 Zionist African Independent
- 167 Korean pentecostal (mixed traditions)
- 177 Indonesian pentecostal
- 208 New/Old Apostolic, Catholic Apostolic (Irvingite, an
Anglican / Presbyterian / Adventist sect)
- 221 Brazilian/Portuguese pentecostal
- 225 ethnic or monoethnic denomination
- 226 White-led Full Gospel
- 236 Nondenominational (no church or anti-church)
- 271 Independent Baptist
- 281 Latin American grassroots
- 281 Filipino neocharismatic
- 300 Brazilian grassroots
- 343 Afro-Caribbean pentecostal
- 439 African Independent Spiritual
- 475 Indian Charismatic
- 609 African Independent Charismatic
- 644 Latin American pentecostal
- 805 single autonomous congregations
- 813 White-led pentecostal
Adding up these Independent denominations we get 8,497 which is
another 39% of the total of 22,000 "Independents." All
of these are clearly "Protestant" in theology as well
-- charismatics, pentecostals, evangelicals, methodists, reformed/presbyterians,
full gospel, "nondenominational", baptists, and Oneness
pentecostals (note that Barrett includes "mainline"
Oneness groups in the Protestant mega-bloc, not in the
"Marginal" mega-bloc). So that gives us 92% ( = 53%
+ 39% ) of these Independent groups accounted for as Protestant.
The rest (the remaining 8% of the 22000 denominations) are
smaller than the above, and the majority of these are Protestant as
well. The only other large "Catholic" independent group is 435
"denominations" labeled "Conservative Catholic
(schism ex Rome)" or those "radical Traditionalist"
Catholics in schism with Rome which I'll admit appears to be a
large number (considering there are only 242 total "Roman
Catholic denominations" -- see below). However, looking at the
total numbers of Roman Catholics in the world (over 1 billion)
this dwarfs the relatively small numbers (i.e. 4,518,000 members
[year 1995], in 435 "denominations" [year 2000]) in these schismatical
groups. And at least Catholics know who is in "schism"
whereas a Protestant evangelical, fundamentalist, charismatic or
pentecostal (i.e. all the above groups which claim to follow the
Bible) can't be in "schism" to the Bible, since the Bible by
itself doesn't tell us who is in schism. Another way to determine the
percentage of Protestants/Anglicans in these Independents is to count and exclude the "Catholic"
and "Orthodox" ones -- i.e. groups which appear to have come out
of or split off from the Catholic Church or Orthodox Churches, and apparently still claim to be
in some sense "Catholic" or "Orthodox" and are non-Protestant
/ non-Anglican. These are, ordered from largest to smallest
denominations, year 2000 numbers:
- 435 Conservative Catholic (schism ex-Rome), the biggest group of these
already mentioned
- 32 Independent Russian Orthodox, second largest
- 30 Orthodox sect/sectarian
- 27 Liberal Catholic (Theosophical, Masonic, Gnostic), questionable what this means, but I'll include them
- 26 Old Catholic (i.e. split with Rome after Vatican Council I)
- 25 Old Believer, Old Ritualist (the "Old
Believers" are a Russian Orthodox sect)
- 24 Independent Ukrainian Orthodox
- 23 Reformed Orthodox (uncanonical)
- 16 Reformed Catholic (retaining Roman Catholic claims)
- 8 Old Calendarist (Authentic Orthodox)
- 6 True Orthodox (conservative Russian Orthodox)
- 5 Independent Serbian Orthodox
- 5 Latin-rite Catholic
- 5 Independent Assyrian or Nestorian
- 3 Independent Romanian Orthodox
- 2 Independent Estonian Orthodox
- 2 Independent Greek Orthodox
- 1 Independent Bulgarian Orthodox
- 1 Independent Byzantine rite
- 1 Independent Hungarian Orthodox
- 1 Independent Macedonian Orthodox
- 1 Independent Moldavian Orthodox
These are all found on page 18. Adding these up we get a whopping 679 which is 3% of
the 22,000 "Independent" denominations. That leaves us approximately 97%
of the Independents as Protestant/Anglican, with a tiny number of
"Marginal Christians" (i.e. 8 Jehovah's Witnesses breakaway groups, and a couple "mind science" cults).
The "Irvingites" on page 17, although called "New Apostolic,
Catholic
Apostolic, Old Apostolic," are actually an Anglican /
Presbyterian / Adventist, i.e. Protestant sect, neither Catholic nor Orthodox.
So we take the 9000
Protestant denominations plus 21,340
(97% of 22,000) plus 168
(Anglicans) =
30,000+ total
Protestant/Anglican denominations. For a list
of individual denominations, here
are a couple thousand of these Independents with specific names from "World Christian Database" online.
Protestants
(about 9000 denominations) The second largest group of
"denominations" are Protestants. The encyclopedia breaks these
down into major groupings like this:
- Adventist
- Baptist
- Christian Brethren (Plymouth Brethren, Open only)
- Congregational, Congregationalist
- Disciple, Restorationist, Restorationist Baptist, Christian
- Dunker (Tunker), Dipper, German Baptist, Brethren
- Exclusive Brethren (Plymouth Brethren, Closed, Strict)
- Anglican Evangelical, Independent Evangelical
- Fundamentalist
- Holiness (Conservative Methodist, Wesleyan, Free Methodist)
- Lutheran / Reformed united church or joint mission
- Lutheran
- Mennonite, Anabaptist (Left Wing or Radical Reformation)
- Methodist (mainline Methodist, United Methodist)
- Moravian (Continental Pietist)
- Nondenominational (no church or anti-church groups)
- Oneness-Pentecostal or Unitarian-Pentecostal: Jesus Only
- Baptistic-Pentecostal or Keswick-Pentecostal
- Holiness-Pentecostal: 3-crisis-experience
- Apostolic, or Pentecostal Apostolic (living apostles)
- Pentecostal (Protestant; Classical Pentecostal)
- Friends (Quaker)
- Reformed, Presbyterian
- Salvationist (Salvation Army)
- United church (union of bodies of different traditions)
- Waldensian
- community church or union congregation
The largest of these out of 318 million total Protestants (year
1995 numbers for members, year 2000 numbers for denominations) are the Lutherans (61 million members, 253
denominations), next are Baptistic-Pentecostal/Keswick (49 million members, 396
denominations), followed by Baptists (48 million members, 322 denominations),
Reformed/Presbyterian (44 million members, 300 denominations), Methodists (23 million
members, 123 denominations), United church (22 million members, 54
denominations), Lutheran/Reformed united
(15 million members, 24 denominations), and various Adventist groups (11 million
members, 218 denominations).
From these are formed nearly 9000 Protestant Christian
denominations. Someone might complain about the "Oneness"
groups being included since they reject the Holy Trinity (one God in
three distinct Persons) and the historic
Creeds, but that's how Barrett's Encyclopedia categorizes them, for whatever reason.
Marginals (about
1600 denominations) The "Marginal Christian" groups include
Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, various "Arian" or pseudo-Christian cults, some Christian science or "mind science" cults,
some Unitarian/Universalist groups, and tiny numbers of so-called
Christian or Catholic "Gnostics." These break down this way:
- Christadelphian
- apocalyptic, eschatological (i.e. "end times"
Christians)
- Divine Science
- Gnostic, esoteric, anthroposophical
- Holy Spirit Association for Unification of World Christianity (Moonies)
- Jehovah's Witnesses (or "Russellites")
- Latter-day Saints (Mormons), including Mormon schismatics
- Liberal Catholic (Theosophical, Masonic, Gnostic)
- schism from Orthodox, in marginal direction
- Paulician, Bogomil
- metaphysical science or "Divine/Religious Science"
- Spiritualist, Spiritist, psychic, occult
- Swedenborgian (Church of the New Jerusalem; spiritualistic)
- Theosophist, Theosophical, synthesist
- Unitarian, Universalist, Free Christian, Liberal Christian
From
these are formed nearly 1600 "denominations." The largest of
these (year 1995 members, year 2000 denominations) are the JWs (11 million members, 226
denominations), next are the Mormons (8 million members, 122
denominations), and far behind are the "metaphysical" science
cults (1.1 million members, 59 denominations), etc. I'll agree
most of these are very borderline "Christian." They
might refer to "Jesus Christ" and use the Bible in their
"worship services" but for the most part they reject the historic Creeds
and Councils of Christendom (Nicene, Athanasian, Ephesus, Chalcedon, etc).
However, the numbers here are small compared with the numbers of Independent and
Protestant denominations.
Orthodox
(781 denominations)
This is an even smaller group of
"denominations" and these are broken down as follows:
- Albanian/Greek-speaking Orthodox
- Arabic or Arabic/Greek-speaking Orthodox
- Armenian Orthodox (Gregorian)
- Bulgarian Orthodox
- Byelorussian / Belorussian (White Russian / White Ruthenian)
- Coptic Orthodox
- Czech / Slavonic-speaking Orthodox
- Estonian Orthodox
- Ethiopic, Ethiopian Orthodox, GeOez-speaking
- Finnish / Slavonic-speaking Orthodox
- Georgian Orthodox
- Greek Orthodox
- Hungarian / Slavonic-speaking Orthodox
- Latvian Orthodox
- Macedonian Orthodox
- Moldavian Orthodox
- Assyrian or Nestorian (East Syrian, Messihaye Christians)
- Polish / Slavonic-speaking Orthodox
- Romanian Orthodox
- Russian Orthodox
- Serbian Orthodox
- Slovak Orthodox
- Syro-Malabarese (Eastern Syrian), Syriac/Malayalam-speaking
- Syrian, Syriac-speaking Orthodox or Syro-Antiochian
- Ukrainian Orthodox
The largest of these are the Russian Orthodox at 80 million
members of
the 210 million total members (year 1995 numbers). So it is within these
groups, mainly separated by country or nationality, you get 781 Orthodox
"denominations" (year 2000 numbers).
Roman Catholics (242
denominations)
Now for the "Roman Catholic" denominations. These
appear to be broken down by various rites:
- Armenian (Eastern-rite Catholic)
- Bulgarian (Byzantine rite)
- Byzantine-rite (jurisdiction for more than one ethnic group)
- Chaldean (Eastern Syrian rite)
- Coptic (Alexandrian rite)
- Ethiopic (Alexandrian rite)
- Greek (Byzantine rite)
- Hungarian (Byzantine rite)
- Italo-Albanian (Byzantine rite)
- Jurisdiction for both Latin-rite and Eastern-rite Catholics
- Latin-rite Catholic
- Malankara (Syro-Antiochian, Eastern Syrian), Syro-Malankarese
- Maronite (Syro-Antiochian, Western Syrian)
- Melkite (Byzantine, Greek Catholic; Arabic-speaking)
- plural Oriental (jurisdiction for several Eastern rites)
- Romanian Byzantine rite
- Russian (Byzantine rite)
- Ruthenian (Byzantine rite)
- Slovak (Byzantine rite)
- Syro-Malabarese (Eastern Syrian)
- Syrian, Syriac-speaking (Syro-Antiochian, West Syrian)
- Ukrainian Byzantine rite
From these western and smaller eastern rites the encyclopedia gets 242
"Roman Catholic denominations" (year 2000 numbers). The
largest is by far the Latin-rite (commonly called "Roman
Catholics" by non-Catholic Christians) with 976 million members of the 994
million total members (or 98% of the total, year 1995
numbers). However, since virtually all of these western and smaller eastern rites are in union with
the Pope (I am not sure of some of them), there is actually one
Catholic Church, not 242 churches or denominations. Based on the encyclopedia's own
definition of "denomination" the editors appear to be separating
and counting by country which is how you get to 242 (or 238
countries plus 4) "denominations" of Roman Catholics. The Catholic
Church in Canada is not a different "denomination" from the Catholic
Church in the U.S., which is not a different Catholic Church from the
one in England, etc. If you search the available "World Christian
Database" online,
there is indeed one
Catholic Church in the U.S.A., (see also Barrett, Encyclopedia,
volume 1, page 783 for the U.S.A.) and in the world there
are indeed 238 "Roman Catholic" denominations (for exactly
238 countries), i.e. one Catholic Church for each country. The same "counting by country" seems to be the
case with some of the denominations in the other mega-blocs.
When dividing these "denominations" by country as they do,
there are definitely some problems in figuring out the true total
"denominations" since many of them are being counted more than
once -- and in fact 241 times too much in the case of
"Roman Catholic" denominations. Barrett's Encyclopedia
states this explicitly:
“As a statistical unit in
this Encyclopedia, a 'denomination' always refers to one single
country. Thus the Roman Catholic Church,
although a single organization, is described here as consisting of 236
denominations in the world's 238 countries.”
(Barrett, et al, World Christian Encyclopedia, volume 1, page
27, in the "Glossary" under definition for
"Denomination" [later updated to 242], emphasis
added)
Anglicans (168 denominations)
The smallest "mega-bloc" are the Anglicans. These are
broken down in Barrett's Encyclopedia as follows:
- Anglo-Catholic
- Central or Broad Church Anglican
- Ecumenical (Anglican/Protestant/Orthodox joint parishes)
- Anglican Evangelical, Evangelical Anglican
- High Church Anglican (Prayer Book Catholic)
- Low Church Anglican (Conservative Evangelical)
- Anglican, of plural or mixed traditions
Out of these groupings the encyclopedia gets 168 specific Anglican
"denominations" (year 2000 numbers).
World Totals (33000+ Denominations)
The grand "World Totals" at the bottom of page 18 of World
Christian Encyclopedia, reads as follows:
- Total Number of Affiliated Christians for 1970 = 1,130,106,000
- Total Number of Affiliated Christians for 1995 = 1,769,920,000
For the numbers of "Christian Denominations" for all
mega-blocs in 238 countries we have:
- Total Number of Denominations for 1970 = 16,075
- Total Number of Denominations for 1995 = 33,090
- Total Number of Denominations for 2000 = 33,909
Acknowledgements
The Facts and Stats on "33,000 Denominations"
This page was created on 28 February 2008
Updated on 31 January 2011
Copyright © 1997-2011 NCCG - All Rights Reserved
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