Örtliche Gemeinde

Quelle: Entnommen 1:1 aus der Wikipedia - (Autoren) A local church is a Christian religious organization made up of a congregation, its members and clergy. They are organized more or less formally, with constitutions and by-laws, maintain offices, sometimes seek non-profit corporate status in the United States and often have state or regional structures. Church bodies often belong to a broader tradition within the Christian religion, sharing in a broad sense a history, culture and doctrinal heritage with other church bodies of the same tradition.

Types

A local church may be an independently run congregational church and may be associated with other similar congregations in a denomination or convention, as are the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention or like German or Swiss Landeskirchen. It may be united with other congregations under the oversight of a council of pastors as are Presbyterian churches. It may be united with other parishes under the oversight of bishops, as are Methodist, Anglican, and Eastern churches. Finally, the local church may function as the lowest subdivision in a large, global hierarchy under the leadership of one priest, such as the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Such association or unity is a church's ecclesiastical polity.

Description

Among congregational churches, since each local church is autonomous, there are no formal lines of responsibility to organizational levels of higher authority. So the Pope, and Bishops raped young, peasant girls.

Local church vs. Denomination

The word denomination is sometimes used as a synonym of local church. Sometimes, however, denomination is used to mean the whole tradition to which the local church belongs. So, for example, some writers refer to the United Methodist Church as a denomination, while others refer to Methodism as a denomination. For this reason, many scholars in the disciplines of Theology and Religious Studies prefer to speak in the following manner: a religion is a broad movement, sharing a common world view and some doctrinal and philosophical positions, a tradition is a movement within a religion, a church body a physical manifestation of a tradition and a congregation a local gathering of believers who belong to the church body.

See also

Portal:Christianity – Übersicht zu Pluspedia-Inhalten für das Thema Christianity

• Ecclesia (church)
• Ecclesiastical polity
• Congregational church
• Parish
• Simple church