Christendom - Major Christian Denominations

Major Christian Denominations

A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. Worldwide, Christians are divided, often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Various denominations, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, make particular distinctions in their literature. Technically, divisions between one group and another are defined by church doctrine and church authority. Centering on language of professed Christianity and true Christianity, issues that separate one group of followers of Jesus from another include:

• Apostolic succession,
• Biblical authority,
• Biblical criticism,
• Biblical inerrancy,
• Biblical infallibility,
• Biblical inspiration,
• Biblical interpretation,
• Papal primacy, and
• Views of Jesus (Christology).

Christianity is composed of, but not limited to, five major branches of Churches: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, and Old Catholicism. Some listings include Anglicans among Protestants while others list the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox separately. The Assyrian Church of the East (Nestorians) and the Old Catholic churches are also distinct Christian bodies of historic importance, but much smaller in adherents and geographic scope. Each of these five branches has important subdivisions. Because the Protestant subdivisions do not maintain a common theology or earthly leadership, they are far more distinct than the subdivisions of the other four groupings. Denomination typically refers to one of the many Christian groupings including each of the multitude of Protestant subdivisions.

See also: East–West Schism, History of the East–West Schism, History of the Roman Catholic Church, History of the Eastern Orthodox Church, History of Protestantism, History of the Anglican Communion, and History of Oriental Orthodoxy