Church

The church is not a building. Nor is it an organisation or human institution. The church is simply the people whose sins have been forgiven through their faith Jesus Christ... (An extract from the book Once a Catholic by Tony Coffey)

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Church / Ecclesiology Christians at Lourdes.
RELATED TOPICS	Church building Church history Denominations World-wide church directory Church service Church Terms Index Megachurch
SERMONS, ESSAYS AND OPINIONS	* Easton's Bible Dictionary entry on Church What is the Church? (G.G.) The Theology of the Church (AmericanCatholic) The Church (justforcatholics.org)
CONTENTS

The word church is used in many different ways. The church is the Christian community of believers, that is, it is the people. Sometimes the word church is also used to refer to a church building (the building used in Christian worship) or a church service (the weekly meeting of a group of Christians in a church building) or to a church denomination.

Ecclesiology means the study of the doctrine of the church.

Etymology

The Greek word ekklesia (Εκκλησια) is translated as "church" in English. This word means "gathering" or "assembly". From this Greek root, the English word Ecclesiology is derived, which is the study of the doctrine of the church.

The English word "church" itself is actually derived from the Old English word "cirice" (which is related to the Greek word "κυριακή" which means "of the Lord")

Defining the "church" - uses of the word

In English, the word "church" means different things to different people in different contexts. It can be used in reference to a gathering of people for a religious meeting. It is also sometimes used to refer to a building or group of buildings, and occasionally it refers to an entire denomination. It can also be used in an institutional sense to refer to all churches, such as "... the church today...."

Church building

Christians worhsip in church buildings. Although the Church (the people that belong to Jesus) can meet anywhere, they have since early times built buildings specifically for worshipping God in. There are many well known church buildings around the world such as St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. A common architecture for churches is a building in the shape of a cross, often with a dome or other large vaulted space in the interior to represent or draw attention to the heavens.

Photos of church buildings

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  The main church in Echmiadzin, the physical centre of the Armenian Orthodox Church

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  The door of the famous church in Wittenburg where Martin Luther is thought to have nailed his 95 Theses to the door

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  The church in Olney where John Newton, author of the hymn Amazing Grace worked

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  Stanford Memorial Church in California

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  A small local church, Trinity Baptist Church in Adelaide, Australia, once known as the "City of Churches"

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  The Église Collégiale Sainte Marthe in Tarascon, France

Church history

Since the church was formed after the resurrection of Jesus, major events and conflict, often over matters of doctrine have resulted in significant rifts. Initially the early Christians spread the good news of Jesus throughout the Roman empire and small congregations of Christians sprang up in many towns. Rome soon became the geographical centre of the church. However, there was a rift between the Church in Greece and the one in Rome that slowly developed over centuries culminating in a schism in 1054 AD. Later, in sixteenth century, Christians in northern Europe split from the Roman church, an event known as the Reformation. Today there seems to be a bewildering array of denominations. Some of the larger ones include Roman Catholicism, the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches and the wide variety of Protestant churches.

Quotes

Once a Catholic by Tony Coffey

The church is not a building. Nor is it an organisation or human institution. The church is simply the people whose sins have been forgiven through their faith Jesus Christ.

Lenny Bruce

Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.

Charles de Lint

Why did men worship in churches, locking themselves away in the dark, when the world lay beyond its doors in all its real glory?

Robert Short

The church is the great lost and found department.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I like the silence of a church, before the service begins better than any preaching.

George Mueller

An unvisited church will sooner or later become an unhealthy church.

Links

• Wikipedia - Church

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