Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U. S. is one of the oldest cities in the United States. It was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he named the area in honor of "God's merciful Providence" which he believed was responsible for revealing such a haven for him and his followers. The city is situated at the mouth of the Providence River at the head of Narragansett Bay. Providence was one of the first cities in the country to industrialize and became noted for its textile manufacturing and subsequent machine tool and silverware industries. Today, the city of Providence is home to eight hospitals and seven institutions of higher learning which have shifted the city's economy into service industries, though it still retains some manufacturing activity; the city is the third most populous city in New England after Worcester, Massachusetts. Providence was one of the original Thirteen Colonies. Williams and his company were compelled to leave Massachusetts Bay Colony, Providence became a refuge for persecuted religious dissenters, as Williams himself had been exiled from Massachusetts.
The city was burned to the ground in March 1676 by the Narragansetts during King Philip's War, despite the good relations between Williams and the sachems with whom the United Colonies of New England were waging war. In the year, the Rhode Island legislature formally rebuked the other colonies for provoking the war. Providence residents were among the first Patriots to spill blood in the lead-up to the American Revolutionary War during the Gaspée Affair of 1772, Rhode Island was the first of the Thirteen Colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown on May 4, 1776, it was the last of the Thirteen Colonies to ratify the United States Constitution on May 29, 1790, once assurances were made that a Bill of Rights would become part of the Constitution. Following the war, Providence was the country's ninth-largest city with 7,614 people; the economy shifted from maritime endeavors to manufacturing, in particular machinery, silverware and textiles. By the start of the 20th century, Providence hosted some of the largest manufacturing plants in the country, including Brown & Sharpe, Nicholson File, Gorham Manufacturing Company.
Providence residents ratified a city charter in 1831 as the population passed 17,000. The seat of city government was located in the Market House in Market Square from 1832 to 1878, the geographic and social center of the city; the city offices outgrew this building, the City Council resolved to create a permanent municipal building in 1845. The city offices moved into the Providence City Hall in 1878. During the American Civil War, local politics split over slavery as many had ties to Southern cotton and the slave trade. Despite ambivalence concerning the war, the number of military volunteers exceeded quota, the city's manufacturing proved invaluable to the Union. Providence thrived after the war, waves of immigrants brought the population from 54,595 in 1865 to 175,597 by 1900. By the early 1900s, Providence was one of the wealthiest cities in the United States. Immigrant labor powered one of the nation's largest industrial manufacturing centers. Providence was a major manufacturer of industrial products, from steam engines to precision tools to silverware and textiles.
Giant companies were based in or near Providence, such as Brown & Sharpe, the Corliss Steam Engine Company, Babcock & Wilcox, the Grinnell Corporation, the Gorham Manufacturing Company, Nicholson File, the Fruit of the Loom textile company. From 1975 until 1982, $606 million of local and national community development funds were invested throughout the city. In the 1990s, the city pushed for revitalization, realigning the north-south railroad tracks, removing the huge rail viaduct that separated downtown from the capitol building and moving the rivers to create Waterplace Park and river walks along the rivers' banks, constructing the Fleet Skating Rink and the Providence Place Mall. Despite new investment, poverty remains an entrenched problem. 27.9 percent of the city population is living below the poverty line. Recent increases in real estate values further exacerbate problems for those at marginal income levels, as Providence had the highest rise in median housing price of any city in the United States from 2004 to 2005.
The Providence city limits enclose a small geographical region with a total area of 20.5 square miles. Providence is located at the head of Narragansett Bay, with the Providence River running into the bay through the center of the city, formed by the confluence of the Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket Rivers; the Waterplace Park amphitheater and riverwalks line the river's banks through downtown. Providence is one of many cities claimed to be founded on seven hills like Rome; the more prominent hills are: Constitution Hill, College Hill, Federal Hill. The other four are: Tockwotten Hill at Fox Point, Smith Hill, Christian Hill at Hoyle Square, Weybosset Hill at the lower end of Weybosset Street, leveled in the early 1880s. Providence has 25 official neighborhoods, though these neighborhoods are grouped together and referred to
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained, consecrated, or appointed member of the Christian clergy, entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Old Catholic and Independent Catholic churches and in the Assyrian Church of the East, bishops claim apostolic succession, a direct historical lineage dating back to the original Twelve Apostles. Within these churches, bishops are seen as those who possess the full priesthood and can ordain clergy – including another bishop; some Protestant churches including the Lutheran and Methodist churches have bishops serving similar functions as well, though not always understood to be within apostolic succession in the same way. One, ordained deacon and bishop is understood to hold the fullness of the priesthood, given responsibility by Christ to govern and sanctify the Body of Christ, members of the Faithful. Priests and lay ministers cooperate and assist their bishops in shepherding a flock.
The term epískopos, meaning "overseer" in Greek, the early language of the Christian Church, was not from the earliest times distinguished from the term presbýteros, but the term was clearly used in the sense of the order or office of bishop, distinct from that of presbyter in the writings attributed to Ignatius of Antioch.. The earliest organization of the Church in Jerusalem was, according to most scholars, similar to that of Jewish synagogues, but it had a council or college of ordained presbyters. In Acts 11:30 and Acts 15:22, we see a collegiate system of government in Jerusalem chaired by James the Just, according to tradition the first bishop of the city. In Acts 14:23, the Apostle Paul ordains presbyters in churches in Anatolia; the word presbyter was not yet distinguished from overseer, as in Acts 20:17, Titus 1:5–7 and 1 Peter 5:1. The earliest writings of the Apostolic Fathers, the Didache and the First Epistle of Clement, for example, show the church used two terms for local church offices—presbyters and deacon.
In Timothy and Titus in the New Testament a more defined episcopate can be seen. We are told that Paul had left Timothy in Titus in Crete to oversee the local church. Paul commands Titus to exercise general oversight. Early sources are unclear but various groups of Christian communities may have had the bishop surrounded by a group or college functioning as leaders of the local churches; the head or "monarchic" bishop came to rule more and all local churches would follow the example of the other churches and structure themselves after the model of the others with the one bishop in clearer charge, though the role of the body of presbyters remained important. As Christendom grew, bishops no longer directly served individual congregations. Instead, the Metropolitan bishop appointed priests to minister each congregation, acting as the bishop's delegate. Around the end of the 1st century, the church's organization became clearer in historical documents. In the works of the Apostolic Fathers, Ignatius of Antioch in particular, the role of the episkopos, or bishop, became more important or, rather was important and being defined.
While Ignatius of Antioch offers the earliest clear description of monarchial bishops he is an advocate of monepiscopal structure rather than describing an accepted reality. To the bishops and house churches to which he writes, he offers strategies on how to pressure house churches who don't recognize the bishop into compliance. Other contemporary Christian writers do not describe monarchial bishops, either continuing to equate them with the presbyters or speaking of episkopoi in a city. "Blessed be God, who has granted unto you, who are yourselves so excellent, to obtain such an excellent bishop." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 1:1 "and that, being subject to the bishop and the presbytery, ye may in all respects be sanctified." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 2:1 "For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as to the bishop as the strings are to the harp." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 4:1 "Do ye, beloved, be careful to be subject to the bishop, the presbyters and the deacons."
— Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 5:1 "Plainly therefore we ought to regard the bishop as the Lord Himself" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 6:1. "your godly bishop" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 2:1. "the bishop presiding after the likeness of God and the presbyters after the likeness of the council of the Apostles, with the deacons who are most dear to me, having been entrusted with the diaconate of Jesus Christ" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 6:1. "Therefore as the Lord did nothing without the Father, either by Himself or by the Apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and the presbyters." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 7:1. "Be obedient to the bishop and to one another, as Jesus Christ was to the Father, as the Apostles were to Christ and to the Father, that there may be union both of flesh and of spirit." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 13:2. "In like manner let all men respe
James Murphy (architect)
James Murphy, FAIA, was an Irish-American architect active in late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century New England, who designed numerous Roman Catholic churches and related structures. He was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Murphy was born in 1834 in Ireland. In 1852, he emigrated to the United States along with his brother Michael. Soon after his arrival, he entered the Brooklyn, New York firm of Patrick C. Keely as an apprentice. Keely was an established architect specializing in ecclesiastical design. Murphy became a partner in the firm, operating as Keely & Murphy. Murphy would marry Keely's sister-in-law. By the mid-1860s, the duo opened a branch office in Rhode Island. In 1875, the partnership was dissolved and Murphy established his own practice. Murphy continued to specialize in church design for the ever-growing number of Roman Catholic parishes during the late nineteenth century in the southern New England area of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut. In the 1880s and 1890s, Murphy employed his nephew, Ambrose J. Murphy, who would partner with Frank R. Hindle.
Some time around 1900, Murphy established a new office in Massachusetts. James Murphy married Patrick Charles Keely's sister-in-law. Murphy had Michael Murphy, with whom he emigrated to America; the architect, Ambrose J. Murphy, was his nephew. Murphy died April 1907 at the Holy Ghost Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ambrose J. Murphy continued James Murphy's firm after 1907, he entered into partnership with Frank R. Hindle to form the firm of Murphy & Hindle, which practiced architecture in Rhode Island until the 1940s; that firm specialized in church design. Patrick W. Ford, a contemporary church architect
Diocese
The word diocese is derived from the Greek term dioikesis meaning "administration". Today, when used in an ecclesiastical sense, it refers to the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. In the organization of the Roman Empire, the subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese. After Christianity was given legal status in 313, the Churches began to organize themselves into dioceses based on provinces, not on the larger regional imperial districts; the dioceses were smaller than the provinces since there were more bishops than governors. Christianity was declared the Empire's official religion by Theodosius I in 380. Constantine I in 318 gave litigants the right to have court cases transferred from the civil courts to the bishops; this situation must have hardly survived Julian, 361-363. Episcopal courts are not heard of again in the East until 398 and in the West in 408; the quality of these courts were low, not above suspicion as the bishop of Alexandria Troas found out that clergy were making a corrupt profit.
Nonetheless, these courts were popular. Bishops had no part in the civil administration until the town councils, in decline, lost much authority to a group of'notables' made up of the richest councilors and rich persons exempted from serving on the councils, retired military, bishops post-450 A. D; as the Western Empire collapsed in the 5th century, bishops in Western Europe assumed a larger part of the role of the former Roman governors. A similar, though less pronounced, development occurred in the East, where the Roman administrative apparatus was retained by the Byzantine Empire. In modern times, many dioceses, though subdivided, have preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division. For Gaul, Bruce Eagles has observed that "it has long been an academic commonplace in France that the medieval dioceses, their constituent pagi, were the direct territorial successors of the Roman civitates."Modern usage of'diocese' tends to refer to the sphere of a bishop's jurisdiction.
This became commonplace during the self-conscious "classicizing" structural evolution of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, but this usage had itself been evolving from the much earlier parochia, dating from the formalized Christian authority structure in the 4th century. Most archdioceses are metropolitan sees. A few are suffragans of a metropolitan are directly subject to the Holy See. While the terms "diocese" and "episcopal see" are applicable to the area under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of any bishop, a bishop in charge of an archdiocese thereby holds the rank of archbishop. If the title of archbishop is granted on personal grounds to a diocesan bishop, his diocese does not thereby become an archdiocese; as of January 2019, in the Catholic Church there are 2,886 regular dioceses: 1 papal see, 645 archdioceses and 2,240 dioceses in the world. In the Eastern rites in communion with the Pope, the equivalent unit is called an eparchy; the Eastern Orthodox Church calls dioceses episkopē in the Greek tradition and eparchies in the Slavic tradition.
After the English Reformation, the Church of England retained the existing diocesan structure which remains throughout the Anglican Communion. The one change is that the areas administered under the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York are properly referred to as dioceses, not archdioceses: they are the metropolitan bishops of their respective provinces and bishops of their own diocese and have the position of archbishop. Certain Lutheran denominations such as the Church of Sweden do have individual dioceses similar to Roman Catholics; these dioceses and archdioceses are under the government of a bishop. Other Lutheran bodies and synods that have dioceses and bishops include the Church of Denmark, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, the Church of Norway. From about the 13th century until the German mediatization of 1803, the majority of the bishops of the Holy Roman Empire were prince-bishops, as such exercised political authority over a principality, their so-called Hochstift, distinct, considerably smaller than their diocese, over which they only exercised the usual authority of a bishop.
Some American Lutheran church bodies such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have a bishop acting as the head of the synod, but the synod does not have dioceses and archdioceses as the churches listed above. Rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory; the Lutheran Church - International, based in Springfield, presently uses a traditional diocesan structure, with four dioceses in North America. Its current president is Archbishop Robert W. Hotes; the Church of God in Christ has dioceses throughout the United States. In the COGIC, most states are divided into at least three or more dioceses that are each led by a bishop; these dioceses are called "jurisdictions" within COGIC. In the Latter Day Saint movement, the term "bishopric" is used to describe the bishop himself, together with his two counselors, not the ward or congregation of which a bishop has charge. In the United Methodist Church, a bishop is given oversight over a geographical area called an episcopal area; each episcopal area contains one or more an
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport is a historic seaport city in the U. S. state of Connecticut. It is in Fairfield County, at the mouth of the Pequonnock River on Long Island Sound, 60 miles from Manhattan and 40 miles from The Bronx, it is bordered by the towns of Trumbull to the north, Fairfield to the west, Stratford to the east. As of 2017, Bridgeport had an estimated population of 146,579, which made it the largest city in Connecticut and the fifth-most populous in New England; the Greater Bridgeport area is the 48th-largest urban area in the United States. The showman P. T. Barnum was a resident of the city and served as the town's mayor in the late 19th century. Barnum housed his circus in town during winter; the first Subway restaurant opened in Bridgeport's North End in 1965. The Frisbie Pie Company was in Bridgeport, Bridgeport is credited as the birthplace of the Frisbee. After World War II, industrial restructuring and suburbanization caused the loss of many jobs and affluent residents, leaving Bridgeport struggling with poverty and crime.
Bridgeport was inhabited by the Paugussett native American tribe at the time of its English colonization. The earliest European communal settlement was in the historical Stratfield district, along US Route 1. Closeby, Mount Grove Cemetery was laid out on what was a native village that extended past the 1650s, it is an ancient Paugusett burial ground. The English farming community grew and became a center of trade and whaling; the town incorporated to subsidize the Housatonic Railroad and industrialized following the rail line's connection to the New York and New Haven railroad. The namesake of the town was the need for bridges over the Pequonnock River that provided a navigable port at the mouth of the river. Manufacturing was the mainstay of the local economy until the 1970s; the first documented English settlement within the present city limits of Bridgeport took place in 1644, centered at Black Rock Harbor and along North Avenue between Park and Briarwood Avenues. The place was called Pequonnock, after a band of the Paugussett, an Algonquian-speaking Native American people who occupied this area.
One of their sacred sites was Golden Hill, which overlooked the harbor and was the location of natural springs and their planting fields. The Golden Hill Indians were granted a reservation here by the Colony of Connecticut in 1639. Bridgeport's early years were marked by residents' reliance on farming; this was similar to the economy of the Paugusset, who had cultivated corn and squash. A village called Newfield began to develop around the corner of State and Water streets in the 1760s; the area became known as Stratfield in 1695 or 1701, due to its location between the existing towns of Stratford and Fairfield. During the American Revolution, Newfield Harbor was a center of privateering. By the time of the State of Connecticut's ratification of the American constitution in 1781, many of the local farmers held shares in vessels trading at Newfield Harbor or had begun trading in their own name. Newfield expanded around the coasting trade with Boston, New York, Baltimore and the international trade with the West Indies.
The commercial activity of the village was clustered around the wharves on the west bank of the Pequonnock, while the churches were erected inland on Broad Street. In 1800, the village the first so incorporated in the state, it was named for the Newfield or Lottery Bridge across the Pequonnock, connecting the wharves on its east and west banks. Bridgeport Bank was established in 1806. In 1821, the township of Bridgeport became independent of Stratford; the West India trade died down around 1840, but by that time the Bridgeport Steamship Company and Bridgeport Whaling Company had been incorporated and the Housatonic Railroad chartered. The HRRC ran upstate along the Housatonic Valley, connecting with Massachusetts's Berkshire Railroad at the state line. Bridgeport was chartered as Connecticut's fifth city in 1836 in order to enable the town council to secure funding to provide to the HRRC and ensure that it would terminate in Bridgeport; the Naugatuck Railroad—connecting Bridgeport to Waterbury and Winsted along the Naugatuck—was chartered in 1845 and began operation four years later.
The same year, the New York and New Haven Railroad began operation, connecting Bridgeport to New York and the other towns along the north shore of the Long Island Sound. Now a major junction for western Connecticut, the city industrialized. Following the Civil War, it held several iron foundries and factories manufacturing firearms, metallic cartridges, horse harnesses and blinds. Wheeler & Wilson's sewing machines were exported throughout the world. Bridgeport annexed the West End and the village of Black Rock and its busy harbor in 1870. In 1875, P. T. Barnum was elected mayor of the town, which afterwards served as the winter headquarters of Barnum and Bailey's Circus and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. From 1870 to 1910, Bridgeport became the major industrial center of Connecticut and its population rose from around 25,000 to over 100,000, including thousands of Irish, Hungarians, Germans and Italian immigrants. Among the initiatives, the Singer factory joined Wheeler & Wilson in producing sewing machines and the Locomobile Company of America was a prom
John J. McMahon (architect)
John J. McMahon was an American architect who today remains regarded for his churches and other buildings for Catholic clients in Connecticut Hartford and New Haven. McMahon was born in 1875 in Hartford, where he would live for the rest of his life, he studied as a boy at St. Patrick School where one of his classmates, John F. Callahan, would become a Catholic priest and one of McMahon’s clients, he took a job as an errand boy. Three years he was hired by the architectural firm of Frederick R. Comstock as an apprentice, he worked both in New York City. His most notable project was the 1899 Second Church of Christ Scientist, located at 68th Street and Central Park West, New York City, his architectural training was cut short when he enlisted in the Connecticut National Guard to take part in the Spanish–American War. McMahon attained the rank of colonel and was henceforth known and otherwise, as “the Colonel”. In 1900 McMahon became associate architect of the Hartford, CT firm J. J. Dwyer & J. J. McMahon, with John J. Dwyer.
He remained in this position until 1911 when he entered into a long partnership with Frank Warren Whiton, forming the firm of Whiton and McMahon. They continued together until 1932. After that McMahon practiced under his own name and with architect Russell Hills. Mount Saint Joseph Academy, West Hartford, Connecticut St. Michael Church, Connecticut St. Augustine Church, Connecticut St. Joseph Church, Connecticut St. Mary Church, Connecticut St, Mary Church, Connecticut St. Patrick Church, Connecticut (superstructure only, built on a basement church by James Murphy St. Francis Hospital Hartford, Connecticut Elks Club Lodge, Connecticut St. Teresa Church, Connecticut St Mary's Home for the Aged, West Hartford, Connecticut St. Peter's Parochial School, Hartford, CT St. John's School for Boys, Deep River, CT St. John's Parochial School, Watertown, CT St. Joseph's Novitiate, West Hartford, CT St. Luke Church, Connecticut St. Justin Church, Connecticut St. Augustine Church, Connecticut St. Paul Church, Connecticut St. Lawrence O'Toole Church, Connecticut St. John of the Cross Church, Connecticut St. Brendan Church, New Haven, Connecticut St. Rose of Lima Church, New Haven, Connecticut St. Bernard Church, Connecticut St. Peter Church, Connecticut St. Gabriel Church, Connecticut * St. Mary Chapel, Connecticut Most Holy Trinity Church, Connecticut St. Thomas the Apostle Church, West Hartford, Connecticut Wilson St. School, Hartford CT Arsenal School, Hartford CT Alfred E. Burr School, Hartford CT St James Parochial School, Manchester, CT Washington St.
School additions, Hartford CT Richard J. Kinsella School, Hartford CT Dr. James H Naylor School, Hartford, CT Moylan School, Hartford, CT Corpus Christi Church, Connecticut St Peter and Paul Church, Connecticut St. Thomas the Apostle Church and rectory, West Hartford, Connecticut McMahon, John J. "A Grandfather's Contribution to Hartford's Unique Architectural Landscape". Archived from the original on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 25 January 2011. McMahon, John J. "Devine Designs Hartford Architect Created Many Of State's Catholic Churches". Retrieved 25 January 2011. McMahon, John J. "John J. McMahon Papers at Connecticut State Library". Archived from the original on 11 October 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2011
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity, identified by traits such as a name, organization and doctrine. Individual bodies, may use alternative terms to describe themselves, such as church or sometimes fellowship. Divisions between one group and another are defined by doctrine. Groups of denominations—often sharing broadly similar beliefs and historical ties—are sometimes known as "branches of Christianity"; these branches differ in many ways through differences in practices and belief. Individual denominations vary in the degree to which they recognize one another. Several groups claim to be the direct and sole authentic successor of the church founded by Jesus Christ in the 1st century AD. Others, believe in denominationalism, where some or all Christian groups are legitimate churches of the same religion regardless of their distinguishing labels and practices; because of this concept, some Christian bodies reject the term "denomination" to describe themselves, to avoid implying equivalency with other churches or denominations.
The Catholic Church which claims 1.2 billion members – over half of all Christians worldwide – does not view itself as a denomination, but as the original pre-denominational church, a view rejected by other Christians. Protestant denominations account for 37 percent of Christians worldwide. Together and Protestantism comprise Western Christianity. Western Christian denominations prevail in Western, Northern and Southern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas and Oceania; the Eastern Orthodox Church, with an estimated 225–300 million adherents, is the second-largest Christian organization in the world and considers itself the original pre-denominational church. Unlike the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church is itself a communion of independent autocephalous churches that mutually recognize each other to the exclusion of others; the Eastern Orthodox Church, together with Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Church of the East, constitutes Eastern Christianity. Eastern Christian denominations are represented in Eastern Europe, North Asia, the Middle East, Northeast Africa and South India.
Christians have various doctrines about the Church and about how the divine church corresponds to Christian denominations. Both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox hold that their own organizations faithfully represent the One Holy catholic and Apostolic Church to the exclusion of the other. Sixteenth-century Protestants separated from the Catholic Church because of theologies and practices that they considered to be in violation of their own interpretation. Members of the various denominations acknowledge each other as Christians, at least to the extent that they have mutually recognized baptisms and acknowledge orthodox views including the Divinity of Jesus and doctrines of sin and salvation though doctrinal and ecclesiological obstacles hinder full communion between churches. Since the reforms surrounding the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965, the Catholic Church has referred to Protestant communities as "denominations", while reserving the term "church" for apostolic churches, including the Eastern Orthodox.
But some non-denominational Christians do not follow any particular branch, though sometimes regarded as Protestants. Each group uses different terminology to discuss their beliefs; this section will discuss the definitions of several terms used throughout the article, before discussing the beliefs themselves in detail in following sections. A denomination within Christianity can be defined as a "recognized autonomous branch of the Christian Church". "Church" as a synonym, refers to a "particular Christian organization with its own clergy and distinctive doctrines". Some traditional and evangelical Protestants draw a distinction between membership in the universal church and fellowship within the local church. Becoming a believer in Christ makes one a member of the universal church; some evangelical groups describe themselves as interdenominational fellowships, partnering with local churches to strengthen evangelical efforts targeting a particular group with specialized needs, such as students or ethnic groups.
A related concept is denominationalism, the belief that some or all Christian groups are legitimate churches of the same religion regardless of their distinguishing labels and practices.. Protestant leaders differ from the views of the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the two largest Christian denominations; each church makes mutually exclusive claims for itself to be t
