Christian Schisms

This page originated from the chart, "Derivation of Protestant Denominations," in Catholicism: The Faith of our Fathers by Albert J. Nevins (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1995). I've added dates to it and rearranged some of the lines of descent. I have a simpler version of the table in "Varieties of non-Catholic Christianity."

I plan to add the Eastern Orthodox Churches in a later version as well as to start organizing the material chronologically.

Association of Religion Data Archives — Denominational Profiles in the U.S.

Denominational Family Trees in the U.S.

Lutheranism (1517-1524)

• Martin Luther.
• Lutheranism.

Schwenkfeldian (1782)

• Schwenkfelder Church.

Pietists (1675)

• Pietism.
• Influenced John Wesley.

Moravian Church (1722)

• Traces its roots to Jan Hus in the 14th century.
• Moravian Church.

Anabaptist (1525)

• Anabaptist.

Hutterites (1533)

• Hutterite.

Mennonites (1536)

• Mennonite.

Amish (1693)

• Amish.

Schwarzenau Brethren (1708)

• Schwarzenau Brethren.
• A.k.a. Dunkers, Dunkards, or Tunkers.

German Baptist (1708)

• German Baptist.: "German Baptists are not to be confused with Primitive, Separate, Southern, Particular, and all other mainline Baptist denominations who, although generally unified on rudimentary doctrines such as baptism, would have conflicting views in other areas, such as non-resistance, etc. In addition, German Baptists are not to be confused with a recent, small, renewal movement of "Plain," "Covered" Baptists, who, for all intents and purposes, have comparable beliefs and practice of the historic German Baptists for the most part (albeit in wide variance), but are of different origins. The German Baptists and subsequent groups with the name "Brethren" are not to be confused with various other similar denominations such as the Plymouth Brethren, their respective variants, and the Stone-Campbell Movement, etc. See Brethren for more information."

German Baptist can refer to any one of the following:[1]

• German Baptist Brethren, the American name of the Schwarzenau Brethren and several groups associated with them:
  • Old German Baptist Brethren
  • Old Order German Baptist Brethren
  • Old German Baptist Brethren, New Conference
  • Dunkard Brethren
  • Church of the Brethren
  • The Brethren Church
  • Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches
  • Conservative Grace Brethren Churches, International
  • Church of God (New Dunkers)
  • Brethren Reformed Church

Anglican (1534)

• Henry VIII of England.
• Anglicanism.

Methodist (1739)

English Methodist or Wesleyan (~1791)

Calvinist Methodist (1743)

• Calvinistic Methodists.

Methodist New Connection (1797)

• Methodist New Connexion.
• Part of the United Methodist Church (Great Britain).

Primitive Methodist (1810)

• Primitive Methodism.

Primitive Christians

I can't identify this denomination.

• Primitive Apostolic Christianity (Sabbatarian)?

Salvation Army (1865)

• Salvation Army.

American Methodist (Methodist Episcopal Church; 1784)

Free Methodist Church (1860)

• Free Methodist Church.

Reformed Methodist (1914)

• Reformed Methodist Church.
• Merged into Churches of Christ in Christian Union (1952).

English Baptist (1609)

The ancestry of the English Baptists has to include the continental Anabaptists, but the group from which the English seceded was the Church of England. This is only one of a multitude of such simplifications introduced by using headlines to denote lines of descent.

• John Smyth.

Calvinism (1534)

• John Calvin.
• Calvinism.

Reformed (1519)

• Reformed Churches.

Presbyterian (1541)

• Presbyterianism.

Unitarian (1600-1673)

• Unitarianism.

Zwinglianism (1560s)

• Huldrych Zwingli.
• Theology of Huldrych Zwingli.
• Reaction to Anabaptism. Defended validity of infant baptism.

Small Church

I can't find a denomination by this name.

Old Catholic Church (1853)

• Old Catholic Church.

Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic National Churches (1945)

• Worldwide Communion of Catholic Apostolic National Churches.
• Permits divorce and allows priests to marry.
• 16 member churches.

We Are Church (1997)

• We Are Church (USA): "A Part of the International Movembent (sic) We Are Church (IMWAC)."
• International Movement We Are Church (IMWAC).

Links

• Varieties of non-Catholic Christianity