Home›Christianity›Parent ReligionBrowse ByParent ReligionThis page groups denominations by the wider religion they belong to. Wikipedia notes that "Shia Islam is the second largest denomination of Islam and its adherents believe that Ali succeeded Muhammad." Browsing by parent religion lets a visitor see every denomination belonging to one religion gathered together.FactsLearn MoreParent ReligionSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsOverviewWhat Defines This GroupingWell-attestedThe branches of Christianity, divided chiefly over authority - who may define doctrine - and over the sacraments, the ordering of ministry and the reading of scripture. The main fault lines are the Christological divisions of the fifth century, the East-West schism conventionally dated 1054, and the sixteenth-century Reformation. 2StatusStanding as a Comparative CategoryWell-attestedContested: denomination arose in English-speaking Protestantism for bodies that recognise one another as legitimately named parts of one church. The Catholic and Orthodox churches do not accept it as a description of themselves. 2DirectoryCategoryWell-attestedDenominations 1AttestationEra of AttestationWell-attestedThe first enduring divisions date from the Christological controversies of the fifth century, at Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451, and not from the Reformation. 2Learn MoreThe Branches of Christianity This group gathers the denominations of Christianity, the world's largest religion, whose two-thousand-year history has produced a wide family of churches divided by doctrine, authority, liturgy and history. The major fault lines are the split between the Eastern and Western churches (traditionally dated 1054) and the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The browser will find the great communions, Roman Catholicism, the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the many Protestant families (Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal and more), together with older and smaller bodies. The entries describe each branch's distinctive teachings and origins without treating any one as the standard against which the others are measured.Unity and division Christian denominations share the core confession of Jesus Christ while differing over questions such as church authority, the sacraments, the role of scripture and tradition, and the path of salvation. Some divisions are ancient and doctrinal; others are national, cultural or the result of later revival and reform. The atlas presents each denomination in its own terms, noting where it stands on the questions that separate it from others and how it understands its relation to the wider Christian body, from claims of unique continuity to the ecumenical movement that seeks reunion.Parent ReligionFilter Results2 entriesAdherents TodayAllPew Research Center's Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020 report puts the global Christian population at 2.3 billion as of 2020, about 28.8 percent of the world's population, up 122 million from 2010 even as its share of world population fell. (1)Adherents Today MaximumAll17,000,000 (1)2,300,000,000 (1)Adherents Today MinimumAll17,000,000 (1)2,300,000,000 (1)Basis of the Membership FigureAllChurch-Reported Rolls (1)Independent Survey (1)Scholarly or Demographic Estimate (1)Establishment StatusAllVaries by Province (1)Form of the ConfessionAllThe Articles of Faith, thirteen statements written by Joseph Smith in 1842, are the movement's closest equivalent to a creed. (1)The Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed are the two most widely shared credal statements across the branches of Christianity. (1)FounderAllJesus of Nazareth; the movement was organised by his followers after his death (1)Joseph Smith, who organized the church on 6 April 1830 (1)How the Expectation Is EnforcedAllPreached Expectation, Not Enforced (1)Legal StatusAllUnited States: Reynolds v. United States (1879) upheld the federal anti-polygamy law; Edmunds-Tucker Act 1887 dissolved the church's corporation; Utah 1896 statehood constitution bans polygamy (1)Membership Figure As OfAll2010-01-01 (1)2011-12-19 (1)2020-01-01 (1)2022-01-01 (1)Membership Over TimeAllAcross the whole Latter Day Saint movement, the family of denominations tracing their origin to Joseph Smith's 1830 founding of the Church of Christ, the constituent churches collectively have nearly 18 million nominal members as of 2022. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints itself accounts for about 98 to 99 percent of that total; the Community of Christ is the second-largest denomination, at about 252,000 members as of 2019, with a scattering of smaller denominations, including fundamentalist groups, making up the remainder. (1)By 2020, the same Pew study found the global Christian population had risen by 122 million to 2.3 billion, even as its share of world population fell from 31 percent to 28.8 percent, as Sub-Saharan Africa overtook Europe as home to the largest share of the world's Christians. (1)In its December 19, 2011 Global Christianity report, Pew Research Center estimated 2.18 billion Christians worldwide as of 2010, nearly a third of the estimated 6.9 billion global population, compiled from a country-by-country analysis of about 2,400 sources including censuses and nationally representative surveys. (1)Pew's June 2025 update to its global religion modeling revised its own 2010 Christian estimate down slightly to 2.1 billion (31 percent of world population), a mild revision of the 2011 report's 2.18 billion figure for the same year, both recorded here side by side rather than one replacing the other. (1)Origin AccountAllChristianity traces its origin to the life, teaching, crucifixion and, in the faith of its adherents, resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in Roman Judea in the first century. (1)The movement traces its origin to Joseph Smith's account of receiving and translating the Book of Mormon, published in 1830 in upstate New York. (1)Origin Period End YearAll50 (1)Origin Period Start YearAll30 (1)1830 (1)Place of OriginAllRoman Judaea and Galilee, spreading through the eastern Mediterranean (1)Upstate New York, United States (1)Position on SexualityAllThe body holds no single settled position; the question is actively and openly contested within it (2)Practice StatusAllLiving, and practised in varied local forms (1)Restoration ClaimAllHistorians describe this as the movement's founding religious claim rather than a verifiable historical event (1)The tradition holds that the primitive church and its priesthood authority, lost in a Great Apostasy, were restored through Joseph Smith from 1820 (1)Sexuality Position DetailAllChristianity is governed by no single worldwide teaching authority, and its major bodies read at every point on this question today. The Roman Catholic Church's Catechism of the Catholic Church holds that homosexual acts are contrary to natural law while insisting that persons with homosexual tendencies must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity, and reserves marriage to a man and a woman. The Russian Orthodox Church's Basis of the Social Concept, adopted at its Jubilee Bishops Council in August 2000, names homosexuality a sinful distortion of human nature and bars anyone who promotes it as a norm from work with children or youth or from military or reformatory positions, reaching beyond ordination. The United Methodist Church, one of the tradition's largest global bodies, ended its forty-year ban on LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage at its 2024 General Conference. The Anglican Communion, in its own 2022 Lambeth Conference Call on Human Dignity, states that its forty-two member provinces hold differing convictions and pastoral practices on this question, some blessing same-sex unions and others continuing to hold that marriage is exclusively the lifelong union of a man and a woman. No statement speaks for Christianity as a whole. (1)The Latter Day Saint movement traces to a single founding by Joseph Smith in 1830, and it split into successor churches that hold opposite positions on this question today. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City and the movement's largest body by far, teaches that same-sex sexual relations violate the law of chastity and extends church discipline on that basis, while stating that experiencing same-sex attraction is not itself a sin and that LGBTQ individuals remain welcome as members. The Community of Christ, the movement's second-largest body, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, formally approved same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ clergy in 2013. No statement speaks for the movement as a whole. (1)Standing Giving ExpectationAllTithing traces to one shared founding revelation across the Latter Day Saint movement, Doctrine and Covenants 119 (1838), naming "one tenth of all their interest annually," and the practice remains named as a core institutional expectation in the movement's two largest present-day branches, though they have diverged in how fixed it remains. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints keeps the historical calculation at a strict ten percent of income and ties it directly to temple access, recorded on its own denomination-level fact on this axis. The Community of Christ also names tithing as a core practice, historically calculated as ten percent of "net increase" (gross income less basic living needs), but its 2016 World Conference resolution on tithing, grounded in its own Doctrine and Covenants 165:2d, reframes the practice as "a spiritual practice that demonstrates willingness to offer every dimension of one's life to God" rather than a rule tied to a fixed calculation. The movement-wide constant is the named practice and its shared scriptural origin, not a single uniform rate or a single enforcement mechanism; only the Latter-day Saints branch specifically gates standing on it. (1)Status TodayAllLiving tradition, practised today (2)Supreme BeingAllThe triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one being in three persons. (1)TheologyAllMonotheistic: one God (2)Transgression CategoryAllSin, understood as thought, word, deed or omission contrary to the will of God, ranging in Catholic moral theology from venial to mortal sin. (1)BrowseCompareChristianityParent Religion86 entriesLatter Day Saint MovementParent Religion1 entrySources1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Treetier 12. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editiontier 1F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the SourceDivinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Comments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.