Check.Church

Congregational

Congregationalism descends from the English Separatists of the 1580s and the Puritan churches confessionalized at Cambridge in 1648 and Savoy in 1658. Its congregations later entered the United Church of Christ in 1957 and the United Reformed Church in 1972, and the Baptist family took its first steps from this stream.

On the tree

The Congregational family and the bodies it separated from or was organized out ofAD 33today100431451105415341581The post-apostolic church (The spine)The post-apostolicchurchThe spineThe conciliar church (The spine)The conciliar churchThe spineThe Chalcedonian church (The spine)The Chalcedonian churchThe spineRoman Catholicism (Catholic)Roman CatholicismCatholicChurch of England (Anglican)Church of EnglandAnglicanCongregationalists (Congregational)CongregationalistsCongregational

Solid lines are separations and unions; dashed lines are renewals that began inside a body; dotted gray lines are national organizations of one communion; a diamond marks a fork event where neither side is drawn as the one that left. Every line runs back to the post-apostolic church; no body descends from the assembly of Acts 2.

Bodies in this family

  1. Congregationalists1581–1658

    Radical Puritans who, despairing of reform from within, gathered self-governing congregations of professed believers outside the establishment — reformation 'without tarrying for any'; the Mayflower Separatists planted the tradition in New England. Successor mergers (UCC 1957, URC 1972) are encoded in the mergers pass.

Research compiled July 2026. Page data built 2026-10-10.