Check.Church

Friends (Quakers)

The Religious Society of Friends gathered around George Fox between 1647 and 1652, emerging from the Puritan and Seeker milieu of the English Civil War rather than by expulsion from any body. Its later internal divisions, beginning with the Hicksite separation of 1827, are recorded for a future pass.

On the tree

The Friends (Quakers) family and the bodies it separated from or was organized out ofAD 33today100431451105415341647The 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 EnglandAnglicanReligious Society of Friends (Friends (Quakers))Religious Society ofFriendsFriends (Quakers)

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. Religious Society of Friends1647–1652

    George Fox and the Friends held that Christ speaks directly to each believer by the inward light, without ordained clergy or outward sacraments; fiercely persecuted, they became a permanent stream of English and American Dissent.

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