established church
Official national faith
An established church is one officially recognized and supported by the state, often receiving government funding and legal privileges.
England's Anglican Church is the classic example—the monarch serves as its head, and bishops sit in the House of Lords.
The term distinguishes state-backed churches from those operating independently of government.
- organized religionStructured communal belief systems
- religionSystem of spiritual belief
- institutionEstablished organization or custom
- communionProfound shared closeness
- denominationNamed religious group
clergy · religious conformity · bishoprics · canon law · ecclesiology · papal authority · Thirty-Nine Articles · ordination · synod · episcopacy · concordat · state funding · state religion · Book of Common Prayer · tithes · parishioners · faith · pulpit
- church-stateseparation, religious accommodation, state religion, secular authority, secular power
- colonial faithPilgrims, Puritans, Calvinism, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony
- State Churches
- state religionstate funding, theocracy
- Anglican ChurchAnglicanism, bishop, Archbishop of Canterbury, parish, diocese
- theopoliticstheocracy, Christian right, religious right, state religion, religious law
established churchfree church
Congregation independent of government
established churchseparation of church and state
Constitutional religious neutrality principle
secular state · disestablishment · religious pluralism · theocracy
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