religious sect
Breakaway worship group
A religious sect is a group that has separated from a larger religious body, typically over doctrinal disputes or claims of purer practice.
The term carries connotations of being smaller, newer, or more intense than mainstream denominations: The sect broke away over disagreements about baptism.
Sect often implies insularity or deviation from orthodoxy, though members themselves rarely use the label.
- cultFervent fringe group
- true believerCompletely committed adherent
- GuyanaNorthern South American republic
- mass suicideGroup killing themselves together
- schismFormal organizational fracture
break away · heresy · apostasy · Jim Jones · dogma · Branch Davidians · end times · reformation · splinter group · denomination · Kool-Aid · liturgy · orthodoxy · heterodoxy · congregation · Scientology · creed · movement
religious sectestablished church
Officially recognized national religion
state religion · world religion · national church · organized religion · Catholic Church
religion, religious, sectarian, sect, religions, nonreligious, irreligious, sectarianism, nonsectarian