General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland
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Stamp of the General Assembly with the words "Ardens Sed Virens" ("Burning but flourishing")
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland is the sovereign and highest court of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and is thus the Church's governing body. The General Assembly normally meets annually, during the first full week in June.
In common with other presbyterian churches, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland is governed by courts of elders. That is to say, it is governed by presbyterian polity. At the bottom of the hierarchy of courts is the Kirk Session, the court of the individual local churches; representatives of several Kirk Sessions form the Presbytery, the local area court. As in many other presbyterian churches the Synod, or regional level, is now left out. A Synod had authority over a group of presbyteries. At the level of the island of Ireland, the General Assembly stands at the top of this structure.
Every minister is a member, and every congregation sends one lay elder. Women's and youth organisations, deaconesses and sister churches are also entitled to send delegates, giving a total membership of around 1,300.
The sitting Assembly first installs a new Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, who acts as a presiding officer for the rest of the session. After the Assembly rises at the end of the week, the Moderator spends much of the rest of the year as its ambassador.
Presbyterianism is a Reformed (Calvinist) Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders. Though there are other Reformed churches that are structurally similar, the word Presbyterian is applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenter groups that formed during the English Civil War.
The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PCUSA, is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the country, known for its progressive stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and members of the LGBT community as elders and ministers. The Presbyterian Church (USA) was established with the 1983 merger of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, whose churches were located in the Southern and border states, with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, whose congregations could be found in every state.
Presbyterianpolity is a method of church governance typified by the rule of assemblies of presbyters, or elders. Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders usually called the session or consistory, though other terms, such as church board, may apply. Groups of local churches are governed by a higher assembly of elders known as the presbytery or classis; presbyteries can be grouped into a synod, and presbyteries and synods nationwide often join together in a general assembly. Responsibility for conduct of church services is reserved to an ordained minister or pastor known as a teaching elder, or a minister of the word and sacrament.
The Church of Scotland is the national church in Scotland, and one of the country's largest, with 270,000 members in 2022. While active membership in the church has declined significantly in recent decades, the government Scottish Household Survey found that 20% of the Scottish population, or over one million people, identified the Church of Scotland as their religious identity in 2019. The Church of Scotland's governing system is presbyterian in its approach, therefore, no one individual or group within the church has more or less influence over church matters. There is no one person who acts as the head of faith, as the church believes that role is the "Lord God's". As a proper noun, the Kirk is an informal name for the Church of Scotland used in the media and by the church itself.
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The Presbyterian Church in Canada is a Presbyterian denomination, serving in Canada under this name since 1875. The United Church of Canada claimed the right to the name from 1925 to 1939. According to the Canada 2021 Census 301,400 Canadians identify themselves as Presbyterian, that is, 0.8 percent of the population.
The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) was a Presbyterian denomination existing from 1789 to 1958. In that year, the PCUSA merged with the United Presbyterian Church of North America. The new church was named the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. It was a predecessor to the contemporary Presbyterian Church (USA).
The moderator of the General Assembly is the chairperson of a General Assembly, the highest court of a Presbyterian or Reformed church. Kirk sessions and presbyteries may also style the chairperson as moderator. The Oxford Dictionary states that a Moderator may be a "Presbyterian minister presiding over an ecclesiastical body".
The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the sovereign and highest court of the Church of Scotland, and is thus the Church's governing body. It generally meets each year and is chaired by a Moderator elected at the start of the Assembly.
The Church of Scotland maintains a presbyterian polity and is thus governed by a hierarchy of bodies known as church courts. Each of these courts has a moderator and a clerk.
A Church of Scotland congregation is led by its minister and elders. Both of these terms are also used in other Christian denominations: see Minister (Christianity) and Elder (Christianity). This article discusses the specific understanding of their roles and functions in the Scottish Church.
Ecclesiastical polity is the government of a church. There are local (congregational) forms of organization as well as denominational. A church's polity may describe its ministerial offices or an authority structure between churches. Polity relates closely to ecclesiology, the theological study of the church.
Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) is a Presbyterian denomination headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. In Kenya, 10% of the population is Presbyterian. It was started by missionaries from Scotland, most notable of whom was Dr John Arthur. It has its headquarters in Nairobi South C.
The Reformed Presbyterian Church - Hanover Presbytery is a very conservative Protestant, Presbyterian denomination, founded in 1991, with congregations in United States and also in Brazil.
The Presbytery of Glasgow is one of the 14 Presbyteries of the Church of Scotland. It dates back to the earliest periods of Presbyterian church government in the Church of Scotland in the late 16th century. The Presbytery of Glasgow currently has 125 congregations, making it by far the largest Presbytery in the Church of Scotland.
The Presbyterian Church of Nigeria is a church in Nigeria and subscribes to the Westminster Confession of Faith.
A session is a body of elected elders governing a particular church within presbyterian polity.
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the Republic of Ireland, and the largest Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland. Like most Christian churches in Ireland, it is organised on an all-island basis, in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The church has approximately 210,000 members.
Robert Adam Holliday Lusk was a Reformed Presbyterian or Covenanter minister of the strictest sort, in a century which, according to Presbyterian historian Robert E. Thompson, was marked by increasing relaxation into less stringent manifestations of doctrine and practice amongst all branches of Presbyterianism. His career crossed paths with many prominent ministers and he was involved in numerous ecclesiastical courts at pivotal moments in the history of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Amongst Reformed Presbyterians, he was an "Old Light," and amongst "Old Lights," he would lay claim to be an "Original Covenanter." He was descended from a long line of Scotch-Irish, and the Lusks had fled from Scotland to Ireland, escaping religious persecution; many of them settled in America prior to the American Revolutionary War.
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