Data source: Gina A. Zurlo, ed., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2025).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| complete Bibles | Copies of the whole Bible with 66 books (sometimes plus deuterocanon). |
| conciliar | Ecumenical (qv), referring especially (1) to churches that cooperate through the World Council of Churches; and (2) in Catholic usage, to conferences of bishops at which matters of doctrine and practice are determined. |
| confession | (1) A creed, or statement of belief or doctrine. (2) In ecclesiastical demography, any large communion; (3) or ecclesiastical tradition tracing its origins to a formal event, historic creed or confession. |
| Confucianists | Followers of the teachings of Confucius and Confucianism. Sometimes spelt Confucians. |
| congregation | (1) A local church or grouping of worshippers. (2) A religious order, society or institute (mainly Catholic usage). |
| Congregationalists | Protestant tradition with a system of church government in which the local congregation has full control and final authority over church matters within its own area. |
| continent | Any of the United Nations major areas of Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Northern America and Oceania |
| conversion | Change in a person’s allegiance or membership in one religion to allegiance or membership in another. |
| converts | Persons who have become followers of a religion, leaving their former religion or nonreligion. |
| Coptic | Tradition dating to the Apostolic era, now referring to Egyptians in the Coptic Orthodox, Coptic Catholic and Coptic Evangelical churches. |
| country | Term covering both (1) sovereign nations and (2) non-sovereign territories (dependencies or colonies) that are not integral parts of larger parent nations. |
| creole | Hybrid or pidgin language that has now consolidated into a language with its own mother-tongue speakers. |
| Daoists | Followers of the philosophical, ethical and religious traditions of China, sometimes regarded as part of Chinese folk-religion. Also spelt Taoists. |
| death rate | The number of deaths per year in a population expressed as a percentage or per thousand of the total population. |
| denomination | Group of congregations (qv) sharing doctrine, beliefs and practices and voluntarily united under a common name and administrative structure (and, often, governing hierarchy). As a statistical unit, a ‘denomination’ always refers to one single country. |
| diaspora | A people of one country dispersed to other countries; the migration, spread, scattering and exile of a people abroad. |
| disaffiliated Christians | Formerly Christian persons; baptised Christians enumerated as affiliated by a majority or state-linked church but who have formally withdrawn or disaffiliated themselves from Christianity and now profess to be non-religious. |
| Disciples | A Protestant tradition including the Disciples of Christ and Churches of Christ; also known as Restorationist. |
| distribution | In Bible society usage, term for measuring annual circulation or sale of scripture copies. |
| doubly-affiliated Christians | Persons who are baptised members of two or more denominations at the same time. |
| Druze | Members of an 11th-century Muslim Shia Ismaili schism with Christian and Jewish elements. |
| Eastern Orthodox | Referring to Chalcedonian Christians and their congregations and denominations that are in communion with the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. Excludes Oriental Orthodox. |
| Eastern-rite Catholics | All Catholics in communion with the Church of Rome who follow rites other than the Latin rite. |
| ecclesiastical crime | Term relating especially to embezzlement of church funds. |
| ecumenical | Worldwide, general, universal, catholic; relating to the whole of a body of churches. |
Data on 18 categories of religion, including non-religious, by country, province, and people.
Data on all religions, Christian activities, and trends.
Membership data, year begun, and rates of change.
Population and religion data on all major cities & provinces.
Detailed information covering religion, culture, and geography.
A repository of historical data, including a chronology of Christianity from the 1st to 21st centuries.