Christian Church

The term Christian Church when used as a proper noun usually refers to the whole Christian religious tradition throughout history. When used in this way the term does not refer to a particular "Christian church" (a "denomination" or to a building). However, some Christian groups do not accept this definition (e.g., the Roman Catholic Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Eastern Orthodox churches) instead considering only their own churches to be the one true church.

Although some Christians identify the Christian Church with a visible structure (the view of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches), others understand it as an invisible reality not identified with any earthly structure (the general Protestant view), and others equate it with particular groups that share certain essential elements of doctrine and practice, though divided on other points of doctrine and government (such as the branch theory as taught by some Anglicans).

The Greek term ἐκκλησία, which is transliterated as "ecclesia", generally meant an "assembly", but in most English translations of the New Testament is usually translated as "church". This term appears in two verses of the Gospel of Matthew, twenty-four verses of the Acts of the Apostles, fifty-eight verses of the Pauline Epistles (including the earliest instances of its use in relation to a Christian body), two verses of the Letter to the Hebrews, one verse of the Epistle of James, three verses of the Third Epistle of John, and nineteen verses of the Book of Revelation. In total, ἐκκλησία appears in the New Testament text 114 times, although not every instance is a technical reference to the church.

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