Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2025).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| armed forces | The combined military, naval and air forces of a nation or a group of nations; armed services. |
| Armenian | European ethnolinguistic family. |
| Armenian Apostolic | An ancient Orthodox liturgical tradition dating back to the Apostolic era, also called Gregorians. |
| Armenian Catholicate of Cilicia (Sis) | Oriental Orthodox. Global constituency in canonical relationship (1995) 1364000 |
| Armenian Catholicate of Echmiadzin | Oriental Orthodox. Global constituency in canonical relationship: (1995) 4220000 |
| Armenian Orthodox | Armenian Apostolic (qv). |
| Armenian rite | A rite of the Catholic Church with 11 jurisdictions. |
| Arminianism | The doctrine or teachings of Arminius who opposed the absolute predestination taught by Calvin and maintained the real possibility of salvation for all. |
| artificial languages | See constructed languages. |
| artificial languages | International languages created by linguists: Volapuk, Esperanto, Ido, Occidental, Novial, Interlingua. None have caught on. |
| arts | In the field of religion and the arts, over 200 significant Christian organizations are at work. |
| Ashkenazis | The larger of the 2 great divisions of Jews comprising the eastern European Yiddish-speaking Jews, arising in the Rhineland in the 10th century, 5.7 million exterminated by Nazis, still 84% of all world’s Jews today. |
| ashram, asrama | (Sanskrit). A religious retreat center for a colony of disciples, mainly in India. |
| Asian | One of the 13 ethnic regions of mankind; Asiatic; speaking over 840 languages. |
| Asian indigenous churches | Non-White indigenous churches, indigenous to Asian peoples and begun since AD 1500. |
| assembly | In some Protestant traditions (Pentecostal Brethren, et alii), the usual term for a congregation of believers. |
| assistant curate | In Anglican usage, an assistant or unbeneficed clergyman appointed to assist an incumbent in a parish. |
| assisted diocese | In the Anglican Church of Canada, a diocese not financially self-supported, hence assisted from outside. |
| Assyrian | A Middle Eastern ethnolinguistic family. |
| Assyrians | Followers of the Ancient Church of the East, who for centuries called themselves Nestorians, followers of patriarch Nestorius’ theology. |
| astrology | A pseudo-science claiming to foretell the future by studying supposed influence of moon, planets, and stars on human affairs. |
| atheism | Disbelief in the existence of God or any other deity, the doctrine that there is no God; godlessness. |
| atheism, study of | A number of universities and research centers in the Communist world profess to study atheism; what in practice they study is religion, the survival of religion, and methods of eradicating it. |
| atheistic freedom | Freedom not to believe, and freedom to oppose religion. |
| atheistic states | In 1980 some 30 nations were atheistic, their regimes being either Communist or Marxist. |
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.