About the Atlas

The Christian Atlas (also published as the Atlas of Christianity) is a reference work, not an advocate for any church. It aims to describe each tradition, saint and order fairly — including where Christians disagree — and to show the evidence behind what it says.

This edition

Version 0.4.1 contains 19 traditions, 30 saints, 12 orders and a pilot of 3 other important figures. It is built from a starting dataset (a spreadsheet compiled for the project), which every entry cites by sheet and row. That dataset is a starting point, not an authority: where the Atlas departs from it, the entry’s Sources tab says why.

Entries are editorial drafts. Each statement in the research layer (historical relationships, ecumenical agreements, sourced positions on core beliefs and dated follower figures) is linked to the source register, which says whether the source was actually read. Comparisons open with a short synthesis, and the glossary below explains the terms the Atlas uses.

Version 0.4 adds the Scripture Library: the Bible in several public-domain and openly licensed English translations with the Greek and Hebrew beneath them, word study, search, highlighting and notes kept on your own device, and texts you can download for reading offline. The Qur’an is included outside the biblical canons, in Arabic and in English. The Library’s Sources page says where every text comes from, under which terms, and what is still a draft.

Comparing traditions

Any two traditions can be compared. The Atlas shows the common ground first, then explains differences, history and present relations, and lets the reader judge. It does not score, rank or declare traditions equivalent. Twelve pairings have researched comparisons; the rest are assembled from each tradition’s sourced records, and where a position has not been recorded the page says so rather than guessing.

Follower figures

Churches count in different ways: baptised members, members of record, people who identify with a tradition, or active participants. Each figure gives its date, source and method, and figures for overlapping bodies, such as the Eastern Catholic churches within the Catholic Church, must never be added together.

How dates are shown

The Atlas gives the date as precisely as the evidence allows and no more: an exact year, an approximate year (c.), a range, a century, or a relative date such as “around age 16”. A century is never silently turned into a year.

Evidence labels

9 labels
Documented
Supported by contemporary or near-contemporary evidence. Not labelled in timelines.
Own account
Known from the person’s own writing — valuable, but one voice.
New Testament account
Reported in the New Testament; described as the text’s account.
Traditional
A long-standing tradition with limited early evidence.
Approximate
The event happened, but its date or details are approximate.
Disputed
Historians disagree materially.
Church-recognised
Formally recognised by a church (for example in a canonisation). This is a church’s judgement, not a historical one.
Legend
A later legend or miracle story.
Unverified
A claim from the starting dataset that has not been traced to a source.

Terms used in the Atlas

27 terms

Unfamiliar words are explained where they first appear in a section: select a word with a dotted underline to read its definition. The same definitions are collected here, each with its sources.

Adventist, Adventism
From 'advent', coming. Adventism is the expectation of, and preparation for, Christ's return. In the Atlas it chiefly means the movement around William Miller, a Baptist, in the 1840s, and the Seventh-day Adventist Church that grew from it.
Source

Seventh-day Adventist Church

Anathema
A solemn condemnation that excludes a person or a teaching from a church's communion. The 1054 sentences between Rome and Constantinople were excommunications, which both sides removed 'from memory' in 1965; an Orthodox–Oriental Orthodox commission recommended that each church decide how to lift the anathemas between them.
2 sources

Lifting the excommunications of 1054

Apostolic succession
The succession of bishops, by ordination, from the apostles. Catholic teaching calls bishops 'the successors of the apostles', and the Catholic and Assyrian churches agree that ordained ministers 'should stand in the apostolic succession'. Anglicans keep the 'historic episcopate', as do the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches of the Porvoo Communion; Baptist churches, by contrast, recognise only pastors and deacons.
5 sources

Beliefs: Church and ministry (Catholic)

Autocephaly, autocephalous
Greek for 'self-headed'. The status of an Orthodox church that governs itself through its own synod and chooses its own primate, while sharing one faith and communion with the other Orthodox churches. It is a matter of government, not doctrine.
2 sources
Who may grant autocephaly is itself disputed. When Constantinople recognised the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2018–19, Moscow broke communion with it.
Source

Self-government and jurisdiction

Believer's baptism
Baptism given only to those who personally confess faith, not to infants. The Schleitheim Articles (1527) restricted baptism to those who have 'learned repentance and amendment of life'; Anabaptist, Baptist and Adventist churches practise it today.
4 sources

Compare Anabaptist and Baptist

Catholicos
Title of the head of some Eastern churches. The Armenian Apostolic Church has two catholicosates, Etchmiadzin and Cilicia, in full communion but administratively independent. In the Church of the East the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon took the title 'Catholicos of the East' around 310.
2 sources

Armenian Apostolic Church

Chalcedonian, non-Chalcedonian
Accepting, or not accepting, the Council of Chalcedon (451) and its definition of Christ 'in two natures'. The Oriental Orthodox churches accept the first three councils but not Chalcedon. The terms describe which councils a church receives, not a verdict on its orthodoxy.
2 sources

The Council of Chalcedon and its aftermath

Consubstantiation
A term others have used for the Lutheran teaching on the Lord's Supper, implying that bread and Christ's body coexist as two substances. The Lutheran confessions do not use it and Lutheran theologians have generally rejected it. Lutherans speak instead of a 'sacramental union', in which Christ's body and blood are truly present 'in, with and under' the bread and wine.
3 sources

Lutheran beliefs: sacraments

Dyophysite
From Greek for 'two natures'. The Christology defined at Chalcedon (451): Christ is one person 'in two natures', divine and human, without confusion, change, division or separation. Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran and Reformed confessions hold it; the Church of the East also speaks of two natures, in its own East Syriac terms.
4 sources

The Council of Chalcedon and its aftermath

Ecumenical
From Greek oikoumenē, 'the inhabited world'. An ecumenical council is a council whose teaching is received as binding on the whole Church; churches differ on how many there have been (the Oriental Orthodox receive three). In modern use, 'ecumenical' also describes the movement for Christian unity.
2 sources

Formal dialogue between churches

Eucharist
From Greek for 'thanksgiving'. The central Christian rite of bread and wine that recalls the Last Supper, also called the Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, the Mass or the Divine Liturgy. Churches agree on its importance but explain Christ's presence in it differently.
4 sources

Compare Catholic and Lutheran

Filioque
Latin for 'and the Son'. The words added in the West to the Nicene Creed's statement that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. First used in a creed in Spain (589) and sung at a papal Mass from 1014, they were never accepted by the Orthodox and became one of the questions that divided East and West.
2 sources
A 2003 North American Orthodox–Catholic consultation proposed that the Filioque need no longer divide the churches, while recognising that the theological question and the authority to change a creed remain open.
Source

The estrangement of East and WestCompare Catholic and Eastern Orthodox

Holy Tradition
In Orthodox teaching, the whole living inheritance of the Church. 'The Bible holds the first place', followed by the liturgy, the councils, the Fathers, the lives of the saints, the canons and icons.
Source

Eastern Orthodox beliefs

Magisterium
The Catholic Church's teaching office: the bishops in communion with the pope, to whom the authentic interpretation of Scripture and Tradition is entrusted.
Source

Catholic beliefs: Scripture and authority

Miaphysite, miaphysitism
From Greek for 'one nature'. The Christology of the Oriental Orthodox churches: in the incarnate Word, divinity and humanity are united in one nature, without confusion or division, following Cyril of Alexandria. It is distinct from the teaching of Eutyches, which both Oriental and Eastern Orthodox condemn.
3 sources

The Council of Chalcedon and its aftermath

Nestorian
A label, from Nestorius, the archbishop of Constantinople deposed in 431, long applied by others to the Church of the East. The church rejects it, and Sebastian Brock argues that its Christology 'can in no way be described as openly Nestorian'. The Atlas does not use it to describe the church.
Source

Assyrian Church of the East

Ordinance
The word Baptists and some other churches use for baptism and the Lord's Supper, as acts of obedience that Christ commanded. The Baptist Faith and Message calls the Supper 'a symbolic act of obedience'.
Source

Baptist Churches

Patriarch, patriarchate
A church, or church territory, headed by a patriarch. Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem are the four ancient Eastern patriarchates; Moscow became a patriarchate in 1589. The Oriental Orthodox churches and the Assyrian Church of the East are also led by patriarchs or catholicoi.
3 sources

Russian Orthodox Church

Restorationist
Describing a movement that sees itself as a return to original Christianity after a loss or corruption of the church, rather than as a reform of an existing church. The Atlas uses it for the Latter-day Saints, who speak of a 'restoration' of lost authority, and for Jehovah's Witnesses, who describe following 'the Christianity that Jesus taught'. It is not a judgement on either.
3 sources

Restoration movements

Sabbath
The seventh day, Saturday, kept as a day of rest and worship. Seventh-day Adventists keep it from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday; the Ethiopian Orthodox Church keeps both Saturday and Sunday. Most churches keep Sunday, the day of the Resurrection, as the Lord's Day.
3 sources

Compare Baptist and Adventist

Second Advent (Second Coming)
Christ's expected return in glory, to which Adventists give special emphasis. Followers of William Miller expected it on 22 October 1844; when it did not come, the day became known as 'the Great Disappointment'.
2 sources

From the Millerite movement to the Adventist Church

Sui iuris
Latin for 'of its own law'. In Catholic canon law, a church with its own hierarchy and discipline. The Catholic Church is a communion of 24 churches sui iuris: the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic churches. A church sui iuris is not the same as a rite, which is a liturgical tradition; the 23 Eastern churches follow five.
2 sources

Eastern Catholic Churches

Synod
An assembly of bishops, sometimes with clergy and laity, that governs a church or decides questions of faith. Each self-governing Orthodox church is governed by its Holy Synod, where major decisions are made together.
Source

Eastern Orthodox Church

Tewahedo
Ge'ez for 'made one' or 'unified': the Ethiopian Church's name for its Christology of the one united nature of the incarnate Word.
2 sources

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

Theosis
Greek for 'deification'. The Eastern Orthodox understanding of salvation as union with God by grace: sharing in the divine life without ceasing to be human.
Source

Provisional: broadly supported, but awaiting fuller checking.

Eastern Orthodox beliefs

Theotokos
Greek for 'God-bearer', usually rendered 'Mother of God': a title of Mary used by Catholic, Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches. The Church of the East prefers 'Mother of Christ our God and Saviour'; in 1994 the Catholic Church recognised both as legitimate expressions of the same faith.
3 sources

Compare Catholic and Assyrian

Transubstantiation
Catholic teaching that at the consecration the whole substance of the bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ, while their appearances remain. The Catechism says this change is 'fittingly and properly called transubstantiation'.
Source
The Eastern Orthodox also affirm a real change, but generally do not use this term to explain it; the Atlas therefore treats the explanation as a difference of emphasis, not of belief in Christ's presence.
2 sources

Provisional: broadly supported, but awaiting fuller checking.

Catholic beliefs: sacraments

Images and symbols

No portrait is presented as a likeness where no authentic likeness survives, and no scene is invented. Where a saint is shown through a later work of art, it is labelled as a depiction, credited, linked to its museum record and shown whole on request; the card view only crops it, reversibly. Crosses are drawn only where a form is historically associated with an entry, each with its basis and sources, and none is presented as an official emblem unless verified. Elsewhere the Atlas uses an editorial initial.