Explore · History
Schisms, reforms and reunions
The 30 historical relationships the Atlas records, on one map. It is not a family tree: a line joins the traditions a record concerns; it never means that one church descends from another, and most relationships are not schisms.
- Separation or estrangement
- Reformation, revival or new body
- Self-government or jurisdiction
- Restoration movement
- Common inheritance
- Union, communion, reconciliation or recognition
- Formal dialogue
- A whole family of churches is a party
Focus on one tradition
All relationships, by date
- 410–7th century — A church beyond the Roman Empire
- 451 and after — The Council of Chalcedon and its aftermath
- After 451 — The Oriental Orthodox communion
- 1054 (conventional) — The estrangement of East and West
- 1448 — The Russian Church becomes self-governing
- 1517–1530 — The Lutheran Reformation
- 1519–1560 — The Swiss and Scottish Reformations
- 1525 — The Radical Reformation in Zurich
- 1529–1973 — Two churches of the Reformation
- 1534–1559 — The English Reformation
- 1609–1612 — Baptists and the English Separatists
- 1730s–1795 — Methodism and the Church of England
- 1830 — A restoration claim
- 1833 — The Church of Greece becomes self-governing
- 1840s–1863 — From the Millerite movement to the Adventist Church
- 1870s–1931 — From the Bible Students to Jehovah's Witnesses
- 1901–1906 — Pentecostalism and the Holiness movement
- 1959 — The Ethiopian Church receives its own patriarch
- 1965 — Lifting the excommunications of 1054
- 1973 — Catholic–Coptic Orthodox dialogue
- 1985–1993 — Orthodox–Oriental Orthodox theological dialogue
- 1994–2001 — Catholic–Assyrian reconciliation
- 1996 — The Porvoo Communion
- 2001 — Catholic non-recognition of Latter-day Saint baptism
- 2010 — Lutherans ask Mennonites for forgiveness
- 2018 — Ukraine and the break between Moscow and Constantinople
- 2019 — Moscow and the Church of Greece after 2019
- 16th–17th centuries — The Chaldean union with Rome
- Various, 16th–20th centuries — Unions with Rome
- 1520s and 1609 — Baptists and Anabaptists
What each kind of relationship means
- Schism
- A breach of communion between churches. The Atlas never treats a schism as the founding of either side, and many developed gradually.
- Gradual estrangement
- Churches grow apart over a long period without a single act of separation. Any date given is a convenient marker, not a moment of division.
- Autocephaly
- A church becomes self-governing (autocephalous) within the same faith: a change of government and jurisdiction, not of doctrine.
- Reform
- A movement to reform the Western church that, in the 16th century, produced churches independent of Rome.
- Revival
- A renewal movement inside an existing church that later became, or gave rise to, a separate body.
- Ecclesial union
- Part of one church enters communion with another while keeping its own liturgy, hierarchy and law.
- Communion
- Churches agree to share communion, often only in some regions or between some member churches.
- Institutional formation
- A new church body is organised. Its members may continue much of what they received from the churches they came from.
- Restoration movement
- A movement that describes itself as restoring original Christianity, rather than reforming or continuing an existing church. It is not modelled as a schism.
- Common inheritance
- Traditions with a shared heritage and no single act of separation between them.
- Reconciliation
- A formal act of reconciliation, such as lifting condemnations or asking forgiveness. It does not by itself restore communion.
- Formal dialogue
- Official theological conversation between churches. Agreed statements are recommendations until each church receives them.
- Recognition or non-recognition
- A decision by one church to recognise, or to refuse to recognise, another church’s sacraments, hierarchy or status.
Coverage: the map shows only relationships recorded so far, among the Atlas's 19 traditions. Many churches and events are not yet recorded; an empty stretch of a row is not evidence that nothing happened. The same records are listed by kind on Compare.