free church

free church,  generally, any Protestant religious body that exists in or originates in a land having a state church but that is itself free of governmental or external ecclesiastical control. Examples of such free churches are the Baptists in Scotland, where the established church is Presbyterian; the Presbyterians in England, where the Anglican Church is established; the Waldensian Church in Italy, where the Roman Catholic Church is established; and the Mission Covenant Church in Sweden, where the established church is Lutheran.

In the narrower sense, the term free churches was first applied collectively to several nonepiscopal Protestant evangelical communions in England ... (100 of 145 words)

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