Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| catechumen | One receiving rudimentary instruction in church doctrines, discipline and morals prior to baptism; baptismal candidate. |
| catechumen | A non-member of a church receiving instruction in Christian doctrine, ethics, and morality, prior to admission into the church through baptism. |
| cathedral | A church that contains a cathedra (bishop’s throne) and that is officially the principal church of a diocese. |
| catholic | Related to the church universal, comprehensive, universal, general. |
| Catholic Apostolics | Followers of a tradition emerging from Protestantism in 1832 and stressing Catholic features, rejecting apostolic succession and substituting government by hierarchy of living apostles; also termed Irvingites (qv), Old Apostolics, and New Apostolics (qv). |
| Catholic Charismatic | A Catholic involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. |
| Catholic Charismatic Renewal | A worldwide movement begun in 1967 in the USA and Colombia. |
| Catholic Charismatics | Catholic pentecostals. Catholics active in the organized Catholic Charismatic Renewal, expressed in healings, tongues, prophesying, etc. |
| Catholic Charismatics | Catholics who have come into an experience of baptism or renewal in the Holy Spirit. |
| Catholic Church | (1) The universal church begun by Christ. (2) The Church of Rome. |
| Catholic Evangelicals | Catholics who call themselves also by the term Evangelicals, and regard themselves as in the national or global community of Evangelicals and their alliances and fellowships. |
| Catholic jurisdictions | World totals in 1997 (followed by 1979 figures in parentheses): 2,606 (2,491) jurisdictions, consisting of 2,317 (2,142) residential sees, made up of 13 (11) patriarchates, 430 (397) metropolitan sees, 61 (62) archdioceses and 1,813 (1,672) dioceses; 1,988 (1,953) titular sees; 105 (101) prelatures, 21 (23) abbeys nullius, 9 (10) apostolic administrations, 18 (25) exarchates and ordinariates, 73 (81) vicariates apostolic, 59 (77) prefectures apostolic, 12 patriarchal vicariates, prefectures apostolic , 12 patriarchal vicariates, 4 (5) missions sui juris, 1 (1) priory, 27 (26) vicariates castrensi. Ecclesiastical territories by rite: 94% Latin-rite, 6% Oriental-rite. |
| Catholic pentecostals | Catholic Charismatics (qv). |
| catholicate | The see of a catholicos. |
| Catholicism | The faith, doctrine or polity of the Catholic Church, or its entire system together with all its members. |
| catholicos | The chief bishop of certain independent Oriental churches: Armenian, Assyrian, Georgian. |
| catholicos | Leading bishop or patriarch of an Orthodox church or denomination. |
| catholicossate | Catholicate (qv). |
| Catholics | All Christians in communion with the Church of Rome, also known as Roman Catholics. Affiliated Catholics are defined here as baptized Catholics plus catechumens. |
| Catholics (non-Roman) | Old Catholics and others in secessions from the Church of Rome since 1700 in the Western world, and other Catholic-type sacramentalist or hierarchical secessions from Protestantism or Anglicanism. |
| Caucasian | A European ethnolinguistic family, with 35 languages in the Caucasus (though also used for Caucasoid (qv) or White person). |
| celebration | An occasion or observance of public worship, especially (in Anglicanism) of Holy Communion. |
| celibacy | The state of a single, unmarried life, or the obligation (in Catholicism and Orthodoxy) of bishops or priests and monks not to marry. |
| Celtic | A European ethnolinguistic family. |
| Celtic church | The ancient Church of Britain in the 1st-6th centuries AD. |
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.