Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| Pre-Chalcedonian | Oriental Orthodox (qv). |
| pre-Christian | Of, or being a time before, the beginning of the Christian era, or before the introduction of Christianity in a locality. |
| prediction | An inference regarding a future event based on probability theory. |
| Pre-Dravidian | An Austro-Asiatic ethnolinguistic family. |
| prefect | The supervising head of a prefecture apostolic (qv), not in episcopal orders. |
| prefectures apostolic | (symbol PA). In Catholic usage, districts of a missionary territory in its initial stage of ecclesiastical organization. |
| preference, religious | See religious preference. |
| prelacy | Episcopacy (qv); prelature (qv). |
| prelate | An ecclesiastic of superior rank and authority; a dignitary. |
| prelature (prelacy) nullius | (symbol PN). Aprelatic benefice or bishopric held by a prelate exempt from diocesan control and directly under the pope. |
| premillennialism | Doctrine expounded by premillennialists (qv); divisible into historicist and futurist premillennialism, and the later into pretribulationism, and posttribulationism. |
| premillennialists | Protestants, usually Fundamentalists or dispensationalists, who hold that Christ will return as King before the millennium in order to establish it by his own power; estimated at 60 million in the USA alone. |
| Prepentecostals | Believers experiencing or manifesting marks of baptism in the Holy Spirit (glossolalia, healings) before the arrival of Denominational Pentecostalism. |
| presbyter | (NT Greek). In episcopal churches, a priest. In the Presbyterian and Reformed churches, a lay elder. |
| presbyteral council | In the Catholic Church, a senate or council of all priests in a diocese or area. |
| Presbyterians | See Reformed. |
| presbytery | In Presbyterian churches, (1) the ruling body of all ministers and representative lay elders, (2) the ecclesiastical district of all congregations under the ruling body. In the Catholic Church, a parish clergy house. |
| pre-school children | Infants, i.e. the population under 5 years old, including new-born babies. |
| presentation | Protestant technical term used (l) in free scripture distribution by Gideons International for a formal, publicized gift of a Bible or Testament, (2) in Campus Crusade and other Protestant evangelism for a personal explanation of the gospel through exposition of 4 spiritual laws. |
| present-in-area population | The de facto or actual population in the area, made up of all persons actually in the area on a particular day or census date, covering residents, visitors and transients, but excluding residents temporarily absent abroad. |
| presidency, first | A council of 3 in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), consisting of a president and 2 counselors, and having jurisdiction in spiritual and temporal matters. |
| president | The presiding officer, chairman, or chief executive in a number of denominations, including the Mormon church. |
| presiding bishop | The president of the national council of the Episcopal Church in the USA who is elected by the General Convention; the chief member of the presiding bishopric of the Mormon church. |
| presiding bishopric | The chief office of the Aaronic priesthood in the Mormon church filled by 3 persons and supervised by the first presidency. |
| presiding elder | A district superintendent in Methodism, with oversight of churches and workers in a district. |
Data on 18 categories of religion, including non-religious, by country, province, and people.
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Membership data, year begun, and rates of change.
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A repository of historical data, including a chronology of Christianity from the 1st to 21st centuries.