Talk:National church

Religion Low‑importance

	Religion portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Christianity High‑importance

	Christianity portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christianity, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Christianity on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChristianityWikipedia:WikiProject ChristianityTemplate:WikiProject ChristianityChristianity articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Countries

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Countries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of countries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CountriesWikipedia:WikiProject CountriesTemplate:WikiProject Countriescountry articles

WikiProject Countries to-do list:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Check out the article alerts; see if anything catches your fancy.
Cleanup : clean-up listing for Countries
Stubs : de-stub articles in Category:Stubs by region.
Other : add {{WPCountries}} to talk pages of related articles, and assess.

Please clarify the article topic[edit]

I just stumbled over this article, and it is not immediately clear to me from the hatnote above the lead section or from the lead section what the article is about. Is it about religious organizations which consider themselves to be "'national churches' in the ethnic sense" (quoting the hatnote) of some particular ethnic group or of some particular nation, about churches which are considered to be such by consensus of members of a particular ethnic group, by governmental dictate within a nation-state, or by some other measure?

I see that the article contains a table of countries in which it is asserted without support that the Philippine Independent Church is the "National church" (within the meaning of of that term this article) of the Philippines. The Philippine population is Catholic by a very large majority (probably something over 80% -- see the Religion in the Philippines article). In that particular case it seems to me as if that assertion re the designation of a national church (within the meaning of that term in this article -- whatever that might be) for the Philippines needs review. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:14, 6 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the article is problematic. The table raises WP:SYN alarm bells -- each row is supported by a quote from a separate book. There is no guarantee that any one author cited had the same definition of "national church" as any of the others (or the same definition as the Wikipedia article, whatever that might be). In addition, there is no distinction between current and former status. I think the table format should really be abandoned as misleading; churches with state recognition as "national churches" could be discussed under state church, as is already done for the Church of Scotland. Churches which describe themselves as "the national church of X" are more problematic. In many cases it may be mere wishful thinking; even more credible cases may be controversial or contested by those who identify with the nation but not the church. What about the "national" Christian church in a majority non-Christian nation? Category:National churches is similarly problematic. jnestorius^(talk) 17:13, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, here is one (very POV) source which offers two alternative definitions:^[1]

What is meant by the phrase National Church? If it means confined to, and comprehended by, the nation, and governed solely and exclusively by the authority of the nation, ... the National Church of England did begin with Henry VIII. If it means that part of the Church which ... includes the people of a single nation, and has the lower and subordinate parts of its organization within the limits of a single nation, partaking of the spirit and characteristics and acknowledging the authority of that nation, then we may speak of it as a National Church [from Augustine of Canterbury].

jnestorius^(talk) 14:52, 30 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Wells, Charles L. (April 1922). "The Papacy in the English Church". The Sewanee Review. 30 (2). Johns Hopkins University Press: 154–166.

September 2017[edit]

would be nice to have more sources about the National church, I don't know about this term, but I would like to add more source only if I can get more information about this topic.AlfaRocket (talk) 14:05, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ukraine[edit]

Editor2020, in Ukraine there are two national churches both Catholic and Orthodox. There is no separate nation like "Western Ukraine". Both Greek Catholic and Orthodox church have jurisdictions across whole Ukraine and represent whole Ukraine. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 05:21, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Western Ukraine. Editor2020 (talk) 23:04, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Wells, Charles L. (April 1922). "The Papacy in the English Church". The Sewanee Review. 30 (2). Johns Hopkins University Press: 154–166.

[1]