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CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

Congregational Church of England and Wales is a national organisation of Congregational churches, established in 1832 and known until 1965 as the Congregational Union of England and Wales. It developed from the activities of English Christians of the late 16th and 17th centuries who wished to separate from the Church of England and form independent churches. A group of these Separatists (Independents) left England for Holland and subsequently some of them, the Pilgrims, settled in Plymouth, Mass., in 1620. In England the Independents had their greatest influence during the time of the Commonwealth (1649-60), when Oliver Cromwell, an Independent, was lord protector. The Independents were eventually called Congregationalists. They survived various periods of persecution and became an influential religious minority in England and Wales. They established several academies and colleges and were active in the ecumenical movement. Merger in 1972 with the Presbyterian Church formed the United Reformed Church of England and Wales. A minority of members refused to join the union.

Independent also called Separatist, any of the English Christians in the 16th and 17th centuries who wished to separate from the Church of England and form independent local churches. They were eventually called

Congregationalists. Independents were most influential politically in England during the time of the Commonwealth (1649-60) under Oliver Cromwell, the lord protector, who was himself an Independent. Subsequently, they survived repression and gradually became an important religious minority in England. One group of Separatists left England for Holland in 1608, and in 1620 some of them, the Pilgrims, settled at Plymouth, Mass. The Plymouth Separatists co-operated with the Puritans (non-separating Independents) who settled Massachusetts Bay (1630). In England the Puritans had hoped to purify the Church of England, but in New England they accepted the congregational form of church government in which each local church was independent. Thus, the churches of the Separatists and the Puritans became the Congregationalists of the United States. A fundamental belief of the Independents was the idea of the gathered church, which was in contrast to the territorial basis of the Church of England whereby everyone in a certain area was assigned to the parish church. Independents believed that the foundation of the church was God’s Spirit, not man or the state. Those who were definitely Christian believers, therefore, should seek out other Christians and gather together to make up a particular church. This belief was the basis for the autonomous local church of the Independents, which became a principal tenet of Congregationalism.