Page "Christian denomination" Paragraph 30

The Latin portion of the Catholic Church, along with Anglicanism and Protestantism, comprise the three major divisions of Christianity in the Western world.

However, Roman Catholics do not describe themselves as a denomination but rather as the original Holy and Universal Church ; which all other branches broke off from in schism.

The Baptist, Methodist, and Lutheran churches are generally considered to be Protestant denominations, although strictly speaking, of these three, only the Lutherans took part in the official Protest after the decree of the Second Diet of Speyer mandated the burning of Luther's works and the end of the Protestant Reformation.

Anglicanism was generally classified as Protestant, but since the " Tractarian " or Oxford Movement of the 19th century, led by John Henry Newman, Anglican writers emphasize a more catholic understanding of the church and characterize it as more properly understood as its own tradition — a via media (" middle way "), both Protestant and Catholic.

The American province of the Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Church USA, describes itself as a modern via media church in this tradition.

A case is sometimes also made to regard Lutheranism in a similar way, considering the catholic character of its foundational documents ( the Augsburg Confession and other documents contained in the Book of Concord ) and its existence prior to the Anglican, Anabaptist, and Reformed churches, from which nearly all other Protestant denominations derive.