The expense of this type of organization in religious life, when one recalls the number of city churches which deteriorated beyond repair before being abandoned, raises fundamental questions about the principle of Protestant survival in a mobile society ; ;

They were considered a Catholic innovation, not widely practiced until the 18th century, and were opposed vigorously in worship by a number of Protestant Reformers, including Martin Luther ( 1483 – 1546 ), John Calvin ( 1509 – 1564 ) and John Wesley ( 1703 – 1791 ).

Estimates of the total number of Protestants are very uncertain, partly because of the difficulty in determining which denominations should be placed in these categories, but it seems clear that Protestantism is the second largest major group of Christians after Catholicism in number of followers ( although the Orthodox Church is larger than any single Protestant denomination ).

A small but growing number of mainline Protestant denominations such as the United Church of Canada and some non-trinitarian denominations, perform weddings between same sex couples.

In recent years, a number of Protestant churches have been established.

Under his tutelage, Sweden and the Protestant cause developed a number of excellent commanders, such as Lennart Torstensson, who would go on to defeat Sweden's enemies and expand the boundaries and the power of the empire long after Gustav Adolph's death in battle.

The execution of a number of Protestant preachers, most notably the Lutheran influenced Patrick Hamilton in 1528 and later the proto-Calvinist George Wishart in 1546 who was burnt at the stake in St. Andrews by Cardinal Beaton for heresy, did nothing to stem the growth of these ideas.

The number of Hans Baldung's religious works diminished with the Protestant Reformation's discouragement of idolatry.

Karl's father, Herschel Marx, was middle-class and relatively wealthy: the family owned a number of Moselle vineyards ; he converted from Judaism to the Protestant Christian denomination of Lutheranism prior to his son's birth, taking on the German forename of Heinrich over Herschel.

In past analyses, it has been noted that mannerism arose in the early 16th century alongside a number of other social, scientific, religious and political movements such as the Copernican model, the Sack of Rome, and the Protestant Reformation's increasing challenge to the power of the Catholic Church.

Methodism ( from-methodos, " pursuit of knowledge ") is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide.

Methodism boasts the largest number of higher education ministries, including teaching positions, of any Protestant denomination in the world in close competition with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Most of the originally Protestant churches in Masuria are now used by the Polish Roman Catholic Church as the number of Lutherans in Masuria declined from 68, 500 in 1950 to 21, 174 in 1961 and further to 3, 536 in 1981.

The word " Puritan " is applied unevenly to a number of Protestant churches ( and religious groups within the Anglican Church ) from the later 16th century onwards, and Puritans did not originally use the term for themselves, considering that it was a term of abuse that first surfaced in the 1560s.

According to the reformed Roman Rite Roman Catholic calendar, this Sunday is now known by its number within Ordinary Time — fourth through ninth, depending upon the date of Easter — or the fourth through the ninth Sunday after Epiphany in the contemporary Anglican calendars, and that of various Protestant polities.

The first German celebration on a fairly large scale was held in 1805 ( the 1150th anniversary of his death ), followed by a similar celebration in a number of towns in 1855 ; both of these were predominantly Catholic affairs, which emphasized the role of Boniface in German history as opposed to Protestant views on the role of Martin Luther, and especially the 1855 celebrations were an expression of German Catholic nationalism.

In the more than 220 years since 1784, Methodism in the United States, like many other Protestant denominations, has seen a number of divisions and mergers.

Two days after Knox arrived in Edinburgh, he proceeded to Dundee where a large number of Protestant sympathisers had gathered.

In addition to these four mainstream branches, there are a number of much smaller groups which, like Protestants, originated from disputes with the dominant tradition of their original areas, but are usually not referred to as Protestants because they lack historical ties to the Reformation, and usually lack a classically Protestant theology.

The Church of Ireland is the largest Protestant denomination but is closely rivalled by a large number of Presbyterians.

Elizabeth reinstated the Protestant bible and English Mass, yet for a number of years refrained from persecuting Catholics.

In 1552 a number of insurgent Protestant Imperial princes around Elector Maurice of Saxony by the Treaty of Chambord ceded the Three Bishoprics to King Henry II of France in turn for his support.

Perhaps one of the most popular national heroes of the late 19th century in Victorian Britain, Livingstone had a mythic status, which operated on a number of interconnected levels: that of Protestant missionary martyr, that of working-class " rags to riches " inspirational story, that of scientific investigator and explorer, that of imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of commercial empire.

Small town and rural support comes especially from the traditionally Protestant areas of northern Germany and Brandenburg ( with notable exceptions such as Western Pomerania where CDU leader Angela Merkel was re-elected in 2005 ) and a number of university towns.

He wrote a considerable number of works on the Bible and religious subjects generally.

As his teaching and work with the imperial chapel continued, his duties required the composition of a large number of sacred works, and in his last years it was almost exclusively in religious works and teaching that Salieri occupied himself.

In Brazil, a number of modern religious movements based on the use of ayahuasca have emerged, the most famous of them being Santo Daime and the União do Vegetal ( or UDV ), usually in an animistic context that may be shamanistic or, more often ( as with Santo Daime and the UDV ), integrated with Christianity.

He made a number of Madonnas, single religious figures, and small scenes with comic peasant figures.

On his return to Nuremberg, Dürer worked on a number of grand projects with religious themes, including a crucifixion scene and a Sacra Conversazione, though neither was completed.

Bishop Alexander, so the tale runs, had invited a number of fellow prelates to meet him at breakfast after a great religious function.

The Rule of Saint Benedict is also used by a number of religious orders that began as reforms of the Benedictine tradition such as the Cistercians and Trappists although none of these groups are part of the Benedictine Confederation.

The Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revival that occurred in the U. S. during the early 1800s, saw the development of a number of unrelated churches.

In the early times only the art of pottery and terracotta developed, but from the seventh century onwards, a large number of temples and images were also built on account of the intensified religious passions and the accumulation of wealth in cities.

A number of scholars have argued that the ancient Israelites incorporated the combat myth into their religious imagery, such as the figures of Leviathan and Rahab, the Song of the Sea, Isaiah 51: 9-10's description of God's deliverance of his people from Babylon, and the portrayals of enemies such as Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar.

Although noting in the introduction to ' The Protestors ' that ' Some recorded herein perhaps did not have " all the truth " — so the writer has been reminded ', Eyre nevertheless claimed that the purpose of the work was to ' tell how a number of little-known individuals, groups and religious communities strove to preserve or revive the original Christianity of apostolic times ', and that ' In faith and outlook they were far closer to the early springing shoots of first century Christianity and the penetrating spiritual challenge of Jesus himself than much that has passed for the religion of the Nazarene in the last nineteen centuries '.

One of the two identity discs issued by the South African Navy during WW2 with rank, surname, initials, force number and religious affiliation

No fewer than 545 titles, ranging from satirical poems, political and religious pamphlets and volumes have been ascribed to Defoe ( note: in their Critical Bibliography ( 1998 ), Furbank and Owens argue for the much smaller number of 276 published items ).

In South America there are a number of indigenous traditions and more recent religious movements based on the use of ayahuasca, usually in an animistic context that may be mixed with Christian imagery.

Historically, manual alphabets have had a number of additional applications — including use as ciphers, as mnemonics, and in silent religious settings.

The name ' de Klerk ' ( literally meaning " the clerk " in Dutch ) is derived from Le Clerc, Le Clercq, and de Clercq and is of French Huguenot origin, as are a great number of other Afrikaans surnames, reflecting the French Huguenot refugees who settled in the Cape beginning in the 17th century alongside the Dutch, after they escaped religious persecution in France.

New Thought as a movement had no single origin, but was rather propelled along by a number of spiritual thinkers and philosophers and emerged through a variety of religious denominations and churches, particularly the Unity Church, Religious Science, and Church of Divine Science.

In the eighth century, the iconoclast decrees in Greece caused a number of religious orders to flee the Byzantine Empire and seek refuge elsewhere.

Jakob Böhme was very influential to a number of Christian mystics and religious leaders, including George Rapp and the Harmony Society.

It has a long history, and a great number of prominent religious figures and philosophers have restated its reciprocal, " two-way " nature in various ways ( not limited to the above forms ).

She was brought up within a narrow low church Anglican family, but at that time the Midlands was an area with a growing number of religious dissenters.

It took a number of years for the separation from Rome to be completed, however, and many were executed for resisting the king's religious policies.

Some of the reforms that were actually put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional Muslim veil for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders.

A number of artifacts from the Upper Paleolithic ( 50, 000-13, 000 ) are generally interpreted by scientists as representing religious ideas.