Iglesia Evangelica Dominicana Puerta Plata 2009

The Evangelical Church of the Dominican Republic (''Iglesia Evangélica Dominicana'') is one of the largest

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

denominations in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...

with approximately 10,000 members in 55 congregations.

History

The Evangelical Church of the Dominican Republic was founded in 1922 as an ecumenical project by three denominations from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

: the Methodist Episcopal Church, the United Brethren (both now the

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelical ...

), and the

Presbyterian Church (USA) The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PC(USA), is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US, and known for its liberal stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and ...

. Previously in 1919 these three denominations created the Alliance for Christian Service in Santo Domingo. Later with 29 members the Evangelical Church was founded, and the work spread rapidly. In 1960 the church united with the

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles W ...

Methodists, and in 1960 with the

Moravians Moravians ( cs, Moravané or colloquially , outdated ) are a West Slavic ethnographic group from the Moravia region of the Czech Republic, who speak the Moravian dialects of Czech or Common Czech or a mixed form of both. Along with the Silesi ...

. By the time of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

it had more than 1,000 members. Today it is the second largest

church in the country. In 1978, the Evangelical Church of the Dominican Republic, together with Dominican Episcopal Church founded the Center for Theological Studies of Santo Domingo, a Protestant seminary.

Memberships

The Evangelical Church of the Dominican Republic is a member of the

World Communion of Reformed Churches The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Calvinist churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Chris ...

,{{cite web, url=http://www.wcrc.ch/node/164 , title=Member churches | Bringing together 80 million Reformed Christians worldwide , accessdate=August 18, 2013 , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120808192417/http://www.wcrc.ch/node/164 , archivedate=August 8, 2012 World Methodist Council and the Latin American Council of Churches (''Consejo Latinoamericano de Iglesias'').

Notes

External links

Consejo Latinoamericano de Iglesias
United and uniting churches Methodist denominations Protestantism in the Dominican Republic Christian organizations established in 1922 Christian denominations in the Caribbean Reformed denominations in the Caribbean Evangelical denominations in North America