The word church has several meanings, including:
- Church — a building used for religious services, usually referring specifically to those for Christian worship. See also temple for more general information.
- In Christian theology, the Body of Christ composed of Jesus and all Christians, living and dead. This is another sense of the word used in the New Testament, also used by the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds ("... one holy catholic and apostolic church ..."), and the sense used by many Christians. The theology of the Church is called ecclesiology.
- An assembly of Christian believers who worship together. This is one translation of the Greek Koine word "Ecclesia," used in the New Testament, and is the sense used by many Christians.
- A religious organization or denomination within Christendom (such as the Catholic Church or Lutheran Church).
- A surname. Those with the surname "Church" include the logician Alonzo Church (famous for the Church-Turing thesis), the painter Frederic Edwin Church, the writer Francis Pharcellus Church (famous for the editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"), and George W. Church, Sr., founder of Church's Chicken, a chain of franchised fried chicken restaurants.
- The Church, a pop band formed in Sydney, Australia in the 1980s.
Several non-Christian religious groups also use the word "church" in self-reference; for instance, the Church of All Worlds, the Church of Scientology, or the Buddhist Churches of America. The term is, however, not generally used by Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu groups for either the worshipers or the building. See mosque, synagogue, and temple for buildings of worship of these and other faiths.
et:Kirik
