Congregation - Definition and Overview

A congregation is a group of people gathered together. It has at least three uses. The most common is a congregation as the group of members who make up a local Christian church or Jewish synagogue (or those who are present at a service thereat), as opposed to the building itself. (In the polity of a Presbyterian church, several congregations make up a local presbytery.)

Roman Catholic Church

A more specialized use of congregation is its use as the name of a branch of the Roman Curia, the Roman Catholic Church government. Those divisions are:

• Congregation for Bishops
• Congregation for Catholic Education (for Seminaries and Institutes of Study)
• Congregation for the Causes of Saints
• Congregation for the Clergy
• Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
• Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
• Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples
• Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
• Congregation for the Oriental Churches

Universities

Congregation is also used to refer to the assembly of senior members of a university, especially in the United Kingdom, e.g. Regent House in the University of Cambridge, and the House of Congregation and the Ancient House of Congregation in the University of Oxford.

See also

• Congregational church

Example Usage of Congregation