The Big Christianity Challange
Christianity exists for almost 2,000 years, and as you could imagine, it has quiet a rich history. I'll refer to these - you can later ask about the others קתולים The church was at the very beginning unified. Then, two types of divisions occured. The first, a theological one: Is God one entity, or is he represented in the three (Father, Son, and holy spirit)? The seocnd was organisational: the Eastern Roman Empire (Bizantium) and the Western Roman Empire. The Catholic Church (Roman Catholic,) was the dominant current in the West. It is still the largest denomination in the world, led in an organisational hyrarchy from the Vatican, an independent country in Rome. However, there were many internal fractions within the Church. In the 16th century, sharp criticism, alongside with inability of the Church to become more flexible, and to resume some of its organisaional power to the lay (the regular believers) caused a major break: Martin Luther broke from the Chruch. לותרנים Lutherans is a European denomination, partically it means "those who follow Luther", in other words, a type of Protestants (those who protested against the Catholic establishment). However, it doesn't define all Protestant, but particularly Protestants from Northern Europe and the Scandinavian countries, where it is a state religion and is closely tied to the Scandinavian monarchy (they must be Lutherans , of course). Lutherans are also organised in a hyrarchy, but are less centralised than the Catholics. Naturally, there are Lutherans in the US as well, who immigrated from Sweden, Norway, etc. בבטיסטים You probably mean Baptist. "To baptise" means "lehatbil" in Hebrew. Baptism as a Christian movement developed in England during the 17th century, and wandered quiet early to the US, where it has its stronghold. There are several currents in Baptism itself, all strictly Protestant, and defy several key assumptions of Catholics and other Christian denominations - for example, that grace and good deeds might salvage you - the Baptists believe that faith alone would salvage the believer. There's "Kfar ha-Baptistim" in Israel, where you could actually meet them קלוויניסטים Calvin was a French priets, who travelled to Switzerland (where he and his followers lived) and developed a type of Protestantism, which highlited strict work ethics, and the fact that each has already a predetermination (to heaven or hell) and they must work hard and keep moral life to in order to get to heaven. פרסברטיריאנים This is a Protestant current that developed in Scotland, and actually, the word pretty much described the Church of Scotland. There are relatively many in the Us, because of the mass-immigration from Scotland and (the Protestant parts) of Ireland. This is all from my memory, so I apologise if I forgot something and welcome any corrections. And I'll finish with the truest sentence regarding religions, and especially Protestnts and Catholics: Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle