Data source: Gina A. Zurlo and Todd M. Johnson, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| embezzlement | The stealing or taking by fraud of monies entrusted to one’s care; in the present survey, specifically used for very large sums stolen by fraud by top custodians or treasurers. |
| emigrant | A person who leaves a country or region to establish permanent residence elsewhere. |
| emigration | The movement of migrants out of a particular territory. |
| emigre | A person forced to emigrate by political or other circumstances beyond his control. |
| encyclical | A letter sent by a bishop or high church official, especially the Catholic pope, treating a matter of grave or timely importance and intended for extensive circulation. |
| encyclopedia | A work that treats comprehensively either all the various branches of knowledge, or a particular branch of knowledge, arranged either alphabetically or topically. |
| engagement | An initial stage or first step in the process of a foreign mission agency formally beginning or taking responsibility for ministry in a foreign country where hitherto it has had no work; often focused on a particular people group or other segment. |
| enquirers | See decisions. |
| enrolment | A formal procedure in which new church members have their names written on the church’s membership rolls. |
| enrolments | The term used to enumerate the total number of persons in an area or country who have registered for postal Bible correspondence courses, either active at present, or an accumulated total over the years since courses began there. |
| enumeration | Any operation which is designed to yield a population total using a list rather than a simple count. |
| enumeration | The process of listing all relevant items or names or, if very numerous, of counting them. |
| enumeration, Christian | The spelling-out, describing in detail, listing in order, counting, or numbering of a Christian population or of some Christian entity or activity. |
| enumerator | A government employee who administers a census schedule of questions direct to the populace. |
| environment | The aggregate of social, cultural and ecological conditions (as customs, laws, language, religion, economic and political organization, climate, pollution, etc.) that influence the life of an individual or community. |
| eparchy | (1) In the Eastern Orthodox Church, a diocese or ecclesiastical province, especially in the early centuries AD. (2) In Catholic usage a diocese of an Eastern rite, especially Malankara (India). |
| episcopacy | Government of the church by bishops or by a hierarchy. |
| episcopal | Hierarchical, related to a bishop, a diocese, or a denomination or tradition governed by bishops. |
| Episcopal | Used of churches governed by bishops especially in North American Anglicanism. |
| episcopal area | In Episcopalian (Anglican) usage, a subdivision of a diocese that is placed under the episcopal authority of a suffragan or assistant bishop. |
| episcopal commissariat | (symbol EC). A Catholic diocese under a political regime not recognized by the Holy See, which attaches it to a diocese elsewhere. |
| episcopal conferences | Formally-constituted conferences of Catholic bishops, totaling 108 national and 13 international conferences (1996). |
| Episcopalians | North American or USA usage for the term Anglicans (qv). |
| episcopate | The whole body of bishops; office of a bishop, or the period over which a bishop is in office. |
| episcopi vagantes | (Latin). Bishops-at-large (qv). |
Data on 18 categories of religion, including non-religious, by country, province, and people.
Data on all religions, Christian activities, and trends.
Membership data, year begun, and rates of change.
Population and religion data on all major cities & provinces.
Detailed information covering religion, culture, and geography.
A repository of historical data, including a chronology of Christianity from the 1st to 21st centuries.