CONCISTORIO (CONCISTORO). – For Protestants, the c. (they rarely call it concistoro) has multiple forms and meanings. For Calvino (1509–64) in Geneva, the c. was the principal means of dominating the city. It was composed of 12 elders, of whom Calvino was, if not legally, at least in practice, the head. Its competence included judging the citizens’ religious and moral discipline, and for this reason it investigated, admonished, and excommunicated offenders; if this was not sufficient, it denounced them to the magistrates. And since the magistrates, or civil authority, according to Calvino’s doctrine, were to govern the city according to the law of God, while in practice the sole interpreter of divine law was Calvino, he was thus, under the shadow of the c., the absolute head of the city.
Among the Lutherans there are various classes of councils and tribunals called c. Through them the German princes governed the Church in their States. In the Evangelical Church of Prussia, which King Federico Guglielmo III (1797–1840) formed by uniting the Lutherans and the Reformed in his States, there was, after 1851, a supreme c., composed of Lutherans and Reformed. In the Reformed Churches (with the exception of the Presbyterian Churches), the individual local congregations are governed by a c., composed of the local pastor, elders, and deacons: the pastor and elders are responsible for overseeing spiritual interests, while the deacons administer property and charitable works. In the «Chiesa nazionale d'Italia protestante-presbiteriana», organized in 1929, the executive board or council that is to govern the Church is called the «supreme c.».