CRISTIANI (CHIESA CRISTIANA). — A Protestant denomination, it is the result of three small, nearly simultaneous religious movements that arose in the United States. The first took place in Virginia (1792), where the Methodist pastor Giacomo O' Kelley, dissatisfied with a decision by his bishop and superintendent, after unsuccessfully requesting permission to appeal to the General Conference, separated from them with some of his followers, adopting the name of c. and rejecting any confession of faith apart from the Bible. This schism spread through the southern United States. The second movement took place in New England (1801), where the Baptist minister Abner Jones, desiring greater freedom in ecclesiastical matters, separated from the Baptists, founded a Christian Church like the preceding one, and spread it through the eastern United States. The third arose in Kentucky (1804) among various Presbyterian ministers, who decided to unite and form a Christian Church, free from the constraints of a confession of faith, and spread it through the central and western United States.
These three movements, independent of one another but nevertheless similar, united in 1819. The secession in 1832 of one of their leaders, Barton W. Stone, who joined the Campbellites (v. DISCEPOLI) with 52 Christian churches, caused great confusion, since the Campbellites or Disciples indiscriminately adopted the name of c. or Disciples, while this same name of c. was also retained by those who had not followed Stone. The confusion has not yet entirely disappeared. Finally, in 1929, Congregationalists (v.), and the two united denominations took the name “General Council of the Congregational and Christian Churches.” It should be noted, however, that, given the independence of the local Congregationalist churches, this union does not mean that there is a union between all the Congregationalist denominations and that of the c., but only with those churches that freely wished to accept II.
Camillo Crivelli