Believers Church
| Believers Church | |
|---|---|
| Founder | K. P. Yohannan |
| Primate | Rt. Rev. Dr. K. P. Yohannan Bishop |
| Polity | Episcopal |
| Territory | 33 dioceses in South Asia |
| Members | ≈ 50000 |
| Website | www |
Believers Church is a Christian denomination with congregations and parishes worldwide. The church now has an episcopal governance, breaking with its founding presbyterian model,. The church claimed this change was to maintain order and accountability. The church holds Christ as the head of the Church (Col 1:18) hence it is governed by a committee of Bishops, the Synod, with one central Bishop holding the honorary title of "first among equals" and follows fundamentally centrist doctrines of Evangelical Protestantism. Believers Church is administratively based in the state of Kerala in southwestern India. In 2015, the church reported it was re-organized into 33 dioceses; a decrease from the 36 dioceses reported by Smith in 2009. According to Believers Church, its membership consists of more than 2.6 million people in 10 countries speaking a hundred languages. The Church currently has 13 Bishops, and the current Metropolitan Bishop is Dr. K. P. Yohannan.
The original church was rooted in Pentecostalism. On 6 February 2003, Rt. Rev. Dr. K. J. Samuel, the Moderator Bishop of the Church of South India (a part of the worldwide Anglican Communion), along with six other bishops consecrated Rt. Rev. Dr. K.P. Yohannan as a bishop for apostolic succession, and there after installed as the first Metropolitan of the Believers Church: which metamorphosed it into an emerging protestant church with that is Biblical in Faith, Evangelical in nature, Apostolic in origin, Ecumenical in outlook, and Episcopalian in governance. The church adheres to the Nicene Creed, biblical faith, and traditions of the historical church backed up with its own canonical constitution.
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