The split between East and West
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The church today
Christianity is one of the major religions in the world today. There are Christians in every continent in the world.
The total number of Christians in the world is 2.38 billion.
In Northern Ireland, some 1.4 million people describe themselves as belonging to a Christian faith community or group. However, these groups are not all the same.
Christianity is made up of a number of different faith communities or denominations.
The three main branches of Christianity are Catholic, Orthodox and the Reformed Tradition. The Orthodox group contains the Russian Orthodox and the Greek Orthodox.
The Reformed Tradition contains the Anglican Communion, Methodists, Presbyterians and other smaller Protestant denominations.
Some members of the Anglican Communion (eg some members of the Church of Ireland) also consider themselves to be Catholic, though not Roman Catholic.
Like the Roman Catholic Church, they have bishops, dioceses, and in some cases give special honour to Mary.
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