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This is a list of the largest Protestant denominations. It aims to include sizable Protestant communions, federations, alliances, councils, fellowships, and other denominational organisations in the world and provides information regarding the membership thereof. The list is inevitably partial and generally based on claims by the denominations themselves. The numbers should therefore be considered approximate. Protestant bodies being considered in this article are divided into:

• transdenominational bodies with more than 50 million members
• international bodies with more than 10 million members
• national bodies with more than 5 million members
• non-national bodies with more than 5 million members

In 2010, the most numerous international bodies accounted for more than a half of worldwide Protestant population, while the most numerous national bodies accounted for more than 200 of the world's 800 million Protestants.

Transdenominational organisations are very large and often characterized by overlapping membership as opposed to international and national bodies. Some of the national groupings cannot be considered churches in mainstream Protestant ecclesiology even when they constitute a single denomination. A good example is the Protestant Church in Germany, which differs denominationally and encompasses Lutheran, Reformed and United subchurches.

Denominational families

According to Christianity Global: A Guide to the World's Largest Religion from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, in 2020, in the World, there were:

• 644,260,000 Pentecostal and Charismatics, corresponding to 8.3% of the global population;
• 97,399,000 Anglicans (not including United Churches),corresponding to 1.2% of the global population;
• 84,192,000 Baptists (not including United Churches),corresponding to 1.1% of the global population;
• 77,792,000 United and Uniting Churches, corresponding to 1.0% of the global population;
• 70,432,000 Presbyterians, Reformeds and Congregationals (not including United Churches), corresponding to 0.9% of the global population;
• 69,894,000 Lutherans (not including United Churches), corresponding to 0.9% of the global population;
• 31,683,000 Methodists (not including United Churches), corresponding to 0.4% of the global population; and
• 29,011,000 Adventists, corresponding to 0.4% of the global population.

Lists of the largest Protestant bodies

Transdenominational bodies

Transdenominational bodies include people across all denominations that participate in a movement which goes beyond their Protestant branch, like Evangelicalism, the Charismatic movement, or the Neo-charismatic movement. These are of international scope.

The World Evangelical Alliance is so far the only major transdenominational evangelical Protestant organization that operates internationally. It represents 600 million Christians. The Porvoo Communion brings Lutherans and Anglicans in Europe into a common communion.

International bodies

International bodies tend to bring together only one Protestant branch which shares common founders, tenets and history. Among the most sizeable international bodies are the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, the Anglican Communion and the Lutheran World Federation – each with more than 70 million members.

National bodies

Although there are "mostly national" denominations like the United Methodist Church (mainly concentrated in the United States), or denominations with dispersed membership like the Apostolic Church and the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) (both with membership dispersed around the world) that have a far larger membership than required to be on this list, they operate worldwide and cannot be considered alongside other national bodies like, for example, the Church of Christ in Congo, which operates solely in the Democratic Republic of Congo and is not active beyond that country's borders.

The Church of England, the Church of Christ in Congo, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the Assembleias de Deus and the Protestant Church in Germany constitute the most numerous national bodies with more than 20 million members each.

Non-national bodies

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (December 2017)

These denominations operate worldwide and cannot be considered alongside other national bodies.

Many sizeable non-national bodies happen to be Pentecostal. The list also includes the largest Adventist church (the Seventh-day Adventist Church), the largest Methodist church (the United Methodist Church) and the largest African initiated church (the Zion Christian Church) and the second largest Pentecostal denomination in the world, The Pentecostal Mission (TPM) or (New Testament Church/Universal Pentecostal Church/Ceylon Pentecostal Mission).

See also

• Protestantism by country
• List of Christian denominations by number of members
• List of Christian denominations
• List of the largest Protestant churches in the USA
• List of religious organizations

Notes

1. In this comparison, the Pew Forum's figure of 800 million Protestants is used. Mentioned international bodies together accounted for some 420 million people in 2010.
2. In this comparison, the Pew Forum's figure of 800 million Protestants is used. Mentioned national bodies accounted for a little more than 200 million people in 2010.
3. Number corresponding to the sum of member statistics, whose sources are available at World Communion of Reformed Churches#Member churches.
4. ^ This ecclesiastical body includes united churches, which were formed by the merger of churches from more than one Protestant tradition.
5. WMC reports representing 80,000,000 members. However, independent statistics, based on 2020, report that there were around 31 million Methodists in the world. The WMC does not represent all Methodists in the world and its affiliated United Churches report having only 8.718 million members. The numbers presented correspond to the sum of the statistics of all member denominations, according to the list in World Methodist Council#Members.
6. The English church can be traced back to 597. It separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534.

References

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29. ^ Svenska kyrkan i siffror Archived 2017-11-01 at the Wayback Machine Svenska kyrkan
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