Catholic
The term Catholic has a number of related defined meanings:
1. In Western societies the term Catholic has evolved, to refer to the Roman Catholic Church specifically. see also American Christianity
2. Originally Catholic comes from a Greek word meaning universal (katholika) - and thus, referred to the non-Jewish or gentile church as a whole, as opposed to a particular local church. This is the sense in which it is used in the historic creeds ("one holy, catholic and apostolic church") - and in this sense Protestants, Eastern Orthodox it also refers to the Eastern Catholic churches such as the Ukrainian Catholic, and Maronite churches, which form part of the Roman Catholic Church, yet follow [[Catholic ChurchEastern rather than Roman traditions in liturgy and other matters.[1]
3. Orthodox Church, and Coptic Church consider themselves to be part of the catholic church but NOT Roman Catholic.
4. Catholic can also be used to refer to Independent Catholic churches which have broken away from the Roman Catholic Church. It is used in particular to refer to those groups which while breaking away maintain much of the Roman Catholic church's traditions - as opposed to Protestant churches, which rejected much of the Roman Catholic Church's position when they split from it
5. Catholic also refers to a tendency in Anglicanism (Anglo-Catholicism), which sees the Anglican church as nearer to the Roman Catholic Church than to Protestantism, and thus adopts many of the Roman Catholic church's tradition. A similar tendency also exists in the Lutheran churches.
