Protestant denomination in which each member church is self-governing. Although Congregationalists believe that the Christian Church is essentially a gathered community of believers, their important ecumenical contribution is their insistence on the primacy of the local church. The movement came out of the Separatists of the 16th-century English Reformation. Persecution drove the Congregationalists to Holland and the United States (the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620). Emphasis is placed on church meetings, missionary work, and tolerance and freedom of religion.
