General Synod

The General Synod is the title of the governing body of some church organizations.

The Anglican Communion

The Church of England

In the Church of England, the General Synod, which was established in 1970 (replacing the Church Assembly), is the legislative body of the Church.

Episcopal Church of the United States

In the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, the equivalent is General Convention.

Other member churches

General Synods of other churches within the Anglican Communion

Other Churches

The United Church of Christ in the United States also calls their main governing body a General Synod. It meets every two years and consists of over 600 delegates from various congregations and conferences.

The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church has as its highest Church court the General Synod. The ARP General Synod meets yearly (in recent years, it has, almost without exception, been held at Bonclarken). The delegates to the General Synod of the ARP Church are the elder representatives elected from each church's Session and all ministers from all presbyteries that comprise the Church (excluding ministers and elders from the independent ARP Synods of Mexico and Pakistan).

Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of North America

The Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of North America, commonly known as the General Synod, was an association of Lutheran church bodies in America that was established in 1820.

The roots of the "General Synod" reach back to the Pennsylvania Ministerium, at whose suggestion the Synod was founded in 1820. Under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Simon Schmucker (1799-1873), the General Synod founded Gettysburg Seminary in 1826 and Gettysburg College in 1832, the oldest continuously operating Lutheran college and seminary in North America.

Like many Protestant denominations, the General Synod was split over the issue of slavery and the political and military conflict of the American Civil War, at which time the United Synod of the South (also known as the General Synod - South) was founded. The General Synod further split over theological issues in 1867, when the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America was formed by dissatisfied members of the General Synod. These three groups were reunited in 1918 with the formation of the United Lutheran Church in America, a predecessor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.