Who licensed it, and who condemned it
What each church does with a demon.
Every claim in this corpus was licensed or condemned by some church, and until now the site could date a disagreement without being able to locate it. These are the bodies, the separations that produced them, and what each one’s own texts say — asked the same questions, in the same order, so the answers can be set beside each other.
Two sets of questions, and the order matters. First what the churches actually divided over — where authority sits, how a person is justified, what happens at the table — read from the confessions they adopted. Then what each does when a spirit is believed present, read from the rites. None of the separations was about the second. All of the answers to it moved anyway.
What this section holds
12 bodies · 10 with sourced positions · 70 positions · 6 read from a transcribed text · 50 described · 14 inferred
Only one rite in this corpus is transcribed clause by clause, and it is Rome’s. That means Rome will always look best evidenced on this page — a fact about what this project has read rather than about which church is most careful. The Byzantine and Sarum rites are public domain and reachable, and transcribing them is the single change that would most improve this section.
Where they split
One inheritance, 11 separations
Drawn as a descent rather than a timeline, because the useful fact about Sarum and Rome is not that they are a century apart but that they come out of the same trunk. A filled node is a body the corpus can quote; an outlined one is a junction in the tree or an admitted gap. Note what the splits are about — authority, justification, the sacraments. Demonology is almost never the reason a church divides, and the answers below moved anyway.
Choose a body to trace the separations back to the undivided church
What they divided over
Where they actually differ
The questions on the edges of the tree above — authority, justification, the sacraments — asked of every body that confessed an answer. These are read from the documents the churches themselves adopted, which is why this half of the matrix waited on the confessional texts reaching the corpus.
in order of descent — click a question to sort by where bodies stand on it
| Body | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eastern Orthodox | Councils and tradition◐ described | Synergy and theosis◐ described | A mystery, undefined◐ described | Infants, regenerative◐ described | The larger Eastern canon◐ described | Synergy throughout◐ described |
| Oriental Orthodox | Councils and tradition◐ described | Synergy and theosis○ inferred | — | — | The larger Eastern canon○ inferred | — |
| Anabaptist | The congregation◐ described | Faith alone○ inferred | Memorial◐ described | Believers only◐ described | — | — |
| Lutheran | Confession and synod◐ described | Faith alone◐ described | Sacramental union◐ described | Infants, regenerative◐ described | Sixty-six, the rest read○ inferred | Single election○ inferred |
| Church of England | Confession and synod◐ described | Faith alone◐ described | Spiritual presence◐ described | Infants, regenerative◐ described | Sixty-six, the rest read◐ described | Single election◐ described |
| Reformed | Scripture alone◐ described | Faith alone◐ described | Spiritual presence◐ described | Infants, covenantal◐ described | Sixty-six books◐ described | Double predestination◐ described |
| Roman Catholic | One office◐ described | Faith formed by love◐ described | Transubstantiation◐ described | Infants, regenerative◐ described | Seventy-three books◐ described | Single election◐ described |
| Pentecostal and charismatic | The congregation◐ described | — | Memorial○ inferred | Believers only◐ described | — | On foreknown faith○ inferred |
Colour runs from the most concentrated answer on each question to the most dispersed — authority in one office through to authority in a congregation, and so on. It ranks arrangement, never merit. A dashed cell is a question this corpus cannot answer for that body, left visible rather than filled. Two words are not a church’s position: each row links to the body’s own account, in its own terms.
And what followed from it
What each does with a demon
The same bodies, asked the questions the rites themselves put. Set this grid against the one above and the section’s point is visible without being asserted: none of the separations was about demonology, and the answers here moved anyway. The clearest case is the charismata column — a body confessing that the gifts ceased has nowhere to put a deliverance ministry, and the branch furthest from that position is the branch that produced one.
in order of descent — click a question to sort by where bodies stand on it
| Body | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eastern Orthodox | Continue, through the offices○ inferred | Priest or monastic◐ described | Pastoral judgement◐ described | In a person◐ described | God only◐ described | Custom, unwritten◐ described | Liturgical restoration◐ described |
| The Sarum Use | — | Priest or monastic◐ described | — | In a person○ inferred | God, then the spirit○ inferred | Custom, unwritten○ inferred | Declared ended○ inferred |
| Reformed | Ceased with the apostles◐ described | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Roman Catholic | Continue, through the offices○ inferred | Priest, by mandate● transcribed | A closed list of signs● transcribed | In a person● transcribed | God, then the spirit● transcribed | Written rubrics● transcribed | Declared ended● transcribed |
| Pentecostal and charismatic | Continue and expected◐ described | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Deliverance ministry | Continue and expected◐ described | Any believer◐ described | Presumed where symptoms fit◐ described | Also inherited◐ described | The spirit directly◐ described | Custom, unwritten◐ described | Never formally closes◐ described |
Colour runs from the most concentrated answer on each question to the most dispersed — authority in one office through to authority in a congregation, and so on. It ranks arrangement, never merit. A dashed cell is a question this corpus cannot answer for that body, left visible rather than filled. Two words are not a church’s position: each row links to the body’s own account, in its own terms.
The same questions, asked of each
The answers in full
Two words in a cell are not a church’s position. Each answer below says what the body holds, what that is read from, and how firmly this corpus can stand behind it.
Are the gifts still given?
Not an exorcism question, and the one that decides the rest. A body holding the gifts ceased with the apostles has no room for a deliverance ministry; a body holding they continue has no reason to license one.
From ceased outright, to continuing and expected of everyone.
Continuing, through the sacramental life rather than as a separate category.
The exorcistic prayers sit in the priest's ordinary service book, which places the charism inside the offices.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Ceased with the apostles; the canon being complete, no new revelation is given.
Westminster I makes the former ways of God's revealing now ceased, scripture being committed wholly to writing.
Continuing, but ordered through the offices and requiring permission to exercise.
The 1614 rite's requirement of express episcopal licence is this position applied to exorcism specifically.
Continuing, expected, and available to every believer.
The Azusa periodical reports tongues, healing and deliverance as present facts rather than as claims requiring defence.
The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) · 1906–1908
Continuing, and available to any believer.
The premise of the whole literature: the gifts did not cease, so the commission to cast out spirits still stands and needs no office to exercise it.
They Shall Expel Demons · 1998
Who may act?
The first thing a rite settles, usually in its opening rubric, and the sharpest divide between an office and a gift.
From one mandated office, to any believer at all.
A priest, within the ordinary services of the church.
The prayers are carried in the Euchologion, the priest's service book, and are used at baptism as well as in affliction.
Euchologion: the Exorcisms of St Basil and St John Chrysostom · attributed 4th c.; text as transmitted
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
The parish priest, as part of the ordinary pastoral round.
The forms sit in the Manuale beside baptism, marriage and visitation of the sick.
Manuale ad Usum Percelebris Ecclesiae Sarisburiensis · medieval use; printed 1506
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
A priest, and only with the bishop's express permission.
Title X opens by requiring the bishop's licence and the priest's own conviction that possession is genuine.
Rituale Romanum, Titulus X: De exorcizandis obsessis a daemonio · 1614
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Any believer, without office or permission.
Grounded in the commission of Mark 16 rather than in an appointment — which is why it needed no institution to spread through.
They Shall Expel Demons · 1998
What counts as evidence?
Where a tradition decides it is dealing with a spirit rather than an illness, a grief, or nothing at all.
From a short closed list of signs, to discernment with no listed test.
No enumerated signs. The prayers presume a pastoral judgement already made.
No diagnostic list appears in the material the corpus holds.
Euchologion: the Exorcisms of St Basil and St John Chrysostom · attributed 4th c.; text as transmitted
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established. The corpus has not transcribed the rite.
Named and dated here, not yet read clause by clause — so this is a gap rather than a finding.
Manuale ad Usum Percelebris Ecclesiae Sarisburiensis · medieval use; printed 1506
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Three signs, with a rubric warning against believing them readily.
Speech in unknown tongues, knowledge of hidden and distant things, strength beyond the person's condition.
Rituale Romanum, Titulus X: De exorcizandis obsessis a daemonio · 1614
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Behavioural checklists, contested from inside the movement.
The 1973 manual is the source of the form; its critics within the movement object to the checklist itself more than to any entry on it.
Where is the spirit?
All of these inherit gospel scenes in which spirits are in people. What each adds beyond that is the largest difference between them.
From in a person only, to in places, objects and bloodlines.
In the person — and, at baptism, addressed as something renounced by everyone.
The baptismal use treats the renunciation of the devil as part of initiation rather than as a crisis.
Euchologion: the Exorcisms of St Basil and St John Chrysostom · attributed 4th c.; text as transmitted
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
In the person, and in salt and water blessed for use.
Exorcism of the elements is a standard feature of Western manuals of this period.
Manuale ad Usum Percelebris Ecclesiae Sarisburiensis · medieval use; printed 1506
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
In the person, and treated as a distinct occupant that can be addressed and dismissed.
The rite asks the spirit its name and number, which presumes a countable occupant with an identity.
Rituale Romanum, Titulus X: De exorcizandis obsessis a daemonio · 1614
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
In the person, the family line, the object, and the territory.
Generational curses, legal ground and territorial spirits are all twentieth-century extensions; the territorial version dates to the late 1980s.
Territorial Spirits & Strategic-Level Spiritual Warfare · 1989-1996
Whom do the words address?
A formal difference a reader can check by counting clauses rather than by weighing tone.
From God only, to the spirit directly and by name.
God, far more than the spirit.
The prayers adjure and narrate rather than interrogate; the direction of travel is upward.
Euchologion: the Exorcisms of St Basil and St John Chrysostom · attributed 4th c.; text as transmitted
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Both God and the spirit, in the Western pattern the 1614 rite later fixes.
Read from the family of Western manuals rather than from the text itself.
Manuale ad Usum Percelebris Ecclesiae Sarisburiensis · medieval use; printed 1506
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Both, in a fixed order: God first, then the spirit, imperatively.
The transcribed clauses run invocation, adjuration, command, in that sequence.
Rituale Romanum, Titulus X: De exorcizandis obsessis a daemonio · 1614
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
The spirit, directly, and often at length.
The session form is a dialogue with what is addressed; binding and loosing language is applied to the spirit rather than to conduct.
What restraint is written in?
Every one of these traditions knows the practice can harm. What each does about that is what popular accounts leave out.
From written rubrics that must be satisfied first, to none recorded.
The form itself. A prayer asking God to act cannot be mishandled the way an interrogation can.
Deprecatory form, sacramental setting, no diagnostic step to get wrong.
Euchologion: the Exorcisms of St Basil and St John Chrysostom · attributed 4th c.; text as transmitted
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
The parish setting and the priest's ordinary authority.
Read from where the forms sit in the book rather than from a stated caution.
Manuale ad Usum Percelebris Ecclesiae Sarisburiensis · medieval use; printed 1506
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Explicit and extensive: permission, scepticism, and a caution about illness.
The 1614 rubrics warn against credulity; the 1999 revision adds that medical and psychiatric judgement be sought first.
Rituale Romanum, Titulus X: De exorcizandis obsessis a daemonio · 1614
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Written by individual authors rather than by an institution, and unevenly.
Several writers caution against assuming a spiritual cause for illness; the corpus records that caution where a text makes it and its absence where it does not.
The Three Battlegrounds · 1989
What closes the matter?
Whether the encounter ends, and who declares it, separates a rite from an ongoing practice.
From a declared end by an office, to a practice that never formally closes.
The prayer ends and the person returns to the sacramental life of the church.
No separate closing formula is needed, because the prayer was never a proceeding.
Euchologion: the Exorcisms of St Basil and St John Chrysostom · attributed 4th c.; text as transmitted
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
The rite ends, in the Western pattern.
Untranscribed here.
Manuale ad Usum Percelebris Ecclesiae Sarisburiensis · medieval use; printed 1506
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
A dismissal. The spirit is commanded to depart and give place.
The final transcribed clauses command departure and name where the spirit is to go.
Rituale Romanum, Titulus X: De exorcizandis obsessis a daemonio · 1614
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Often nothing formal. The literature describes maintenance rather than dismissal.
Legal ground has to be kept closed, which makes the matter continuing rather than concluded.
Operating in the Courts of Heaven · 2014; revised 2016
Where does binding authority rest?
The question underneath most of the others. A body that locates authority in one office can settle a dispute; a body that locates it in a congregation divides instead, which is why the right-hand end of this axis has produced by far the most separations.
From a single office, to each gathered congregation.
The seven ecumenical councils, received by the whole church.
Dositheus legislates synodically and appeals to conciliar reception rather than to an office.
The Confession of Dositheus (Acts of the Synod of Jerusalem) · 1672
The three councils it accepts, and the patriarchs in synod.
These churches receive Nicaea, Constantinople and Ephesus and not Chalcedon; authority is conciliar, and the council list is where the separation is visible.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
The gathered congregation, under scripture.
Schleitheim's ban is exercised by the congregation itself, before the breaking of bread, without appeal to any court or bishop.
Scripture, confessed through the Augsburg Confession and its symbols.
The confession is submitted as the churches' account of what they teach, and the Lutheran bodies are named for it.
The Augsburg Confession · 1530
Scripture as sufficient, with the church authorised to order what scripture does not settle.
Article VI makes scripture sufficient for salvation; Article XX gives the church authority in controversies but forbids it to contradict scripture.
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion · 1563; final form 1571
Scripture alone, as the only infallible rule.
Westminster opens with scripture rather than with God, and makes the whole counsel of God either expressly set down in it or deducible from it.
Scripture and tradition together, judged by the see of Rome.
Trent receives scripture and unwritten traditions with equal affection and reserves judgement of their sense to the church.
The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent · 1545–1563
Scripture, read in a congregation that expects to be led directly.
A movement without a synod, whose founding document is a newspaper.
The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) · 1906–1908
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
How is a person justified?
The material question of the Reformation, and the one Trent attached anathemas to. It divides the Latin West from itself more sharply than anything else on this list.
From a process worked out through the sacraments, to a verdict declared once on faith.
Synergy: grace and the will cooperating, toward participation in God.
Dositheus affirms free will cooperating with grace and rejects the Calvinist account circulating under Cyril Lucaris's name.
The Confession of Dositheus (Acts of the Synod of Jerusalem) · 1672
Synergy, worked out as theosis.
The Eastern soteriological pattern, held in common with Constantinople despite the christological separation.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
By faith, with a visibly separated life as its evidence.
Read from the separation and ban articles rather than from a statement on justification, which Schleitheim does not make.
By faith, freely, for Christ's sake.
Article IV: men are freely justified for Christ's sake through faith, not by their own merits.
The Augsburg Confession · 1530
By faith only.
Article XI: we are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of Christ by faith, and not for our own works.
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion · 1563; final form 1571
By faith alone, faith itself being the gift.
Westminster XI: faith is the alone instrument of justification, and is not itself a work.
Faith working through love, increased through the sacraments.
Session VI: justification is not faith alone, and grows by observance of the commandments and the sacraments.
The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent · 1545–1563
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
What happens at the table?
The question that split the Reformation from itself within a decade. Luther and Zwingli agreed against Rome on nearly everything else and could not agree here, and the Protestant bodies have been separate ever since.
From a change of substance, to a memorial with no presence claimed.
A change that is real and is not defined.
Dositheus affirms the change of the elements in the strongest terms available to it.
The Confession of Dositheus (Acts of the Synod of Jerusalem) · 1672
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
A breaking of bread in remembrance, for the gathered and separated.
Schleitheim's third article makes the supper a memorial for those already baptised and united.
The body and blood truly present and distributed, with the bread remaining.
Article X affirms the true presence against those who teach otherwise, without adopting the change of substance.
The Augsburg Confession · 1530
Received after a heavenly and spiritual manner; transubstantiation denied.
Article XXVIII rejects transubstantiation by name and describes the body as given and received spiritually, by faith.
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion · 1563; final form 1571
Truly received, spiritually, the body remaining in heaven.
Heidelberg treats the supper as a sure sign of a real participation by the Spirit; Westminster denies any corporal presence.
The Heidelberg Catechism · 1563
Transubstantiation: the whole substance changed.
Session XIII defines the conversion of the substance of bread and wine and names the change transubstantiation.
The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent · 1545–1563
A memorial ordinance.
The evangelical position the movement inherited from its holiness parentage.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Who is baptised, and what does it do?
The axis with the sharpest historical consequence on it: the bodies at the far end were drowned for holding their position by bodies at both of the others.
From infants, effecting regeneration, to believers only on profession.
Infants, and it effects regeneration.
Infant baptism with chrismation and communion administered together; the renunciation of the devil is part of the order.
The Confession of Dositheus (Acts of the Synod of Jerusalem) · 1672
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Believers only, on profession of faith.
Schleitheim's first article: baptism to those taught repentance and who believe their sins are taken away, and to none of the infants.
Infants, and it is necessary to salvation.
Article IX; the baptismal exorcism and renunciation were retained in the Lutheran orders.
The Augsburg Confession · 1530
Infants, and the Prayer Book calls the child regenerate.
Article XXVII; the baptismal office of the Book of Common Prayer gives thanks that the child is regenerate.
The Book of Common Prayer · 1662
Infants, as a sign and seal of the covenant rather than as regeneration itself.
Westminster XXVIII separates the sign from the grace and denies that all who are baptised are regenerated.
Infants, and it effects regeneration.
Session VII canons on baptism; the pre-baptismal exorcism is retained in the Roman order.
The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent · 1545–1563
Believers only, with Spirit baptism understood as a further and distinct experience.
The Azusa material treats baptism in the Spirit, evidenced by tongues, as the movement's distinctive claim.
The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles) · 1906–1908
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Which books are scripture?
A disagreement that is invisible until it matters, and then decides arguments elsewhere: several positions on this site's own subject rest on books not every body accepts.
From the largest canon to the smallest.
The larger canon of the Greek Old Testament.
Dositheus enumerates the disputed books as scripture against the Reformed position that they are not.
The Confession of Dositheus (Acts of the Synod of Jerusalem) · 1672
The broadest canon in Christianity.
The Ethiopian canon includes books no other church receives, among them Jubilees and 1 Enoch.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Sixty-six books, with the disputed ones printed and read as useful.
Luther's translation placed them between the testaments as good to read but not equal to scripture, and the Lutheran bibles followed.
Sixty-six books for doctrine; the rest read for example of life.
Article VI names the disputed books and assigns them exactly this use.
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion · 1563; final form 1571
Sixty-six books. The rest are of no authority and are not to be approved or made use of.
Westminster I enumerates the canon and disposes of the remainder in a single clause.
Seventy-three books, the deuterocanon included without distinction.
Session IV lists the canon book by book and anathematises anyone who does not receive it entire.
The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent · 1545–1563
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Who is chosen, and when?
The question Dort was called to settle and did not, since the losing side simply left. It is the clearest case here of a division inside a communion that had already divided.
From election decided in eternity, to a free will that can refuse throughout.
Election on foreknowledge, with the will genuinely free throughout.
Dositheus explicitly rejects predestination to reprobation.
The Confession of Dositheus (Acts of the Synod of Jerusalem) · 1672
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Election to life affirmed; the reprobate held to be lost by their own resistance.
The Lutheran symbols affirm election and refuse the symmetrical decree.
Predestination to life, affirmed; reprobation, not mentioned.
Article XVII states election to life and is silent on the other half, which is the silence the body has argued within ever since.
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion · 1563; final form 1571
Election and reprobation both decreed, unchangeably.
Dort answers the Remonstrance point by point; Westminster III states both halves of the decree.
The Canons of the Synod of Dort · 1618–1619
Election affirmed; reprobation to sin denied; assurance of one's own election denied.
Session VI condemns both the claim that God predestines to evil and the claim that a believer may be certain of election.
The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent · 1545–1563
Election on foreknown faith; the offer held to be genuinely open to all.
The Wesleyan-holiness lineage the movement comes out of, which took the Remonstrant side.
Not established here. The corpus holds no text of this body’s that answers it, and a guess would be worth less than the gap.
Each in its own terms
The bodies
The undivided church
to 1054The root of the tree, and the reason a tree is the right shape: every body below inherits the same gospel exorcisms and the same New Testament vocabulary.
Eastern Orthodox
prayers attributed 4th c.The oldest continuously used exorcistic material in the corpus, carried in the priest's service book and said at baptism as well as in affliction.
Oriental Orthodox
451The oldest surviving division in Christianity, and the one most often omitted — which is why it is here even though the corpus cannot yet speak for its practice.
The Latin West
to 1517The Western church before the Reformation divided it — the trunk from which Sarum, Rome and everything Protestant descends.
The Sarum Use
printed 1506, suppressed 1559What a Western exorcism looked like before Rome standardised one — a parish priest's forms, in the same book as baptisms and burials.
Anabaptist
1525; confessed 1527The body at the far end of three axes at once, and the only one on this chart persecuted by every other body on it.
Lutheran
1517; confessed 1530The first Reformation body, and the most conservative of them: it kept everything it was not compelled to give up, including the baptismal exorcism.
Church of England
1534, settled 1559The body whose settlement removed an exorcism rite and put nothing in its place — a real position, and one the corpus cannot yet source.
Reformed
1523 onward; confessed 1563–1646Separated from Rome on justification and from Luther on the supper — the clearest case here of a division inside a division.
Roman Catholic
1614, revised 1999The most precisely specified exorcism in Christian history, and the one most misrepresented in popular accounts — most of its length is instructions not to proceed.
Pentecostal and charismatic
1906 onwardThe movement that answered the charismata question in the affirmative, and so made room for everything in the deliverance literature below it.
Deliverance ministry
1973 onwardThe only body here with no service book. Its founding conviction is that what the gospels show requires no office and no permission — so there is nothing to license and no text to follow.
Named rather than omitted
What this section cannot yet say
A section on what churches do with demons that silently covered four of them would imply the rest have no position. These are the ones the corpus cannot speak for, and what it would take to change that.
Lutheran and Reformed practice
Both now carry doctrinal positions, read from Augsburg, Heidelberg, Dort and Westminster. What is still missing is practice: the church orders that would say what either body actually did when someone was believed to be afflicted. Luther kept the baptismal exorcism and later Lutherans removed it, and this corpus holds neither the order that carried it nor the one that dropped it.
Church of England practice after 1559
The doctrinal row is filled from the Articles and the Prayer Book. The practice row is not, and cannot be until Canon 72 of 1604 — which required episcopal licence before any attempt at dispossession, and is a restraint clause in all but name — and the twentieth-century diocesan guidelines are in the corpus.
Oriental Orthodox practice
The body is now on the chart, where it belongs: its separation in 451 is six centuries older than the Great Schism and is routinely left off charts that begin at 1054. Its exorcistic material, the Ethiopian tradition especially, is of great antiquity and entirely unrepresented here.
The Church of the East
Separated earlier still, and absent from this chart altogether rather than merely unsourced. Adding it means deciding how to date a separation that the two sides have described differently for sixteen centuries.
The Remonstrants
Named in the predestination row as the side that left Dort, and carried nowhere as a body. They are the clearest case available of a schism caused by a doctrine on this matrix rather than by authority, which is exactly the case this section is thinnest on.
This section records what each body holds and where that is written down. It takes no position on which is right, and none of it is instruction: the rites are described by what they contain and how they are ordered, never as something to follow. The rites themselves are laid out clause by clause on the rites page.