Presbyterians are named not for a belief but for how they run church
Presbyterianism takes its name from presbyters, the elders who govern it through layered assemblies rather than bishops. Born from Calvin's Geneva and carried home by John Knox, it became Scotland's national church, was written into the 1707 union with England, and now counts roughly 75 million members worldwide.
Structure is the defining feature. Each congregation is led by a session of elders, and decisions climb through presbytery, synod and general assembly, each a council rather than a single ruler. Teaching elders, the ministers, preach and administer sacraments; a congregation may call a minister, but the presbytery must approve, and the minister belongs to the presbytery rather than the local flock. Ruling elders are elected by members to share leadership.
The theology is Reformed, stressing God's sovereignty, the authority of scripture and salvation by grace through faith. John Calvin shaped it, and John Knox, a Scottish priest who studied under him in Geneva, brought it north. The Polish reformer John a Lasco, who founded a Stranger's Church in London on Genevan lines, also left a mark on British Presbyterianism.
The Scottish milestones came quickly. In August 1560 the Scottish Parliament adopted the Scots Confession, and that December the First Book of Discipline set out ten church districts under superintendents, the ancestors of presbyteries. The Westminster Assembly, sitting from 1643 to 1649, later produced the Westminster Confession and catechisms, which remain second only to the Bible for many Presbyterians. Arguments over how strictly ministers must accept that confession explain many of the tradition's splits.
Roots reach further back than the Reformation. Scottish Presbyterians look to the Celtic church founded through Saint Columba's sixth-century mission, whose monks kept a different Easter date from Rome until the Synod of Whitby in 664 imposed the Roman calendar. One survival is the singing of metrical psalms to old folk tunes. Scots and Scots-Irish emigrants later took the tradition to the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and in the 20th century Presbyterians helped drive the ecumenical movement, including the World Council of Churches.
Source: Presbyterianism
