EVANGELICAL CHURCH, a religious body formerly known as the Evangelical Association, founded in America at the beginning of the 19th century by Jacob Albright (1759-1808), a German Pennsylvanian, born and reared in the Lutheran Church. Converted in 1791, he began to preach the Gospel to his German speaking compatriots in 1796 and organized classes in 1800. The new body adopted in general the Wesleyan standards of doctrine, and in a somewhat more democratic form the polity of the M.E. Church. Albright was elected bishop in 1807 and died in 18o8. The first General Conference was held in 1816. The General Con ference, a delegated body composed of an equal number of minis terial and lay members representing the annual conferences, is the supreme administrative, legislative and judicial body in the church and meets quadrennially. In the quadrennium between 1887 and 1891 a division took place resulting from internal controversies.
The majority section continued to function as the Evangelical Association, the name adopted in 1816, and the other as the United Evangelical Church, until in 1922, at a joint General Conference in Detroit, Mich., the two bodies reunited under the name the Evangelical Church. This church (1928) has a total membership of 252,000, 2,30o ministers and 2,600 churches. It is divided into 3o annual conferences, 24 in the United States, 2 in Canada, 3 in Europe and 1 in Japan. It has important missions in China and Africa. There are two publishing houses in America, one in Har risburg, Pa., and one in Cleveland, O. There are in the United States three colleges, two seminaries, two orphan homes, six homes for the aged and ten hospitals. In Europe it has 32,000 mem bers, chiefly in Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland and Latvia, 2 publishing houses, 1 seminary, 4 old peoples' homes, 15 hospitals and 600 deaconess-nurses. There are seven bishops, one of whom resides in Europe. (S. P. S.)