answersLogoWhite

0


Best Answer

The Pilgrims were a specific group of Calvinist Christians. After King Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the rest of the Catholic Church, many English subjects were dissatisfied with the king acting as the highest church authority. Encouraged by the Protestant Reformation in Germany, Holland, and Switzerland, these dissatisfied subjects separated from the Church of England in favor of a type of Christianity without a church hierarchy with the Bible as the only authority. Without a hierarchy, many different interpretations of the Christian faith were practiced by various separatist groups. As a whole, these groups can also be called puritans. One group, originally called the Leiden Congregation (because they left England and lived in Leiden, Holland for several years), believed that they could not successfully live with their beliefs among the English (and the English authorities also pressured the government of Holland to remove them). This group set out to live as a congregation in America. They became known as the Pilgrims because they saw themselves as settlers in a promised land with a promised future.

The Pilgrim Church no longer exists as a single entity. They were a type of Calvinists and puritans. Their religion is similar to today's Baptists, Congregationalists, and Methodists, but none of these religions is identical to the Pilgrims' religion. There are some smaller congregational religions that are closer in many ways to the religion of the Pilgrims, like a current church called The Christian Church and another called the Church of God, but these are not major denominations and have memberships of only a couple thousand.
They were a branch of Christianity called Puritans and they got along with the Native Americans unlike Christopher Columbus' troops who had come to America much earlier from Another Country.

User Avatar

Wiki User

7y ago
This answer is:
User Avatar

Add your answer:

Earn +20 pts
Q: What religion were the pilgrims?
Write your answer...
Submit
Still have questions?
magnify glass
imp