free church

free church, generally, any Protestant religious body that exists in or originates in a land having a state church but that is itself free of governmental or external ecclesiastical control. Examples of such free churches are the Baptists in Scotland, where the established church is Presbyterian; the Presbyterians in England, where the Anglican church is established; the Waldensian church in Italy, where Roman Catholicism was legally established as the state religion until 1985; and the...