Congregation

A congregation is a group of people gathered together. It has at least three uses. The most common is a congregation as the group of members who make up a local Christian church or Jewish synagogue (or those who are present at a service thereat), as opposed to the building itself. (In the polity of a Presbyterian church, several congregations make up a local presbytery.)

Roman Catholic Church

A more specialized use of congregation is its use as the name of a branch of the Roman Curia, the Roman Catholic Church government. Those divisions are:

• Congregation for Bishops
• Congregation for Catholic Education (for Seminaries and Institutes of Study)
• Congregation for the Causes of Saints
• Congregation for the Clergy
• Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
• Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
• Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples
• Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
• Congregation for the Oriental Churches

Universities

Congregation is also used to refer to the assembly of senior members of a university, especially in the United Kingdom, e.g. Regent House in the University of Cambridge, and the House of Congregation and the Ancient House of Congregation in the University of Oxford.