Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Uncommon card · No. 87155

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a Mainline Protestant church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of December 31, 2025, it has approximately 2.59 million baptized members in 8,208 congregations. In 2025, Pew Research estimated that 1.4 percent of the United States adult population, or 3.69 million people, self-identifies with the ELCA; more broadly, 2% of U.S. adults, or 5.2 million people, identified with the ELCA and mainline Lutheranism. It is the seventh-largest Christian denomination by reported membership and the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S. The next two largest Lutheran denominations are the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) (with over 1.7 million baptized members) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) (with approximately 340,000 members). There are also many smaller Lutheran church bodies in the U.S., some formed by dissidents...

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