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Christendom〔 has several meanings. In a cultural sense, it refers to the religion itself, or to the worldwide community of Christians, adherents of Christianity. In its historical sense, the term usually refers to the medieval and early modern period, during which the Christian world represented a geopolitical power juxtaposed with both paganism and especially the military threat of the Muslim world. In the more limited and traditional sense of the word, it refers to the sum total of nations in which the Catholic Church is the established religion of the state, or which have ecclesiastical concordats with the Holy See. In a contemporary sense, it may simply refer collectively to Christian majority countries or countries in which Christianity dominates〔See (Merriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christendom" )〕 or nations in which Christianity is the established religion. ==Terminology and usage== The term ''cristendom'' existed in Old English, but it had the sense now taken by ''Christianity'' (as is still the case with the cognate Dutch ''christendom'' , where it denotes mostly the religion itself, just like the German ''Christentum''). The current sense of the word of "lands where Christianity is the dominant religion" emerges in Late Middle English (by c. 1400). This semantic development happened independently in the languages of late medieval Europe, which leads to the confusing semantics of English ''Christendom'' equalling German ''Christenheit'', French ''chrétienté'' vs. English ''Christianity'' equalling German ''Christentum'', French ''christianisme''. The reason is the increasing fragmentation of Western Christianity at that time both in theological and in political respect. "Christendom" as a geopolitical term is thus meaningful in the context of the Middle Ages, and arguably during the European wars of religion and the Ottoman wars in Europe. The ''Christian world'' is also known collectively as the ''Corpus Christianum'', a translated as ''the Christian body'', meaning the community of all Christians. The Christian polity, embodying a less secular meaning, can be compatible with the idea of both a religious and a temporal body: ''Corpus Christianum''. The ''Corpus Christianum'' can be seen as a Christian equivalent of the Muslim ''Ummah''. The word "Christendom" is also used with its other meaning to frame-true Christianity. A more secular meaning can denote that the term ''Christendom'' refers to Christians considered as a group, the "Political Christian World", as an informal cultural hegemony that Christianity has traditionally enjoyed in the West. In its most broad term, it refers to the world's Christian majority countries, which, share little in common aside from the predominance of the faith. Unlike the Muslim world, which has a geo-political and cultural definition that provides a primary identifier for a large swath of the world, Christendom is more complex. It may be a cultural notion, but has very little weight in international discourse; very few political observers really discuss Christendom, while the Muslim World tends to comprise a civilization in itself. For example, the Americas and Europe are considered part of Christendom, but this region is further subdivided into the West (representing the North Atlantic) and Latin America. It is also less geographically cohesive than the Muslim world, which stretches almost continuously from North Africa to South Asia. There is a common and nonliteral sense of the word that is much like the terms ''Western world'', ''known world'' or ''Free World''. When Thomas F. Connolly said, "There isn't enough power in all Christendom to make that airplane what we want!", he was simply using a figure of speech, although it is true that during the Cold War, just as the totalitarianism of the Communist Bloc presented a contrast with the liberty of the Free World, the state atheism of the Communist Bloc contrasted with religious freedom and powerful religious institutions in North America and Western Europe. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Christendom」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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