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U.S. Open Cup

The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, commonly known as the U.S. Open Cup (USOC), is a knockout cup competition in men's soccer in the United States of America. It is the country's oldest ongoing national soccer competition. The competition was first held during the 1913–1914 season as the National Challenge Cup, with Brooklyn Field Club winning a trophy donated by Thomas Dewar for the promotion of American soccer. It was renamed and dedicated to North American Soccer League (NASL) and Major League Soccer (MLS) executive Lamar Hunt by the United States Soccer Federation in 1999.

The 2022 U.S. Open Cup marked the return of the competition after the 2020 and 2021 tournaments were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ending 106 years of consecutive play.

In its current format, the U.S Open Cup is contested by approximately 100 clubs from the professional leagues sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation – Major League Soccer (MLS), the United Soccer League's Championship and League One divisions, the National Independent Soccer Association (NISA), and MLS Next Pro – as well as amateur clubs in the earlier rounds of the tournament that qualify through their respective leagues. The overall champion is awarded $300,000 in prize money and a berth in the CONCACAF Champions Cup, while the runner-up receives $100,000, and the furthest-advancing team from each lower-division league receives $25,000.

MLS teams have dominated the competition since the league began play in 1996. No lower division team has won the Open Cup since the Rochester Rhinos in 1999, and the most recent lower division team to reach the final was Sacramento Republic FC in 2022. The most recent champions of the competition, Houston Dynamo FC, won their second title after defeating Inter Miami CF in the 2023 final. From 1996 to 2023, MLS teams had participated in every Open Cup competition.

On December 15, 2023, MLS announced that affiliated reserve teams from MLS Next Pro would be sent in place of MLS teams for the 2024 edition. U.S. Soccer subsequently denied the request, ruling that MLS teams must compete in the 2024 edition of the U.S. Open Cup.

Format
The competition is a single-elimination tournament that has been contested by at least 80 teams since the 2014 edition. This pool consists of the American clubs in the professional leagues, which are Major League Soccer, the league now known as the USL Championship, USL League One and National Independent Soccer Association as well as amateur teams from the Premier Development League (now USL League Two), National Premier Soccer League, the United States Adult Soccer Association, and US Club Soccer. The qualifying rounds have evolved over the years. Amateur and lower-league teams play in months leading up to the formal tournament rounds, with qualifying winners advancing to face USL clubs in geographical pairings in what most recently has been termed the "second round". The winner of each match progresses to the next round and the loser is eliminated from the tournament. Most MLS clubs now enter play in the third round, played in April, matched geographically with the winners of the second round. The highest eight ranked MLS teams enter in the Round of 32 in May. Pairings in each round are done by draw within geographic areas, until a final bracket of 4 teams each in 4 geographic regions is established. After the fourth round, no new teams are introduced, leading to quarterfinals in June, the semifinal round in August, and a final match to determine the champion in September. Every match, including the final, lasts 90 minutes plus any additional stoppage time. If no clear winner has been determined after 90 minutes of normal time, 30 minutes of extra time is played. If the score is still level after extra time then the winner is decided by a penalty shoot-out.

Qualification
Through the 2011 edition, eight teams from each level of the American Soccer Pyramid took part in the competition proper, with each league narrowing its delegation separately in the spring before the competition officially began in the summer. In some cases, additional teams played in qualifying rounds to gain entry. One example was found with MLS clubs, as only the top six from the previous regular season received automatic bids, while the bottom U.S.-based MLS teams faced each other to qualify for the remaining two MLS slots.

Beginning in 2012, the competition was expanded from its previous 40 teams to 64, with the qualifying process radically changed. The National Premier Soccer League received six places, plus the possibility of a seventh in a playoff against a team from the amateur US Club Soccer setup. Nine clubs from the USASA earned places, as did 16 USL Premier Development League teams. Each of these organizations has its own qualifying process to determine its entrants. These 32 teams competed in the first round of the Cup, with the winners meeting all 16 USL Pro and NASL teams in the second round. The 16 U.S.-based MLS teams entered in the third round.

In 2013 the competition was expanded to 68 teams. All U.S.-based Division I, II and III teams participated in the tournament proper: 16 from Major League Soccer, six from the North American Soccer League and 12 from USL PRO. The remaining 34 spots in the tournament field were filled by amateur teams from the Adult Council category–16 from the Premier Development League, eight from U.S. Adult Soccer Association regional qualifying, eight from the National Premier Soccer League, one from US Club Soccer and one from the United States Specialty Sports Association.

The process for determining the site for the Open Cup tournament semifinals and final was changed in 2013. In past years, the sites for the final three matches of the tournament had been determined through a sealed-bid process, but in 2013 the hosts of those games were determined by a coin flip. Home teams throughout the entire tournament were determined by random selection. Since 2008, the champion of the U.S. Open Cup has earned the right to play in the CONCACAF Champions Cup. The first team to represent the U.S. as Open Cup champion was 2007's winner, New England Revolution.

Starting in 2016, lower-division professional clubs owned by higher-division professional clubs are no longer eligible to participate in the U.S. Open Cup. This removed the MLS reserve clubs in USL from the 2016 competition, after issues of clubs holding back players from their USL sides in 2015 in order to keep them eligible to play for the parent MLS club. Players are only allowed to play for one club in any US Open Cup season. Amateur clubs remain eligible to enter even if they are owned by professional clubs. Initially, "hybrid affiliate" clubs—i.e., lower-division professional clubs that are staffed but not owned by higher-division clubs—also remained eligible, but those clubs were also banned effective with the 2016 competition. This last change was proposed by the Houston Dynamo, which were the senior club to Rio Grande Valley FC Toros in the first such arrangement in the U.S. game; that arrangement ended after the 2021 season, and those two teams would be drawn against each other in 2022.

History
The competition dates back to 1913–1914, when it was known as the "National Challenge Cup". In 1999, U.S. Soccer honored patron Lamar Hunt by changing the official title of the tournament to the "Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup". The winners of the tournament were awarded the Dewar Cup, donated by Sir Thomas Dewar for the promotion of soccer in the United States in 1912, until it was retired due to poor condition in 1979. It was brought back into use by the United States Adult Soccer Association in 1997, but is now back on permanent display at the National Soccer Hall of Fame at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, and the recent winners of the tournament have been awarded a new, different trophy. Despite this, the name of each winning club is still added to the base of the original Dewar Cup.

The National Challenge Cup was the first truly national cup competition in the United States, as previous cups had been effectively relegated to regional status by the difficulties in coordination and travel caused by the size of the United States in the early 1900s. While U.S. Soccer had initially administered the competition, in 1985 they handed over management to the USASA. In 1995, U.S. Soccer resumed its administration of the competition.

Maccabee Los Angeles of California and Bethlehem Steel of Pennsylvania both won the cup a record five times, while Greek American AA of New York and Seattle Sounders FC are tied for the record for most consecutive cup victories at three. The old NASL did not participate in the Open Cup.

Since MLS' debut in 1996, MLS clubs have won the cup in all but one of those years. The Rochester Rhinos of the 2nd division A-League were surprise winners in 1999, defeating four MLS clubs, including the Colorado Rapids 2–0 in the championship match. The first professional team to win in the modern era were the Richmond Kickers of the USISL (the predecessor to the A-League, later known as the USL First Division, USL Pro, United Soccer League, and now as the USL Championship) in 1995, one year before the start of MLS. D.C. United were the first MLS team to win in 1996.

The tournament was expanded to 64 teams in 2012 with all MLS teams in the United States receiving an automatic berth; previously, MLS participants were determined through a qualifying tournament or were selected based on league standings. A rule change enacted in 2016 removed U.S. Open Cup entries for teams that were majority-owned by another team in a higher tier, which mostly affected USL Championship teams operated by MLS as reserve or developmental squads.

The first round of the 2020 edition was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament was canceled entirely in August 2020, with all qualified teams automatically qualified for the following year; however, the 2021 Open Cup was canceled as well, due to schedule congestion as an effect of the pandemic. The tournament resumed in 2022 with 71 professional clubs out of a total field of 103, both modern-era records.

On December 15, 2023, Major League Soccer announced that its teams would no longer enter in the U.S. Open Cup starting in the 2024 edition, instead opting to send their MLS Next Pro teams. However, on December 20, 2023, U.S. Soccer announced that they had denied MLS the necessary waiver to allow affiliated MLS Next Pro teams to play in the tournament. A compromise announced on March 1, 2024, allowed eight MLS teams to participate with senior squads and eleven to be represented by MLS Next Pro teams; the teams participating in the 2024 CONCACAF Champions Cup will not send teams to the Open Cup. The eight MLS participants are defending Open Cup champions Houston Dynamo and the seven highest-ranked teams in the 2023 regular season standings who did not qualify for the Champions Cup. D.C. United will not send a representative due to their lack of a MLS Next Pro affiliate.

Hosting
Through the 2010 U.S. Open Cup, U.S. Soccer used sealed bids to award home matches. From 2011, U.S. Soccer uses a simple coin toss to decide which team hosts each match for most rounds. When the draw has more than two teams involved, such as the fourth round, U.S. Soccer uses a sealed envelope system. Four envelopes are opened, the first and second are home one and two followed by away one and two. This can be modified due to teams not applying to host and previous round winners not being able to be paired against each other.

Career goals
The following is a table of the leading career goal scorers in the U.S Open Cup during the modern professional era (1995–present).

Broadcasting
ESPN+ had exclusive broadcast rights for the 2019 and 2022 Open Cups. Prior to 2019, the tournament had little broadcast exposure, with the final and select matches being broadcast on ESPN networks and all other matches streamed through the USSF's YouTube channel.

On March 1, 2022, U.S. Soccer and Turner Sports announced an 8-year exclusive multimedia rights deal for the United States men's and women's national teams. Cindy Parlow Cone, president of U.S. Soccer, confirmed in a separate interview that the new deal would include the Open Cup. Early round U.S. Open Cup matches will air on the Bleacher Report app and the Bleacher Report Football YouTube channel.

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Local churches (affiliation)

The local churches are a Christian group which was started in China in the 1920s and have spread globally. The basic organizing principle of the local churches is that there should be only one Christian church in each city, a principle that was first articulated by Watchman Nee in a 1926 exposition of the seven churches in Asia in Revelation 1:11. The local churches do not take a name, but some outsiders referred to the group as the "Little Flock" as they sang from a hymnal entitled Hymns for the Little Flock.

From early on, members of this group emphasized a personal experience of Christ and the establishment of a pattern of church practice according to the New Testament. Though assemblies identifying as "local churches" can be found worldwide, there are no definitive statistics available on membership, partly because the largest number of members are in China. Estimates range from five hundred thousand to two million members worldwide.

Origins
The development of the local churches can be traced to the conversion of Watchman Nee in Fuzhou, China. Nee began to meet outside of denominations with a small group of believers in 1922. At an early age, Nee committed his life to Christian ministry and began to publish his works on the Christian faith and on church practice after moving to Shanghai in 1927.

Nee appreciated the teachings of the Plymouth Brethren, especially John Nelson Darby, and many of Nee's teachings, including not taking a name, plural eldership, disavowal of a clergy-laity distinction, and worship centered around the Lord's Supper, mirror that source. From 1930 to 1935, there was communication internationally between the local churches and the branch of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church associated with James Taylor, Sr. The Taylor group of Exclusive Brethren saw the churches in China as a parallel work of God. However, Nee and other Chinese leaders disagreed with their prohibition of celebrating The Lord's Supper with Christians outside of their own meetings. Matters came to a head when Exclusive Brethren leaders discovered that Nee had broken bread with non-Brethren Christians, including T. Austin-Sparks in London and Thornton Stearns in Hartford, during a 1933 visit to the United Kingdom and North America. After a series of letters exchanged between leaders in New York, London, and Shanghai over a two-year period, on 31 August 1935, the Exclusive Brethren in London wrote to Shanghai terminating their fellowship.

Nee's seminal works expounding his view of local churches—The Assembly Life and Concerning Our Missions —were written against the background of his experience with the Exclusive Brethren. Nee taught that there should only be one church in every city, that Christians should meet together simply as believers living in the same city regardless of differences in doctrine or practice. Nee believed that this would eliminate divisions between Christians and provide the broadest basis upon which all believers could meet. Both Nee and Witness Lee emphasized the New Testament's references to churches by the name of the city (for example, in Acts, the Christians in Jerusalem being referred to as "the church which was at Jerusalem" (NKJV), as well as other verses with the same convention, including 1 Corinthians 1:2; Revelation 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7 and 14). Since Nee and Lee taught that there should only be one church in each city, and that that city was the extent of a church's jurisdiction, members of the local churches usually refer to their congregations as "the church in (city name)." According to Nee, this means that "the church in her locality must be inclusive, not exclusive,” that is, it “must include all the children of God in the whole spectrum of Christian faith and practice."

Though Nee took the lead among the local churches in China, it was through one of his co-workers—Witness Lee —that the local churches spread worldwide. The two men first met in Lee's hometown of Yantai in 1932. Two years later, Lee moved to Shanghai to work with Nee. One of Lee's responsibilities there was the editing of some of Nee's publications. In the following years, Nee published many works and held regular conferences and trainings for church workers. Nee, Lee and other workers established over seven hundred local churches throughout China before the Communist Revolution resulted in the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Near the end of the Communist Revolution, Nee sent Witness Lee to Taiwan to ensure that their work would survive the political turmoil.

Developments after 1949
The Denunciation Movement that began in 1951 after China entered the Korean War aimed at severing Christian groups in China from foreign influence, including expelling all foreign missionaries. As a side effect of the disbanding of mission churches, the local churches experienced "a spectacular rise in membership." The Denunciation Movement turned to leading Chinese Christians who would not join the Three-Self Reform Movement. Nee, who managed his family's pharmaceutical company, was imprisoned in 1952 during the Five-Anti Campaign and died in a labor camp 20 years later. Meanwhile, the work in Taiwan led by Witness Lee had grown to more than twenty thousand members in sixty-five churches. Witness Lee visited the United States in 1958 and moved there in 1962, settling first in Los Angeles. Today there are 250 local churches in the United States with approximately 30,000 members, and local churches can be found on all six inhabited continents.

Church meetings
The local churches practice mutuality in their meetings based on verses such as 1 Corinthians 14:26 ("Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up."). Participants are encouraged to request hymns, make brief comments, or offer prayers or praises at will. This is particularly evident in "prophesying meetings" in which members speak one after another usually based on their recent learnings and experiences from their Christian walk and/or what they have studied throughout the previous week from the Bible, usually with the help of the commentary books by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, including the periodical Holy Word for Morning Revival published by Living Stream Ministry.

Beliefs
The local churches believe that: 1. The Bible is the Word of God, written under His inspiration word by word (2 Tim. 3:16), and is the complete and only written divine revelation of God to man (Deut. 4:2; 12:32; Prov. 30:5-6; Rev. 22:18-19).

2. There is one God (Deut. 6:4; 1 Cor. 8:4b; Isa. 45:5a), who is triune—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Matt. 28:19)—coexisting (Matt. 3:16-17; 2 Cor. 13:14) and coinhering (John 14:10-11) in three persons, or hypostases, distinct but never separate, from eternity to eternity.

3. Christ, the only begotten Son of God (John 1:18; 3:16), even God Himself (John 1:1), became a genuine man through incarnation (John 1:14), having both the divine and human natures (Rom. 9:5; 1 Tim. 2:5), the two natures being combined in one person and being preserved distinctly without confusion or change and without forming a third nature.

4. Christ died for our sins and was raised bodily from the dead (1 Cor. 15:3-4; Acts 4:10; Rom. 8:34), has been exalted to the right hand of God as Lord of all (Acts 5:31; 10:36), and will return as the Bridegroom for His bride, the church (John 3:29; Rev. 19:7), and as the King of kings to rule over the nations (Rev. 11:15; 19:16).

5. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (Eph. 2:5, 8) and in His completed work, resulting in our justification before God (Rom. 3:24, 28; Gal. 2:16) and in our being born of God to be His children (John 1:12-13).

6. The church as the unique Body of Christ, the issue of the work of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23), is composed of all genuine believers in Christ (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:12) and, according to the New Testament revelation, is manifested in time and space in local churches, each of which includes all the believers in a given city, regardless of where they meet or how they may otherwise identify themselves (1 Cor. 1:2; 1 Thes. 1:1; Rev. 1:11).

7. All the believers in Christ will participate in the divine blessings in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth for eternity (Rev. 21:1—22:5).

Evaluation
In the first decade of the 2000s, the local churches were the subject of two extensive evaluations. These evaluations were performed against the backdrop of decades of controversy (see Local Church controversies). The first was conducted by a faculty panel at Fuller Theological Seminary. After a two-year study, the Fuller panel stated, "It is the conclusion of Fuller Theological Seminary that the teachings and practices of the local churches and its members represent the genuine, historical, biblical Christian faith in every essential aspect." After a six-year study, the Christian Research Institute published a 2009 special issue of their journal in December 2009 with the words "We Were Wrong" on the cover. In it Hank Hanegraaff, Elliot Miller, and Gretchen Passantino published their findings, which resulted in a complete reversal of earlier criticisms.

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Nontrinitarianism

Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian theology of the Trinity—the belief that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence (from the Ancient Greek ). Certain religious groups that emerged during the Protestant Reformation have historically been known as antitrinitarian.

According to churches that consider the decisions of ecumenical councils final, trinitarianism was definitively declared to be Christian doctrine at the 4th-century ecumenical councils, that of the First Council of Nicaea (325), which declared the full divinity of the Son, and the First Council of Constantinople (381), which declared the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

In terms of number of adherents, nontrinitarian denominations comprise a small minority of modern Christians. After the denominations in the Oneness Pentecostal movement, the largest nontrinitarian Christian denominations are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, La Luz del Mundo, and Iglesia ni Cristo. There are a number of other smaller groups, including Christadelphians, Church of the Blessed Hope, Christian Scientists, Dawn Bible Students, Living Church of God, Assemblies of Yahweh, Members Church of God International, Unitarian Christians, Unitarian Universalist Christians, The Way International, the Philadelphia Church of God, The Church of God International, the United Church of God, Church of God General Conference, Restored Church of God, Christian Disciples Church, and Church of God of the Faith of Abraham.

Nontrinitarian views differ widely on the nature of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Various nontrinitarian philosophies, such as adoptionism and monarchianism, existed prior to the codification of the Trinity doctrine in AD 325, 381, and 431, at the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus. Nontrinitarianism was later renewed by Cathars in the 11th through 13th centuries, in the Unitarian movement during the Protestant Reformation, in the Age of Enlightenment of the 18thcentury, and in some groups arising during the Second Great Awakening of the 19thcentury.

The doctrine of the Trinity, as held in mainstream Christianity, is not present in the other major monotheistic Abrahamic religions.

Beliefs
Christian apologists and other Church Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, having adopted and formulated the Logos Christology, considered the Son of God as the instrument used by the supreme God, the Father, to bring the creation into existence. Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Hippolytus of Rome and Tertullian in particular state that the internal Logos of God (Gr. Logos endiathetos, Lat. ratio)—his impersonal divine reason—was begotten as Logos uttered (Gr. Logos prophorikos, Lat. sermo, verbum), the Word personified, becoming an actual person to be used for the purpose of creation.

The Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition) states: "to some Christians the doctrine of the Trinity appeared inconsistent with the unity of God. ... they therefore denied it, and accepted Jesus Christ, not as incarnate God, but as God's highest creature by whom all else was created. ... [this] view in the early Church long contended with the orthodox doctrine." Although the Trinitarian view became the orthodox doctrine in mainstream Christianity, variations of the nontrinitarian view are still held by a relatively small number of Christian groups and denominations.

Various views exist regarding the relationships between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
 * Those who believe that Jesus is not Almighty God, nor absolutely equal to God, and not the co-eternal or co-equal with Father in everything, but was either God's subordinate Son and Servant, the highest Angel and Son of God that eventually became a perfect Man, God's true firstborn before ages, a perfect messenger sent from God, the greatest prophet of Israel, and the Jewish Messiah, or the perfect created human:
 * Adoptionism (2nd century AD) holds that Jesus became divine at his baptism (sometimes associated with the Gospel of Mark) or at his resurrection (sometimes associated with Saint Paul and Shepherd of Hermas);
 * Arianism – Arius (AD c.250 or 256–336) believed that the pre-existent Son of God was directly created by the Father, before all ages, and that he was subordinate to God the Father. Arius' position was that the Son was brought forth as the very first of God's creations, and that the Father later created all things through the Son. Arius taught that in the creation of the universe, the Father was the ultimate creator, supplying all the materials and directing the design, while the Son worked the materials, making all things at the bidding and in the service of God, by which "through [Christ] all things came into existence". Arianism became the dominant view in some regions in the time of the Roman Empire, notably the Visigoths until 589. The Third Council of Sirmium in 357 was the high point of Arianism. The Seventh Arian Confession (Second Sirmium Confession) held that both homoousios (of one substance) and homoiousios (of similar substance) were unbiblical and that the Father is greater than the Son in all things, and that the Father alone is infinite and eternal, and that the Logos is God's true firstborn and subservient Son who was made perfect flesh for our sakes and for the glory of the Father (this confession was later known as the Blasphemy of Sirmium): "But since many persons are disturbed by questions concerning what is called in Latin substantia, but in Greek ousia, that is, to make it understood more exactly, as to 'coessential,' or what is called, 'like-in-essence,' there ought to be no mention of any of these at all, nor exposition of them in the Church, for this reason and for this consideration, that in divine Scripture nothing is written about them, and that they are above men's knowledge and above men's understanding";
 * Psilanthropism – Ebionites (1st to 4th centuries AD) observed Jewish law, denied the literal virgin birth and regarded Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and the greatest prophet of God only;
 * Socinianism – Photinus taught that Jesus was the sinless Messiah and redeemer, and the only perfect human son of God, but that he had no pre-human existence. They interpret verses such as John 1:1 to refer to God's "plan" existing in God's mind before Christ's birth, and that it was God's plan that "became flesh", as the perfect man Jesus;
 * Unitarianism views Jesus as the son of God, subordinate and distinct from his Father;
 * Many Gnostic traditions held that the Christ is a heavenly Aeon but not one with the Father.
 * Those who believe that the Father, the resurrected Son and the Holy Spirit are different aspects of one God, as perceived by the believer, rather than three distinct persons:
 * Modalism – Sabellius (fl. c.215) stated that God took numerous forms in both the Hebrew and the Christian Greek Scriptures, and that God has manifested himself in three primary modes regarding the salvation of mankind. He contended that "Father, Son, and Spirit" were different roles played by the same divine person in various circumstances in history; thus God is Father in creation (God created a Son through the virgin birth), Son in redemption (God manifested himself as Jesus for the purpose of his death upon the cross), and Holy Spirit in regeneration (God's Spirit within the Son and within the souls of Christian believers). In this view, God is not three distinct persons, but rather one person manifesting himself in multiple ways. Trinitarians condemn this view as a heresy. The chief critic of Sabellianism was Tertullian, who labeled the movement "Patripassianism", from the Latin words pater for "father", and passus from the verb "to suffer", because it implied that the Father suffered on the cross. It was coined by Tertullian in his work Adversus Praxeas, ChapterI: "By this Praxeas did a twofold service for the devil at Rome: he drove away prophecy, and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete, and he crucified the Father." The term homoousion (ὁμοούσιον, literally same being) later adopted by the Trinitarian Nicene Council for its anti-Arian creed had previously been used by Sabellians.
 * Those who believe that Jesus Christ is Almighty God, but that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are actually three distinct almighty "Gods" with distinct natures, acting as one divine group, united in purpose:
 * Tri-theism – John Philoponus, an Aristotelian and monophysite in Alexandria, in the middle of the 6th century, saw in the Trinity three separate natures, substances, and deities, according to the number of divine persons. He sought to justify this view by the Aristotelian categories of genus, species and individuum. In the Middle Ages, Roscellin of Compiegne, the founder of Nominalism, argued for three distinct almighty Gods, with three distinct natures, who were one in mind and purpose, existing together eternally, interacting together from times past, in perfect cooperation, acting together as one divine group or godhead over the universe, in creation and redemption. And that the Logos took on a subservient role, but was equal in power and eternity with the One called Father. Roscellin said, though, like Philoponus, that unless the three persons are tres res (three things with distinct natures), the whole Trinity must have been incarnate. And therefore, since only the Logos was made flesh, the other two persons must have had distinct "natures", separate from the Logos, and so had to be separate and distinct Gods, though all three were one in divine work and plan and operation. In this view, they would be considered "three Gods in one Godhead". This notion was condemned by St. Anselm.
 * Those who believe that the Holy Spirit is not a person:
 * Binitarianism – Adherents include those people through history who believed that God is only two co-equal and co-eternal persons, the Father and the Word, not three. They taught that the Holy Spirit is not a distinct person, but is the power or divine influence of the Father and Son, emanating out to the universe, in creation, and to believers;
 * Dualism;
 * Marcionism – Marcion (AD c.110–160) believed there were two deities, one of creation and judgment (in the Hebrew Bible) and one of redemption and mercy (in the New Testament).

Modern Christian groups

 * Christadelphians hold the unitarian belief that although Jesus is the Son of God, this is only a relational title toward the Father who alone is truly God. Christ's personhood, therefore, is human, not divine, (believing this to be necessary in order to save humans from their sins ). The "Holy Spirit" terminology in the Bible is interpreted as referring to God's impersonal power, or God's character/mind (depending on the context).
 * Church of God General Conference (Abrahamic Faith).
 * The Cooneyites is a Christian sect that split from the Two by Twos in 1928 following Edward Cooney's excommunication from the main group; they deny the Living Witness Doctrine.
 * Iglesia ni Cristo (Tagalog for Church of Christ) views Jesus as human but endowed by God with attributes not found in ordinary humans, though lacking attributes found in God. They contend that it is God's will to worship Jesus. INC rejects the Trinity as heresy, adopting a version of unitarianism.
 * Jehovah's Witnesses (and other Bible Student movement groups such as the Associated Bible Students ) teach that God the Father is uniquely Almighty God. They believe that Jesus is God's first and only direct creation, and that God is greater than Jesus. They contrast worship of God with relative "obeisance" (in the sense of homage, as to a king) to Jesus, and consider Jesus to be God's high priest and mediator for imperfect humans. They believe that Jesus is Michael the archangel and the "Angel of the Lord" of Exodus, and that he left heaven to be born as a perfect human, and then resumed his pre-human identity in heaven, but exalted to God's right hand. They do not believe that the Holy Spirit is an actual person, but consider it to be God's divine active force.
 * The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct beings that are not united in substance, a view sometimes called social trinitarianism. They believe the three individual deities are "one" in will or purpose, as Jesus was "one" with his disciples, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit constitute a single godhead united in purpose. Latter-day Saints believe that Christ is the Firstborn of the Father, that he is subordinate to God the Father (Matthew 26:39), and that Christ created the universe. Latter-day Saints do not subscribe to the ideas that Christ was unlike the Father in substance and that the Father could not appear on earth, or that Christ was adopted by the Father, as presented in Arianism. Latter-day Saints assert that both God and the resurrected Christ have perfected glorified, physical bodies, but do not otherwise classify deity in terms of substance. While Latter-day Saints regard God the Father as the supreme being and literal father of the spirits of all humankind, they also teach that Christ and the Holy Spirit are equally divine and that they share in the Father's "comprehension of all things".
 * The Members Church of God International believes in the divinity of Christ but rejects the doctrine of Trinity.
 * Oneness Pentecostalism is a subset of Pentecostalism that believes God is only one person, and that he manifests himself in different ways, faces, or "modes": "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost) are different designations for the one God. God is the Father. God is the Holy Spirit. The Son is God manifest in flesh. The term Son always refers to the Incarnation, and never to deity apart from humanity." Oneness Pentecostals believe that Jesus was "Son" only when he became flesh on earth, but was the Father prior to being made human. They refer to the Father as the "Spirit" and the Son as the "Flesh". Oneness Pentecostals reject the Trinity doctrine, viewing it as pagan and unscriptural, and hold to the Jesus' Name doctrine with respect to baptisms. Oneness Pentecostals are often referred to as "Modalists" or "Sabellians" or "Jesus Only".
 * Denominations within the Sabbatarian tradition (Armstrongism) believe that Christ the Son and God the Father are co-eternal, but do not teach that the Holy Spirit is a being or person. Armstrong theology holds that God is a "Family" that expands eventually, that "God reproduces Himself", but that originally there was a co-eternal "Duality", God and the Word, rather than a "Trinity".
 * Swedenborgianism holds that the Trinity exists in one person, the Lord God Jesus Christ. The Father, the being or soul of God, was born into the world and put on a body from Mary. Throughout his life, Jesus put away all human desires and tendencies until he was completely divine. After his resurrection, he influences the world through the Holy Spirit, which is his activity. In this view, Jesus Christ is the one God; the Father as to his soul, the Son as to his body, and the Holy Spirit as to his activity in the world. This view is very similar in many ways to Sabellianism, Modalism, Oneness, or Jesus Only beliefs.
 * Numerous Unitarian Christian organizations exist around the world, the oldest of which is the Unitarian Church of Transylvania. An umbrella organization for these groups is the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, though only some members and affiliates of that body consider themselves exclusively or predominantly Christian. In the United States, "Unitarian" often refers to members and congregations within the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), a non-Christian group formed in 1961 from the merger of the American Unitarian Association with the Universalist Church of America. Though both of these predecessor groups were originally Christian, the UUA does not have a shared creed and does not identify as a Christian Unitarian organization.

Early Christianity
Although nontrinitarian beliefs continued and were dominant among some peoples—for example, the Lombards, Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Vandals—for hundreds of years, the Trinity doctrine eventually gained prominence in the Roman Empire. Nontrinitarians typically argue that early nontrinitarian beliefs, such as Arianism, were systematically suppressed (often to the point of death). After the First Council of Nicaea, Roman Emperor Constantine I issued an edict against Arius' writings, which included systematic book burning. In spite of the decree, Constantine ordered the readmission of Arius to the church, removed the bishops (including Athanasius) who upheld the teaching of Nicaea, allowed Arianism to grow within the Empire and to spread to Germanic tribes on the frontier, and was himself baptized by an Arian bishop, Eusebius of Nicomedia. His successors as Christian emperors promoted Arianism, until Theodosius I came to the throne in 379 and supported Nicene Christianity.

The Easter letter that Athanasius issued in 367, when the Eastern Empire was ruled by the Arian Emperor Valens, specified the books that belong to the Old Testament and the New Testament, together with seven other books to be read "for instruction in the word of godliness"; it also excluded what Athanasius called apocryphal writings, falsely presented as ancient. Elaine Pagels writes: "In AD 367, Athanasius, the zealous bishop of Alexandria... issued an Easter letter in which he demanded that Egyptian monks destroy all such unacceptable writings, except for those he specifically listed as 'acceptable' even 'canonical'—a list that constitutes the present 'New Testament'".

Nontrinitarians see the Nicene Creed and the results of the Council of Chalcedon as essentially political documents, resulting from the subordination of true doctrine to state interests by leaders of the Catholic Church, so that the church became, in their view, an extension of the Roman Empire. Nontrinitarians (both Modalists and Unitarians) assert that Athanasius and others at Nicaea adopted Greek Platonic philosophy and concepts, and incorporated them in their views of God and Christ.

The author H. G. Wells, later famous for his contribution to science-fiction, wrote in The Outline of History: "We shall see presently how later on all Christendom was torn by disputes about the Trinity. There is no evidence that the apostles of Jesus ever heard of the Trinity, at any rate from him."

The question of why such a central doctrine to the Christian faith would never have been explicitly stated in scripture or taught in detail by Jesus himself was sufficiently important to 16th century historical figures such as Michael Servetus to lead them to argue the question. The Geneva City Council, in accord with the judgment of the cantons of Zürich, Bern, Basel, and Schaffhausen, condemned Servetus to be burned at the stake for this and his opposition to infant baptism.

The Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics describes the five stages that led to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity:
 * 1) The acceptance of the pre-human existence of Jesus as the (middle-platonic) Logos, namely, as the medium between the transcendent sovereign God and the created cosmos. The doctrine of Logos was accepted by the Apologists and by other Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, such as Justin the Martyr, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Ireneus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Lactantius, and in the 4th century by Arius;
 * 2) The doctrine of the timeless generation of the Son from the Father as it was articulated by Origen in his effort to support the ontological immutability of God, that he is ever-being a father and a creator. The doctrine of the timeless generation was adopted by Athanasius of Alexandria;
 * 3) The acceptance of the idea that the son of God is of the same transcendent nature (homoousios) as his father. This position was declared in the Nicene Creed, which specifically states the son of God is as immutable as his father;
 * 4) The acceptance that the Holy Spirit also has ontological equality as a third person in a divine Trinity and the final Trinitarian terminology by the teachings of the Cappadocian Fathers;
 * 5) The addition of the Filioque to the Nicene Creed, as accepted by the Roman Catholic Church.

Following the Reformation
By 1530, following the Protestant Reformation, and the German Peasants' War of 1524–1525, large areas of Northern Europe were Protestant, and forms of nontrinitarianism began to surface among some "Radical Reformation" groups, particularly Anabaptists. The first recorded English antitrinitarian was John Assheton (1548), an Anglican priest. The Italian Anabaptist "Council of Venice" (1550) and the trial of Michael Servetus (1553) marked the clear emergence of markedly antitrinitarian Protestants. Though the only organised nontrinitarian churches were the Polish Brethren who split from the Calvinists (1565, expelled from Poland 1658), and the Unitarian Church of Transylvania (founded 1568). Nonconformists, Dissenters and Latitudinarians in Britain were often Arians or Unitarians, and the Doctrine of the Trinity Act 1813 allowed nontrinitarian worship in Britain. In America, Arian and Unitarian views were also found among some Millennialist and Adventist groups, though the Unitarian Church itself began to decline in numbers and influence after the 1870s.

Points of dissent
Nontrinitarian Christians with Arian or Semi-Arian views contend that the weight of scriptural evidence supports Subordinationism, the Son's total submission to the Father, and God's paternal supremacy over the Son in every aspect. They acknowledge the Son's high rank at God's right hand, but teach that the Father is still greater than the Son in all things.

While acknowledging that the Father, Son, and Spirit are essential in creation and salvation, they argue that that in itself does not confirm that the three are each co-equal or co-eternal. They also affirm that God is only explicitly identified as "one" in the Bible, and that the doctrine of the Trinity, which word literally meaning a set of three, ascribes a co-equal threeness to the being of the infinite God that is not explicitly scriptural.

Scriptural support
Critics of the Trinity doctrine argue that, for a teaching described as fundamental, it lacks direct scriptural support. Proponents of the doctrine assert that although the doctrine is not stated directly in the New Testament, it is instead an interpretation of elements contained therein that imply the doctrine that was later formulated in the 4th century.

William Barclay, a Church of Scotland minister, says:
 * "It is important and helpful to remember that the word Trinity is not itself a New Testament word. It is even true in at least one sense to say that the doctrine of the Trinity is not directly New Testament doctrine. It is rather a deduction from and an interpretation of the thought and the language of the New Testament."

The New Catholic Encyclopedia states:
 * "The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taught [explicitly] in the [Old Testament]", "The formulation 'one God in three Persons' was not solidly established [by a council] ... prior to the end of the 4th century."

Similarly, Encyclopedia Encarta states:
 * "The doctrine is not taught explicitly in the New Testament, where the word God almost invariably refers to the Father. ... The term trinitas was first used in the 2nd century, by the Latin theologian Tertullian, but the concept was developed in the course of the debates on the nature of Christ ... In the 4th century, the doctrine was finally formulated".

Encyclopædia Britannica says:
 * "Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Old Testament: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord" . ... The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many controversies. ... by the end of the 4th century, under the leadership of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus (the Cappadocian Fathers), the doctrine of the Trinity took substantially the form it has maintained ever since."

The Anchor Bible Dictionary states:
 * "One does not find in the NT the trinitarian paradox of the coexistence of the Father, Son, and Spirit within a divine unity."

Catholic historian Joseph F. Kelly, speaking of legitimate theological development, writes:
 * "The Bible may not use the word 'Trinity', but it refers to God the Father frequently; the Gospel of John emphasized the divinity of the Son; several New Testament books treat the Holy Spirit as divine. The ancient theologians did not violate biblical teaching but sought to develop its implications. ... [Arius'] potent arguments forced other Christians to refine their thinking about the Trinity."
 * "At two ecumenical councils, Nicea I in 325 and Constantinople I in 381, the church at large defined the Trinity in the way now so familiar to us from the Nicene Creed. This exemplifies development of doctrine at its best. The Bible may not use the word 'Trinity', but trinitarian theology does not go against the Bible. On the contrary, Catholics believe that trinitarianism has carefully developed a biblical teaching for later generations."
 * "At two ecumenical councils, Nicea I in 325 and Constantinople I in 381, the church at large defined the Trinity in the way now so familiar to us from the Nicene Creed. This exemplifies development of doctrine at its best. The Bible may not use the word 'Trinity', but trinitarian theology does not go against the Bible. On the contrary, Catholics believe that trinitarianism has carefully developed a biblical teaching for later generations."

Questions about co-equal deity of Jesus
American Catholic priest and Trinitarian, R.E. Brown (1928–1988), wrote a journal article that sorted relevant biblical verses into three classes. He described the following block as "texts that seem to imply that the title 'God' was not used for Jesus" and are "negative evidence which is often somewhat neglected in Catholic treatments of the subject": he lists these as "texts where, by reason of textual variants or syntax, the use of 'God' for Jesus is dubious": and only finds the following three as "texts where clearly Jesus is called God":
 * ,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , and ;
 * , Acts 20:28,, , , , , and ;
 * , John 1:1, and John 20:28.

The Septuagint translate (Elohim) as θεος (Theos). At Deuteronomy 6:4 (the Shema Yisrael, quoted by Jesus at ), the plural form of the Hebrew word "God" (Elohim) is used, generally understood to denote majesty, excellence, and the superlative. It has been stated that in the original Greek in Mark 12:29, there are no "plural modifiers" in that Greek word there for "one" (heis), but that in Mark 12 it is simply a masculine singular "one". And that because of that, there is no valid reason to believe that the Hebrew word for "one" in Deuteronomy 6 (echad) was necessarily a "plural one", rather than just simply numerical "one". At Deuteronomy 6:4, the Tetragrammaton appears twice in this verse, leading Jehovah's Witnesses and certain Jewish scholars to conclude that belief in a singular (and therefore indivisible) supremely powerful God is essential to the Shema.

Matthew 26:39
In Jesus prays with a distinction between God and himself, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.".

John 1:1
In John 1:1 there is a distinction between God and the Logos. Non-trinitarians claim a mistranslation of the second part of John 1:1 which, when literally translated word-for-word reads "and the word [logos] was with the God [ho theos]." Trinitarians contend that the third part of the verse (John 1:1c) translates as "and the Word was God", pointing to a distinction as subjects between God and the Logos but an equivalence in nature. Some nontrinitarians assert that the Koine Greek (kai theos ên ho logos) should be translated as "and a God was the Word" (or "and the Word was a god"). Based on their contention that the article of theos is anarthrous, lacking a definite article, they believe the verse refers to Jesus' pre-human existence as "a god" or a divine one as distinct from "the God". Nontrinitarians also contend that the author of John's gospel could have written kai ho theos ên ho logos ("and the Word was the God") if that were his intended meaning.

John 10:30
– Nontrinitarians such as Arians believe that when Jesus said, "I and the Father are one," he did not mean that they were actually "one substance", or "one God", or co-equal and co-eternal, but rather that he and the Father have a "unity of purpose", and that the context indicates that Jesus was saying that they were "one" in pastoral work. The point being that the Father and the Son were united in the divine work of saving the 'sheep'. Nontrinitarian Christians also cite, wherein Jesus prayed regarding his disciples: "That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may be in us," adding "that they may be one even as we are one". They argue that the same Greek word (hen) for "one" throughout John 17 indicates that Jesus did not expect for his followers to literally become a single Being, or "one in substance", with each other, or with God, and therefore that Jesus also did not expect his hearers to think that he and God the Father were one entity either.

John 10:33
While Trinitarians often use John 10:33 as proof for the divinity of Jesus, unitarian critics argue that the Pharisees accusing Jesus of making himself God shouldn't be the center of attention, when reading this passage. Instead, they emphasize that Jesus' response to the accusations in John 10:34-36 is of much greater concern. In fact, he refuses to be God but instead claims to be the son of God and makes a direct reference to Psalms 82:6 in which God calls his children Gods without taking away from his own glory.

John 20:28–29
John 20:28–29 – "And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed"". Since Thomas called Jesus God, Jesus's statement appears to endorse Thomas's assertion. Nontrinitarians sometimes respond that it is plausible that Thomas is addressing the Lord Jesus and then the Father. Another possible answer is that Jesus himself said, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?" referring to Psalm 82:6–8. The word "gods" in verse6 and "God" in verse8 is the same Hebrew word "'elohim", which means, "gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God; occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates; and sometimes as a superlative", and can also refer to powers and potentates, in general, or as "God, god, gods, rulers, judges or angels", and as "divine ones, goddess, godlike one". Therefore, the point being that Jesus was a power or mighty one to the Apostles, as the resurrected Messiah, and as the reflection of God the Father.

2 Corinthians 13:14
2 Corinthians 13:14 – "The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the sharing in the Holy Spirit be with all of you." It is argued by Trinitarians that the appearance of "Father, Son, and Spirit" together in Paul's prayer for Grace on all believers, and are considered essential for salvation, that the verse is consistent with a triune godhead. Nontrinitarians such as Arians reply that they do not disagree that all three are necessary for salvation and grace, but argue that the passage does not explicitly say that all three are co-equal or co-eternal.

Philippians 2:5–6
Philippians 2:5–6 – "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [or "which was also in Christ Jesus",] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (ESV). The word translated in the English Standard Version as "a thing to be grasped" is ἁρπαγμόν. Other translations of the word are indicated in the Holman Christian Standard Bible: "Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage" [or "to be grasped", or "to be held on to"]. The King James Version has: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." Nontrinitarians make the argument that the passage is simply saying that Christ did not consider equality with God something graspable, and that better English translations make it clearer. Another point is that the original Greek had no definite article for "form of God", which would mean "a form of divinity", and also that the term "morphe" for "form" in Koine Greek would simply mean a general external quality or station, but not necessarily the absolute thing itself, and therefore they argue that the passage does not explicitly teach either co-equality, co-eternity, or consubstantiality.

Hebrews 9:14
– "How much more will the Blood of Christ, who through an eternal Spirit, offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works, that we may render sacred service to the living God?" Most nontrinitarians agree that the Holy Spirit had no beginning, but believe it is not an actual person. Nontrinitarians contend that it is obvious that God the Father in the passage is the One who is ultimately reached, and therefore is greater than the other two entities, and that a "co-equal trinity" is not explicitly taught in the passage, but only inferred.

Terminology
"The term 'Trinity' is not in the Bible", and some nontrinitarians use this as an argument to state that the doctrine of the Trinity relies on non-biblical terminology, and that the number three is never clearly associated with God necessarily, other than within the Comma Johanneum which is of spurious or disputed authenticity. They argue that the only number clearly unambiguously ascribed to God in the Bible is one, and that the Trinity, literally meaning three-in-one, ascribes a co-equal threeness to God that is not explicitly biblical.

Nontrinitarians cite other examples of terms or phrases not found in the Bible; multiple "persons" in relation to God, the terms "God the Son", "God-Man", "God the Holy Spirit", "eternal Son", and "eternally begotten". While the Trinitarian term hypostasis is found in the Bible, it is used only once in reference to God where it states that Jesus is the express image of God's person. The Bible does not explicitly use the term in relation to the Holy Spirit nor explicitly mentions the Son having a distinct hypostasis from the Father.

The First Council of Nicaea included in its Creed the major term homoousios (of the same essence), which was used also by the Council of Chalcedon to speak of a double consubstantiality of Christ, "consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood". Nontrinitarians accept what Pier Franco Beatrice wrote: "The main thesis of this paper is that homoousios came straight from Constantine's Hermetic background. ... The Plato recalled by Constantine is just a name used to cover precisely the Egyptian and Hermetic theology of the "consubstantiality" of the Logos-Son with the Nous-Father, having recourse to a traditional apologetic argument. In the years of the outbreak of the Arian controversy, Lactantius might have played a decisive role in influencing Constantine's Hermetic interpretation of Plato's theology and consequently the emperor's decision to insert homoousios in the Creed of Nicaea."

Trinitarians see the absence of the actual word "Trinity" and other Trinity-related terms in the Bible as no more significant than the absence in the Bible of the words "monotheism", "omnipotence", "oneness", "Pentecostal", "apostolic", "incarnation" and even "Bible" itself. They maintain that, 'while the word Trinity is not in the Bible, the substance or drift of the doctrine is definitely biblical, if not explicitly than at least implicitly.'

Holy Spirit
Nontrinitarian views about the Holy Spirit differ from mainstream Christian doctrine and generally fall into several distinct categories. Most scriptures traditionally used in support of the Trinity refer to the Father and the Son, but not to the Holy Spirit.

Unitarian
Groups with Unitarian theology such as Polish Socinians, the 18th–19th-century Unitarian Church and Christadelphians consider the Holy Spirit to be an aspect of God's power rather than a person. Christadelphians believe that the phrase Holy Spirit refers to God's power or character, depending on the context. Similarly, Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Holy Spirit is not an actual person but is God's "active force" that he uses to accomplish his will.

Binitarianism
Groups with Binitarian theology, such as Armstrongites, believe that the Logos and God the Father are co-equal and co-eternal, but they do not believe that the Holy Spirit is an actual person, like the Father and the Son. They believe the Holy Spirit is the Power, Mind, or Character of God, depending on the context. They teach, "The Holy Spirit is the very essence, the mind, life and power of God. It is not a Being. The Spirit is inherent in the Father and the Son, and emanates from Them throughout the entire universe."

Modalist groups
Oneness Pentecostalism, as with other modalist groups, teach that the Holy Spirit is a mode of God, rather than a distinct or separate person in the godhead, and that the Holy Spirit is another name for God the Father. According to Oneness theology, the Holy Spirit is the Father operating in a certain capacity or manifestation. The United Pentecostal Church teaches that there is no personal distinction between God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The two titles "Father" and "Holy Spirit" (as well as others) are said to not reflect separate "persons" within the Godhead, but rather two different ways in which the one God reveals himself to his creatures. The Oneness view of Bible verses that mention God and his Spirit (e.g. Isaiah 48:16) is that they do not imply two "persons" any more than various scriptural references to a man and his spirit or soul (such as in Luke 12:19) imply two "persons" existing within one body.

Latter-day Saint movement
In the LDS Church, the Holy Ghost (usually synonymous with Holy Spirit) is considered to be the third distinct member of the Godhead (Father, Son and Holy Ghost), and to have a body of "spirit", which makes him unlike the Father and the Son who are said to have bodies "as tangible as man's". According to LDS doctrine, the Holy Spirit is believed to be a person, with a body of spirit, able to pervade all worlds.

Latter-day Saints believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are part of the Godhead, but that the Father is greater than the Son, and that the Son is greater than the Holy Spirit in position and authority, but not in nature (i.e., they equally share the "God" nature). They teach that the Father, Son, and Spirit are three ontologically separate, self-aware entities who share a common "God" nature distinct from our "human" nature, who are "One God" in the sense of being united (in the same sense that a husband and wife are said to be "one"), similar to Social trinitarianism.

A number of Latter Day Saint sects, most notably the Community of Christ (the second largest Latter Day Saint denomination), the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), and derived groups, follow a traditional Protestant trinitarian theology.

Other groups
The Unity Church interprets the religious terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit metaphysically, as three aspects of mind action: mind, idea, and expression. They believe this is the process through which all manifestation takes place.

Groups in the Rastafari movement generally state that it is Haile Selassie who embodies both God the Father and God the Son, while the Holy (or "Hola") Spirit is to be found within every human being. Rastas also say that the true church is the human body, and that it is this church (or "structure") that contains the Holy Spirit.

Inter-religious dialogue
The Trinity doctrine is integral in inter-religious disagreements with the other two main Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Islam; the former rejects Jesus' divine mission entirely, and the latter accepts Jesus as a human prophet and the Messiah but not as the son of God, although accepting virgin birth. The rejection of the Trinity doctrine has led to comparisons between nontrinitarian theology and Judaism and Islam.

In an 1897 article in the Jewish Quarterly Review, Montefiore describes Unitarianism as a bridge between Judaism and mainstream Christianity, calling it both a "phase of Judaism" and a "phase of Christianity".

In Islam, the concept of a co-equal trinity is totally rejected, with Quranic verses calling the doctrine of the Trinity blasphemous. Early Islam was originally seen as a variant of Arianism, a heresy in Orthodox and Catholic Christianity, by the Byzantine emperor in the 600s. In the 700s, many Arians in Spain considered Muhammad a prophet. In the mid-1500s, many Socinian unitarians were suspected of having Islamic leanings. Socinians praised Islam, though considering the Qur'an to contain errors, for its belief in the unity of God. Bilal Cleland claimed that "an anonymous writer" in A Letter of Resolution concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation (1693) states that Islam's greater number of adherents and military supremacy resulted from more closely maintaining correct doctrine than mainstream Christianity.

Arguments for the pagan origins of the Trinity

Some nontrinitarians also say that a link between the doctrine of the Trinity and the Egyptian Christian theologians of Alexandria suggests that Alexandrian theology, with its strong emphasis on the deity of Jesus, served to infuse Egypt's pagan religious heritage into Christianity. They accuse the Church of adopting these Egyptian tenets after adapting them to Christian thinking by means of Greek philosophy.

They say the development of the idea of a co-equal triune godhead was based on pagan Greek and Platonic influence, including many basic concepts from Aristotelian philosophy incorporated into the biblical God. As an example, they mention that Aristotle stated: "All things are three, and thrice is all: and let us use this number in the worship of the gods; for, as Pythagoreans say, everything and all things are bound by threes, for the end, the middle, and the beginning have this number in everything, and these compose the number of the Trinity." However, Trinitarians have argued that the words attributed to Aristotle differ in a number of ways from what has been published as the philosopher's original text in Greek,  which omits "let us use this number in the worship of the gods", and are not supported by translations of the works of Aristotle by scholars such as Stuart Leggatt, W. K. C. Guthrie, J.L. Stocks, Thomas Taylor and Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire.

Some anti-trinitarians note also that the Greek philosopher Plato believed in a special "threeness" in life and in the universe. In Phaedo, he introduces the word "triad" (in Greek τριάς), which is rendered in English as "trinity". This was adopted by 3rd and 4thcentury professed Christians as roughly corresponding to "Father, Word, and Spirit (Soul)". Nontrinitarian Christians contend that such notions and adoptions make the Trinity doctrine extra-biblical. They say there is a widely acknowledged synthesis of Christianity with Platonic philosophy evident in trinitarian formulas appearing by the end of the 3rdcentury. They allege that beginning with the Constantinian period, these pagan ideas were forcibly imposed on the churches as Catholic doctrine. Most groups subscribing to the theory of a Great Apostasy generally concur in this thesis.

The early apologists, including Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Irenaeus, frequently discussed the parallels and contrasts between Christianity, Paganism and other syncretic religions, and answered charges of borrowing from paganism in their apologetical writings.

Hellenic influences
Stuart G Hall (formerly Professor of Ecclesiastical History at King's College, London) describes the subsequent process of philosophical/theological amalgamation in Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church (1991), where he writes: "The apologists began to claim that Greek culture pointed to and was consummated in the Christian message, just as the Old Testament was. This process was done most thoroughly in the synthesis of Clement of Alexandria. It can be done in several ways. You can rake through Greek literature, and find (especially in the oldest seers and poets) references to 'God' which are more compatible with monotheism than with polytheism (so at length Athenagoras.) You can work out a common chronology between the legends of prehistoric (Homer) Greece and the biblical record (so Theophilus.) You can adapt a piece of pre-Christian Jewish apologetic, which claimed that Plato and other Greek philosophers got their best ideas indirectly from the teachings of Moses in the Bible, which was much earlier. This theory combines the advantage of making out the Greeks to be plagiarists (and therefore second-rate or criminal), while claiming that they support Christianity by their arguments at least some of the time. Especially this applied to the question of God."

The neo-Platonic trinities, such as that of the One, the Nous and the Soul, are not considered a trinity necessarily of consubstantial equals as in mainstream Christianity. However, the neo-Platonic trinity has the doctrine of emanation, or "eternal derivation", a timeless procedure of generation having as a source the One and claimed to be paralleled with the generation of the light from the Sun. This was adopted by Origen and later on by Athanasius, and applied to the generation of the Son from the Father, because they believed that this analogy could be used to support the notion that the Father, as immutable, always had been a Father, and that the generation of the Son is therefore eternal and timeless.

The synthesis of Christianity with Platonic philosophy was further incorporated in the trinitarian formulas that appeared by the end of the 3rd century. "The Greek philosophical theology" was "developed during the Trinitarian controversies over the relationships among the persons of the Godhead". The allegation of borrowing was raised by some disputants when the Nicene doctrine was being formalized and adopted by the bishops. For example, in the 4th century, Marcellus of Ancyra, who taught the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were one person (hypostasis), said in his On the Holy Church, 9:"Now with the heresy of the Ariomaniacs, which has corrupted the Church of God ... These then teach three hypostases, just as Valentinus the heresiarch first invented in the book entitled by him 'On the Three Natures'. For he was the first to invent three hypostases and three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is discovered to have filched this from Hermes and Plato.'"

In his Introduction to the 1964 book Meditations, the Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth discussed the profound influence of Stoic philosophy on Christianity. In particular: "Again in the doctrine of the Trinity, the ecclesiastical conception of Father, Word, and Spirit finds its germ in the different Stoic names of the Divine Unity. Thus Seneca, writing of the supreme Power which shapes the universe, states, 'This Power we sometimes call the All-ruling God, sometimes the incorporeal Wisdom, sometimes the holy Spirit, sometimes Destiny.' The Church had only to reject the last of these terms to arrive at its own acceptable definition of the Divine Nature; while the further assertion 'these three are One', which the modern mind finds paradoxical, was no more than commonplace to those familiar with Stoic notions."

Early Christian

 * Arianism
 * Esoteric
 * Gnosticism
 * Subordinationism
 * Ebionites
 * Nazarene
 * JudeoChristianity

Unitarian and Universalism

 * Unitarianism
 * Unitarian Universalism

Latter Day Saints

 * Latter Day Saint movement
 * The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church)
 * Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
 * Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Bible Students and splinter groups

 * Bible Students
 * Friends of Man
 * Jehovah's Witnesses

Sacred Name movement

 * Assemblies of Yahweh
 * Yahweh's Assembly in Messiah

Oneness Protestant groups

 * Creation Seventh Day Adventist Church
 * Elias Hicks (Hicksite Quakers)
 * Shakers
 * Oneness Pentecostals
 * Many members of the Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland

World Wide Church of God splinter groups

 * Church of the Blessed Hope (sometimes called "Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith")
 * Grace Communion International
 * Philadelphia Church of God
 * Living Church of God
 * United Church of God

New religious movements

 * Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Scientists)
 * Unity Church
 * New Church (Swedenborgian)
 * Unification Church (Family Federation for World Peace and Unification)
 * Two by Twos (sometimes called The Truth or Cooneyites)

Other Nontrinitarians

 * Christadelphians
 * Church of God General Conference
 * La Luz del Mundo
 * Monarchianism
 * Muggletonianism
 * Polish Brethren
 * Socinianism
 * The Way International

Country-specific

 * Filipino
 * Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ)
 * Members Church of God International
 * Kingdom of Jesus Christ
 * Independent Russian
 * Doukhobors
 * Molokan
 * Chinese Diaspora
 * Christian Disciples Church

People

 * Justin Martyr, 165 (Christian apologist)
 * Tertullian, c. 170–200 (Christian apologist). Though one of the earliest Christians to use the term "Trinity" and holding the Son to be of the same substance as the Father, Tertullian stated in his work "Against Praxeas" that the Son was both "Created and Generated", and in his other work "Against Hermogenes" that the Son "did not always exist", and was inferior to the Father who was "older and nobler".
 * Origen of Alexandria, 253 (Subordinationist)
 * Sabellius, c. 220 (Modalist: the eponymous heresiarch of Sabellianism, or "monarchic modalism"), rejected the idea of co-eternal co-equal distinct persons in the Godhead, but taught that God is a singular Person who manifests himself in multiple and various ways, faces, modes, and operations in history and specific circumstances
 * Theodotus of Byzantium
 * Artemon
 * Paul of Samosata, 269, Bishop of Antioch, believed in monarchianism, the doctrine that says that the Father alone is supreme and that God is not co-equal persons, but one unequal almighty person. Bishop Paul also held to adoptionism which teaches that Jesus was adopted as the Son of God at his baptism, resurrection, or ascension.
 * Lucian of Antioch, 312, Christian presbyter, (theologian) and (martyr)
 * Arius, 336, presbyter of Alexandria, major theologian of the doctrine of Arianism in 4th century. He opposed the Homoousian declarations of the Alexandrian Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, making him a primary topic of the First Council of Nicea in AD 325.
 * Eusebius of Nicomedia, 341, (Arian)
 * Eusebius of Caesarea, (Christian historian)
 * Constantius II, Byzantine Emperor, 361
 * Antipope Felix II, 365
 * Aëtius of Antioch, 367
 * Ulfilas, Apostle to the Goths, 383
 * Priscillian, 385, considered first Christian to be executed for heresy
 * Francesco della Sega, (1528–1565)
 * Ludwig Haetzer, 1529
 * Michael Servetus, 1553, burned at the stake in Geneva under John Calvin
 * Sebastian Castellio, 1563
 * Ferenc Dávid, 1579
 * Justus Velsius, c. 1581
 * Fausto Paolo Sozzini, 1604
 * John Milton, 1608–1674. (disputed)
 * Edward Wightman, 1612, burned at the stake
 * Isaac Newton, 1642–1726/27
 * John Biddle, 1662
 * Thomas Aikenhead, 1697, last person to be hanged for blasphemy in Britain
 * John Locke, 1704
 * Elias Hicks, 1742, Quaker
 * William Whiston, 1752, expelled from University of Cambridge in 1710 for Arianism; famous for translating Josephus
 * Jonathan Mayhew, 1766
 * Emanuel Swedenborg, 1772, provided the theology for Swedenborgianism
 * Joseph Priestley, 1804
 * John Adams
 * Thomas Jefferson
 * John Quincy Adams
 * Millard Fillmore
 * William Howard Taft
 * Joseph Smith, 1805, founder of the Latter-day Saint movement (Mormonism)
 * Mary Baker Eddy, 1821, founder of Christian Science
 * William Ellery Channing, 1842
 * Robert Hibbert, 1849
 * John Thomas (Christadelphian), 1871
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1882
 * Robert Roberts (Christadelphian), 1898
 * Benjamin Wilson, 1900
 * James Martineau, 1900
 * Félix Manalo, 1914
 * Charles Taze Russell, 1916, founder of the Bible Student movement and Jehovah's Witnesses, author of Millennial Dawn
 * Joseph Franklin Rutherford, 2nd president of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society
 * Alan Hayward (Christadelphian), 1923
 * Johannes Greber (Catholic priest)
 * Eliseo Soriano, 1947
 * William Branham, 1965
 * Herbert W. Armstrong, 1986, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, a Sabbatarian Christian Church, and was an advocate of the doctrine of Binitarianism.
 * Anthony Buzzard (Biblical Unitarian)

title: Nontrinitarianism


text:
Operation Pastel

During World War II, Operation Pastel was the U.S. deception plan scheduled to protect Operation Olympic, the planned invasion of southern Japan. Pastel would have falsely portrayed a threat of an American-led invasion against ports in China via attacks on Formosa.

One of the notional military formations that was designated for use in the deception was the fictitious XXXV Airborne Corps. The Corps formed part of Operation Pastel Two, the deception plan for Operation Olympic.

The final version of Operation Pastel incorporated notional airborne landings, using dummy parachutists similar to those used on D-Day, in the interior of Kyūshū the day before the actual landings were to take place. The two-division fictional corps that was to carry out the landings was designated XXXV Airborne Corps.

Under Operation Pastel, the first elements of the XXXV Airborne Corps, quartering parties of the notional 18th Airborne Division, were depicted as reaching Okinawa on August 15, 1945. Following this, glider pilots would reach Okinawa around August 20, 1945, followed by the troops of the real 11th (in the Philippines) and notional 18th Airborne Divisions, starting to arrive in Okinawa on September 1, 1945. On the same day, the notional corps headquarters would have been activated.

title: Operation Pastel


text:
Operation Desert Farewell

In the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Farewell was the name given to the return of American units and equipment to the United States in 1991 after the liberation of Kuwait. Some U.S. Marine Corps units were diverted en route to conduct humanitarian assistance in flooded Bangladesh (Sea Angel). Also called Desert Calm or Peace Walker in some documents.

title: Operation Desert Farewell


text:
User talk:TheLocalChurch

Old User talk
Because Wikipedia retains a history with version control, I will delete a chunk of old discussion occassionally. To view older discussions, click Page History below.

Current User talk
Please add new comments to the bottom.

Sorry; I thought your Introduction was inviting redaction, but I guess I read too much into it. I have posted a complaint against you at local churches talk. Here is what I think you should change your user page to if you really want to be perceived as being NPOV:

(snip revisions - interested parties may check the history file)

 * Thanks for your suggestions, Nathan! I have made significant changes to my user page as a result. It's good to be working with you on this.

 * TheLocalChurch 05:03, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * Please change your name, for the reasons that I have already mentioned elsewhere on this site and to which reasons you have previously responded and rejected. Thank you. --Nat32 21:15, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:TheLocalChurch


text:
Operation Tinderbox

Operation Tinderbox was a series of 14 nuclear tests conducted by the United States in 1979–1980 at the Nevada Test Site. These tests followed the Operation Quicksilver series and preceded the Operation Guardian series.

title: Operation Tinderbox


text:
Albay

Albay, officially the Province of Albay (Probinsya kan Albay; Lalawigan ng Albay), is a province in the Bicol Region of the Philippines, mostly on the southeastern part of the island of Luzon. Its capital (and largest city) is the city of Legazpi, the regional center of the whole Bicol Region, which is located in the southern foothill of Mayon Volcano.

The province was added to the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves in March 2016.

Early history
Long before the Spaniards arrived, Albay had a thriving civilization. Formerly called Ibat, and then Libog, Albay was once ruled by Gat Ibal, an old chief who also founded the old barangay of Sawangan, now part of the City of Legazpi. Historian William Henry Scott wrote that in the local epic called siday entitled "Bingi of Lawan", an Albay datu by the name of Dumaraog went to the Lakanate of Lawan (present-day Laoang, Northern Samar) to ask for the hands of Bingi bringing with him 100 ships. Datu Hadi Iberein came from the Lakanate of Lawan. He was described by Scott as a “Samar datu by the name of Iberein was rowed out to a Spanish vessel anchored in his harbor in 1543 by oarsmen collared in gold; while wearing on his own person earrings and chains.”

Spanish colonial era
In July 1569, Luis Enriquez de Guzman, a member of the expedition led by Maestro de Campo Mateo de Saz and Captain Martin de Goiti, led a group that crossed from Burias and Ticao islands and landed on a coastal settlement called Ibalon in what is now the province of Sorsogon. From this point, another expedition was sent to explore the interior and founded the town of Camalig.

In 1573, Juan de Salcedo penetrated the Bicol Peninsula from the north as far south as Libon, establishing the settlement of Santiago de Libon. Jose Maria Peñaranda, a military engineer, was made “corregidor” of the province on May 14, 1834. He constructed public buildings and built roads and bridges.

The entire Bicol peninsula was organized as one province with two divisions, Camarines in the northwest and Ibalon in the southeast. In 1636, the two partidos were separated, and Ibalon became a separate province with Sorsogon as the capital. In the 17th century, Moro slave raiders from the southern Philippines ravaged the northeastern coastal areas of the province of Albay. By the end of the 1700s, Albay had 12,339 native families and 146 Spanish Filipino families.

Mayon Volcano, in one of its most violent eruptions, destroyed the five towns surrounding its base on February 1, 1814. This eruption forced the town of Cagsawa to relocate to its present site, Legazpi.

A decree was issued by Governor-General Narciso Claveria in 1846 separating Masbate, Ticao, and Burias from Albay to form the comandancia of Masbate. Albay was then divided into four districts: Iraya, Cordillera or Tabaco, Sorsogon, and Catanduanes.

Philippine revolution
Glicerio Delgado, a condemned insurecto (insurgent), started revolutionary activities in the province. With a headquarters in the mountain of Guinobatan town, he joined the revolutionary government of Albay as a lieutenant in the infantry.

A unit of the Philippine Militia was then organized by the Spanish military authorities. Mariano Riosa was appointed major of the Tabaco Zone, which comprised all the towns along the seacoast from Albay to Tiwi while Anacieto Solano was appointed major for the Iraya Zone, which was made up of the towns from Daraga to Libon. Each town was organized into sections of fifty men under the command of a lieutenant.

During the Philippine Revolution on September 22, 1898, the provisional revolutionary government of Albay was formed with Anacieto Solano as provisional president. Major General Vito Belarmino, the appointed military commander, reorganized the Filipino Army in the province.

American invasion era
Following the Spanish–American War, the new colonial power the United States did not recognize the country's independence, which had been declared in June 1898, and the Americans subsequently acquired direct control of the country as a de facto colony, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1898), over which the Filipinos had no say. During the Philippine–American War, Brigadier General William August Kobbé headed the expedition that landed at the ports of Sorsogon, Bulan and Donsol. From there, the Americans marched to Legazpi and captured it.

Although a civil government was established in Albay on April 26, 1901, Colonel Harry Hill Bandholtz, Commanding Officer of the Constabulary in the Bicol Region, said that General Simeon Ola, with a thousand men, continued to defy American authority after the capture of Belarmino in 1901. Ola was later captured with about six hundred of his men.

Japanese occupation era
Following the December 12, 1941, Japanese invasion of Legazpi during the Second World War, the Kimura Detachment of the Imperial Japanese Army occupied Albay Province. The region was defended only by the Philippine Constabulary unit under the command of Major Francisco Sandico.

During the Japanese Occupation, the military general headquarters of the Commonwealth Army of the Philippines remained active from January 3, 1942, to June 30, 1946, and the 5th Constabulary Regiment of the Philippine Constabulary was established from October 28, 1944, to June 30, 1946, and stationed in Albay. Then came the clearing operations and anti-Japanese insurgency in the Bicol Peninsula, helped by the local Bicolano resistance. Some Bicolano guerrilla groups invaded around the province of Albay during the Japanese Insurgencies between 1942 and 1944 and were supported by local Filipino troops under the Philippine Commonwealth Army and pre-war Philippine Constabulary 5th Infantry Regiments attacking the enemy soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army. In the aftermath of three years of siege and conflicts, many Bicolano guerrillas were forced to retreat by the Japanese around the province before liberation in 1945 by Allied forces.

Geography

Albay has a total land area of 2,575.77 km2, which makes it the 53rd biggest province. The province is bordered by the provinces of Camarines Sur to the north and Sorsogon to the south. To the northeast lies Lagonoy Gulf, which separates the province from Catanduanes. To the southwest of the province is the Burias Pass with the island of Burias of Masbate province located about 14 km offshore.

In 2016, an area of 250000 ha was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. The Albay Biosphere Reserve is home to 182 terrestrial plant species, of which 46 are endemic to the Philippines. Its marine waters and coastal area also provide habitat to five of the world's seven marine turtle species, as well as mangrove, seagrass and seaweed ecosystems.

Topography
The province is generally mountainous with scattered fertile plains and valleys. On the eastern part of the province is a line of volcanic mountains starting with the northernmost Malinao in Tiwi, followed by Mount Masaraga and the free-standing Mayon Volcano. Separated by the Poliqui Bay is the Pocdol Mountains in the town of Manito.

The stratovolcano of Mayon standing at around 2462 m, is the highest point of the province. It is the most famous landform in Albay and in the whole Bicol Region. This active volcano falls under the jurisdiction of eight municipalities and cities of Albay: Camalig, Daraga, Guinobatan, Legazpi City, Ligao City, Malilipot, Santo Domingo, and Tabaco City.

The western coast of the province is mountainous but not as prominent as the eastern range with the highest elevation at around 490 m. Among these mountains are Mount Catburawan in Ligao and Mount Pantao in Oas.

Administrative divisions
Albay comprises 15 municipalities/towns and three component cities (Legazpi, Ligao and Tabaco).

Demographics
The population of Albay in the 2020 census was 1,374,768 people,, making it the 20th most populous province in the country. It had a density of undefined PD/km2. Based on the 2007 census, there were 208,640 households in the province with an average size of 5.22 persons, significantly higher than the national average of 4.99.

Religion
Prior to colonization, the region had a complex religious system which involved various deities. Among these deities include: Gugurang, the supreme god who dwells inside of Mount Mayon where he guards and protects the sacred fire in which Aswang, his brother was trying to steal. Whenever people disobey his orders, wishes and commit numerous sins, he would cause Mount Mayon to burst lava as a sign of warning for people to mend their crooked ways. Ancient Bikolanos had a rite performed for him called Atang. Asuang, the evil god who always tries to steal the sacred fire of Mount Mayon from his brother, Gugurang. Addressed sometimes as Aswang, he dwells mainly inside Mount Malinao. As an evil god, he would cause the people to suffer misfortunes and commit sins. Enemy of Gugurang and a friend of Bulan the god of the Moon; Haliya, the masked goddess of the moonlight and the archenemy of Bakunawa and protector of Bulan. Her cult is composed primarily of women. There is also a ritual dance named after her as it is performed to be a countermeasure against Bakunawa.; Bulan, the god of the pale moon, he is depicted as a pubescent boy with uncommon comeliness that made savage beast and the vicious mermaids (Magindara) tame. He has deep affection towards Magindang, but plays with him by running away so that Magindang would never catch him. The reason for this is because he is shy to the man that he loves. If Magindang manages to catch Bulan, Haliya always comes to free him from Magindang's grip; Magindang, the god of the sea and all its creatures. He has deep affection to the lunar god Bulan and pursues him despite never catching him. Due to this, the Bicolanos reasoned that it is to why the waves rise to reach the Moon when seen from the distant horizon. Whenever he does catch up to Bulan, Haliya comes to rescue Bulan and free him immediately; Okot, god of forest and hunting; and Bakunawa, a gigantic sea serpent deity who is often considered as the cause of eclipses, the devourer of the Sun and the Moon, and an adversary of Haliya as Bakunawa's main aim is to swallow Bulan, who Haliya swore to protect for all of eternity.

Catholicism
Catholicism is the predominant religion in the province, affiliated by 96.1% of the men and 95.7% of the women of Albay. Each town has its own fiesta for their patrons and patronesses.

Others
Other religious denominations are the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) has 2 percent of the province, other Protestant churches such as the Baptist Church, Methodist, other Evangelical Christians, Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses as well as Islam.

Languages
Albay is home to several languages and host to different native languages of Bicol Region. Out of seven Bikol languages (excluding the Bisakol languages, which are Bisayan languages), only Pandan Bikol of northern Catanduanes is not used or which the origin is not from Albay. The languages in the province are very diverse which includes the languages of Albay Bikol group which comprises the languages of West Miraya, East Miraya, Libon and Buhinon. Of the four Albay Bikol languages, Buhinon is the only one not used in Albay but rather in Buhi, Camarines Sur.

Rinconada Bikol is a minority language in the province and used by people in barangays of Libon and Polangui that are near the boundary of Bato and Iriga in Camarines Sur. Another primary language used in the province is Central Bikol which is the native tongue of the population on the eastern coast of the Bicol Peninsula. Both Albay Bikol languages and Rinconada Bikol are members of Inland Bikol group of languages while Central Bikol is a language member of Coastal Bikol. The Tabaco - Legazpi - Sorsogon dialect of Central Bikol is spoken in Legazpi, Tabaco and neighboring municipalities on the east side of Albay, and some parts of northern Sorsogon (especially in Sorsogon City).

The majority of the inhabitants also understand English and Filipino as second languages.

Economy
Agriculture is the main industry in Albay, which produces crops like coconut, rice, sugar and abacá. Handicrafts are the major source of rural income and comprises a fairly large share in the small-scale industries of the province. Forestry, cement production and paper-making are other sources of livelihood. The manufacture of abacá products such as Manila hemp, hats, bags, mats, furniture, home decors, and slippers is one of the main sources of income in the rural areas. Production of abaca fiber experienced a boom from the late 1800s until the American period. Fishing is the main livelihood along both shores of the province. Tourism, especially related to Mayon Volcano, also creates income for Albay. For the year 2013, Albay had a total of 339,445 foreign tourist arrivals.

In the December, 2023 Pili Fiesta, Director Marita A. Carlos of DOST-PCAARRD introduced technologies on pili (C. ovatum tree) production in Albay, Bicol Region. She aimed to promote pili as a flagship industry.

Government
Albay has three congressional districts encompassing its 18 municipalities and 3 component cities.

Roads
Albay has 383.22 km of national roads, mostly paved with asphalt, with 5.25 km remaining unpaved. Maharlika Highway (N1/AH26) serves as the principal road connection between other provinces. Most of the province is served by secondary national roads, assigned route numbers in the series, namely Bicol-630 and Bicol-640. Almost all of the cities and municipalities are connected by national roads, except for Rapu-Rapu.

In order to spur development in the province, The Toll Regulatory Board declared Toll Road 5 the extension of South Luzon Expressway. A 420-kilometer, four lane expressway starting from the terminal point of the now under construction SLEX Toll Road 4 at Barangay Mayao, Lucena City in Quezon to Matnog, Sorsogon, near the Matnog Ferry Terminal. On August 25, 2020, San Miguel Corporation announced that they will invest the project which will reduce travel time from Lucena to Matnog from 9 hours to 5.5 hours.

Water transport
Albay is the region's principal trans-shipment point with its ports: Tabaco International Port, Legazpi National Port, Pio Duran Provincial Port, and the Pantao Regional Port.

Air transport
Traveling to the province by air is served by the Bicol International Airport in the municipality of Daraga, adjacent municipality of Legazpi City. The airport is the province's gateway from Manila and Cebu City in the Visayas. The province was formerly served by the now defunct Legazpi Airport.

Railroads
Albay is served by the mainline of the Philippine National Railways (PNR), and has commuter service between Naga in Camarines Sur. Trains to Manila (Tutuban), the Mayon Limited, is suspended from November 2012. Four stations serve Polangui, Ligao, Guinobatan, and Legazpi, respectively.

Bicol Loco Festival
The inaugural "Bicol Loco Festival" envisioned by Elizaldy S. Co from May 3-5, 2024, featured skydiving, powered paragliding, drones, ultralight aviation, aerobatics and airplane bomb-drop contest. But due to inclement weather, the 17 hot air balloons exhibition under by Captain Joy Roa, Event Director ($150,000 each) was transferred to May 4. The Old Legazpi Airport staged OPM performances by Sarah Geronimo, Bamboo Mañalac, Ely Buendia and Jericho Rosales which ended the first day.

title: Albay


text: Talk:Cauldron

title: Talk:Cauldron


text:
Operation Guardian

Operation Guardian was a series of 14 nuclear tests conducted by the United States in 1980–1981 at the Nevada Test Site. These tests followed the Operation Tinderbox series and preceded the Operation Praetorian series.

title: Operation Guardian