Congregational Union of Ontario and Quebec

United Church of Canada
Église unie du Canada
The official seal of the United Church of Canada
Classification	Protestant
Orientation	Mainline Reformed
Polity	Presbyterian
Associations	Canadian Council of Churches; World Communion of Reformed Churches; World Council of Churches; World Methodist Council
Region	Canada (plus Bermuda)
Origin	June 10, 1925 Mutual Street Arena, Toronto, Ontario
Merger of	Methodist Church, Canada; two thirds of the Presbyterian Church in Canada; and the Congregational Union of Ontario and Quebec
Congregations	2,961
Members	436,292 registered members, 2 million adherents
Official website	united-church.ca

The United Church of Canada (French: Église unie du Canada) is a mainline Reformed denomination and the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada, and the largest Canadian Christian denomination after the Catholic Church. In 2011, Statistics Canada reported approximately 2 million people identifying as adherents. The United Church was founded in 1925 as a merger of four Protestant denominations with a total combined membership of about 600,000 members: the Methodist Church, Canada, the Congregational Union of Ontario and Quebec, two-thirds of the congregations of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the Association of Local Union Churches, a movement predominantly of the Canadian Prairie provinces. The Canadian Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church joined the United Church of Canada on 1 January 1968.

Membership peaked in 1964 at 1.1 million, and has declined since that time. From 1991 to 2001, the number of people claiming an affiliation with the United Church decreased by 8%, the third largest decrease in mainstream Christian denominations in Canada. Church statistics for the end of 2014 showed 436,292 members and approximately 1.2 million adherents under pastoral care. About 139,000 people attend services in 2,170 pastoral charges representing 2,961 congregations on a regular basis.

The United Church has a "council-based" structure, where each council (congregational, regional, or denominational) have specific responsibilities. In some areas, each of these councils have sole authority, while in others, approval of other councils is required before action is taken. (For example, a congregation requires Presbytery approval before a minister can be called or appointed to the congregation.) The policies of the church are inclusive and liberal: there are no restrictions of gender, sexual orientation or marital status for a person considering entering the ministry; interfaith marriages are recognized; communion is offered to all Christian adults and children, regardless of denomination or age.