Metro Area Membership Report

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Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY MSA

Denominational Groups, 2000

63,225 109,219 5,879 622,786 29,391 339,611
Evangelical Protestant Mainline Protestant Orthodox Catholic Other Unclaimed

Congregational "adherents" include all full members, their children, and others who regularly attend services. The historically African American denominations are not included in the 2000 congregation and membership totals. Many are also missing in 1990 and most historically African American denominations are missing in the 1980 reports.
[More information on the data sources]

Reports


Religious Bodies Theology Congregations Adherents Adherence Rate
Catholic Church Catholic 199 666,747 560.6
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church Evangelical Protestant 11 14,576 12.3
Assemblies of God Evangelical Protestant 30 12,525 10.5
Black Baptists Estimate Evangelical Protestant n.a. 24,610 20.7
Brethren In Christ Church Evangelical Protestant 1 102 0.1
Christian and Missionary Alliance, The Evangelical Protestant 8 1,351 1.1
Christian Brethren Evangelical Protestant 9 865 0.7
Christian Churches and Churches of Christ Evangelical Protestant 3 515 0.4
Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) Evangelical Protestant 1 100 0.1
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) Evangelical Protestant 5 640 0.5
Church of God of Prophecy Evangelical Protestant 1 66 0.1
Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America Evangelical Protestant 1 149 0.1
Church of the Nazarene Evangelical Protestant 12 967 0.8
Churches of Christ Evangelical Protestant 8 879 0.7
Conservative Baptist Association of America Evangelical Protestant 3 n.a. n.a.
Conservative Congregational Christian Conference Evangelical Protestant 2 313 0.3
Free Methodist Church of North America Evangelical Protestant 11 887 0.8
Independent, Charismatic Churches Evangelical Protestant 4 3,900 3.3
Independent, Non-Charismatic Churches Evangelical Protestant 1 408 0.3
Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod Evangelical Protestant 45 23,649 19.9
Mennonite Church USA Evangelical Protestant 3 443 0.4
North American Baptist Conference Evangelical Protestant 4 858 0.7
Presbyterian Church in America Evangelical Protestant 1 88 0.1
Salvation Army, The Evangelical Protestant 6 590 0.5
Seventh-day Adventist Church Evangelical Protestant 5 531 0.5
Southern Baptist Convention Evangelical Protestant 17 1,881 1.6
Wesleyan Church, The Evangelical Protestant 11 2,687 2.3
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Evangelical Protestant 1 113 0.1
American Baptist Churches in the USA Mainline Protestant 42 13,896 11.7
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Mainline Protestant 10 1,955 1.6
Episcopal Church Mainline Protestant 46 17,376 14.6
Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church Mainline Protestant 1 125 0.1
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Mainline Protestant 56 27,883 23.5
Friends (Quakers) Mainline Protestant 4 223 0.2
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Mainline Protestant 53 22,120 18.6
United Church of Christ Mainline Protestant 50 16,842 14.2
United Methodist Church, The Mainline Protestant 76 31,362 26.4
American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church Orthodox 1 138 0.1
Armenian Apostolic Church / Catholicossate of Cilicia Orthodox 1 600 0.5
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Orthodox 1 n.a. n.a.
Orthodox Church in America: Territorial Dioceses Orthodox 3 n.a. n.a.
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA Orthodox 1 n.a. n.a.
Church of Christ, Scientist Other Theology 8 n.a. n.a.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Other Theology 9 2,255 1.9
Jewish Estimate Other Theology 21 18,525 15.6
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations Other Theology 5 1,132 1.0
Totals (Unadjusted)*: 791 914,872  
The population of these counties (or equivalents) in 1990 was 1,189,288. The adherent totals of the religious groups listed above (914,872) include 76.9% of the total population in 1990.

Source

The 1990 data were collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and include statistics for 132 religious groups, including number of churches and adherents. Martin B. Bradley, Norman M. Green, Jr., Dale E. Jones, Mac Lynn, and Lou McNeil supervised the collection. These data originally appeared in Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1990, published by the Glenmary Research Center.

[More information on the data collection]

The adherence rate provides the number of adherents of a particular group per 1,000 population. For example, in 2000 the Episcopal Church had an adherence rate of approximately 8 (8.1) in Autauga County, Alabama. This means that 8 out of every 1,000 people in Autauga county are Episcopalian.