State churches are organizational bodies within a Christian denomination which are given official status or operated by a state.
State churches are not necessarily national churches in the ethnic sense of the term, but the two concepts may overlap in the case of a nation state where the state boundary largely corresponds to the distribution of a single ethnic group to which a certain denomination is attached as an aspect of ethnic identity. State churches, by contrast, may also be minority denominations which are given political recognition by the state.
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In the People's Republic of China, there are two branches of state-operated churches; the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and Three-Self Patriotic Movement.
Pastors are trained at state-approved seminaries and are appointed by the government.