Comprehensive, up to date, and reflecting the highest standards in scholarship, the EC presents the history and the current situation of the Christian faith in all its rich spiritual and theological diversity around the world. The EC also looks outward beyond Christianity, considering other world religions and philosophies as it paints the overall religious and sociocultural picture in which the Christian church now finds itself as it moves into a new millennium.

Volume 1 contains 465 articles comprising the alphabetical entries A-D. This inaugural volume incorporates -- as will the other four EC volumes -- many enhancements of and additions to the third revised edition of the Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon: Internationale theologische Enzyklopadie, on which the EC is based. Among these new features are the following:
-- articles on all but the smallest countries of the world, including the former communist nations that have gained their independence since 1989;
-- the latest statistical information (from David B. Barrett) on the religious affiliation and ecclesiastical breakdown of each country and continent;
-- numerous expanded or entirely new articles that address topics of particular interest to English-speaking readers;
-- biographical articles on prominent figures throughout church histo