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Protestant Church in Western Indonesia

Open-knowledge reference entry

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ12483995 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Protestant Church in Western Indonesia (Indonesian: Gereja Protestan di Indonesia bagian Barat, abbreviated as GPIB) is a Reformed Church, and its theology is based on the teaching of John Calvin. It was established on 31 October 1948. It was called the "De Protestantse Kerk in Westelijk Indonesie", founded in 1605 in Ambon, Moluccas. In its formative years it consisted of seven classes: Jabar, Java, Jatim, Sumatra, Bangka, Borneo, Sulawesi. It is a member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches the World Council of Churches and the Christian Conference in Asia.

Statistics

The denomination has 600,000 members and 300 congregations and 430 pastors in 2006. It is a national multi-ethnic church, scattered over 25 out of the 32 provinces of Indonesia.

The denomination is one of the biggest Protestant churches in Indonesia and is part of the Protestant Church in Indonesia.

According to the recent statistics the church is growing rapidly, has 1,305,000 adherents and members. The Synod Office is located in Jakarta.

Editorial summary

“Protestant Church in Western Indonesia” enters the record as open-knowledge reference entry. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Protestant, Church and Western can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1948, 1605, 2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1948-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Protestant, Church and Western.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Protestant Church in Western Indonesia” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Protestant, Church and Western provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12483995. VIAF identifies the subject as 158426993. The Library of Congress control number is n93903931. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1605 and 2006.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Protestant Church in Western Indonesia”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Protestant Church in Western Indonesia primary sources, Protestant Church in Western Indonesia archive and Protestant research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Protestant Church in Western Indonesia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.