Corrected; amended; restored to a better or to a good state: as, a reformed profligate; reformed spelling.Deprived of rank or position, or reduced in pay. Sec reformado, 2.In the United States:The Reformed (Dutch) Church in America, growing out of a union among the Dutch churches in America in 1770 and finally perfected in 1812. The territory of the denomination was at first limited to the States of New York and New Jersey and a small part of Pennsylvania, but was gradually extended to the West. The affairs of each congregation are managed by a consistory, consisting of elders and deacons chosen for two years. The elders, with the pastor, receive and dismiss members and exercise discipline; the deacons have charge of the alms. Both together are ex officio trustees of the church, hold its property, and call its minister. Ex-elders and ex-deacons constitute what is called the Great Consistory, which may be summoned to give advice in important matters. The minister and one elder from each congregation in a certain district constitute a classis, which supervises spiritual concerns in that district. Four ministers and four elders from each classis in a larger district make a Particular Synod, with similar powers. Representatives, clerical and lay, from each classis, proportioned in number to the size of the classis, constitute the General Synod, which has supervision of the whole, and is a court of last resort in judicial cases. The church is Calvinistic in its theological belief, and possesses a liturgy the greater part of which is optional except the offices for the sacraments, for ordination, and for church discipline.The Reformed (German) Church in the United States. This church was constituted by colonies from Germany in New York, Maryland, Virginia, and North and South Carolina, The first synod was organised September 27th, 1747, under the care of the Reformed Classis of Amsterdam. The church holds to the parity of the ministry, maintains a presbyterial form of government, is moderately Calvinistic in its theology, and provides liturgical forms of service, which are, however, chiefly optional.The True Reformed Dutch Church, the result of a secession from the Reformed Dutch Church in America in 1822.The Reformed Episcopal Church, an Episcopal church organized in the United States in 1873, by eight clergymen and twenty laymen previously members of the Protestant Episcopal Church. It maintains the episcopacy as a desirable form of church polity, but not as of divine obligation, continues to use the Book of Common Prayer, but in a revised form, and rejects the doctrines of apostolic succession, the priesthood of the clergy, the sacrifice or oblation in the Lord's Supper, the real presence, and baptismal regeneration.
