>It was usually a church built to take the overflow from a larger church >that had no more capacity. There were relief churches all over. >E.D. Sorry, definitely not in Scotland - at least, not in the late 1700s and early 1800s. A quick google search turned up this informative website which shows all the splits and rejoinings from the Established church in Scotland http://website.lineone.net/~davghalgh/churchhistory.html The Relief Church was a relatively early split from the established church (around 1761) and later joined with some of the other secession churches to form the United Presbyterian Church. All these churches can be classified as "Presbyterian" Catherine