Noun
The act of congregating, or bringing together, or of collecting into one aggregate or mass.
A collection or mass of separate things.
An assembly of persons; a gathering; esp. an assembly of persons met for the worship of God, and for religious instruction; a body of people who habitually so meet.
The whole body of the Jewish people; -- called also Congregation of the Lord.
A body of cardinals or other ecclesiastics to whom as intrusted some department of the church business; as, the Congregation of the Propaganda, which has charge of the missions of the Roman Catholic Church.
A company of religious persons forming a subdivision of a monastic order.
The assemblage of Masters and Doctors at Oxford or Cambrige University, mainly for the granting of degrees.
the name assumed by the Protestant party under John Knox. The leaders called themselves (1557) Lords of the Congregation.
Source: Webster's dictionaryThe man who follows Christ in solitary mourning is greater than he who praises Christ amid the congregation of men. Isaac the Syrian
Of all the doctors I have known, psychoanalysts, a congregation of lay priests with bible, rites, and the faithful, constitute the most sinister, the most ridiculous, the most unwholesome of the species. António Lobo Antunes
Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The Devil always builds a chapel there; And 'twill be found, upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation. Daniel Defoe
When the rest of the congregation rose at the entrance of the choir he kept his seat. He argued that rising to one's feet at such a time tended to make the choir-boys conceited. Isa Bowman
A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The congregation is poor, the priest rings the bell himself. Hungarian Proverb