Lutheranism

===Brazil===
The [[Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil]] (Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana no Brasil) is the largest Lutheran denomination in Brazil. It is a member of the Lutheran World Federation, which it joined in 1952. It is a member of the [[Latin American Council of Churches]], the National Council of Christian Churches and the [[World Council of Churches]]. The denomination has 1.02 million adherents and 643,693 registered members. The church ordains women as ministers. In 2011, the denomination released a pastoral letter supporting and accepting the [[Supreme Court of Brazil|Supreme Court]]'s decision to allow same-sex marriage.

The [[Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil]] (Portuguese: Igreja Evangélica Luterana do Brasil, IELB) is a Lutheran church founded in 1904 in [[Rio Grande do Sul]], a southern state in Brazil. The IELB is a conservative, confessional Lutheran synod which holds to the [[Book of Concord]]. It started as a mission of the [[Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod]] and operated as the Brazilian District of that body. The IELB became an independent church body in 1980. It has about 243,093 members. The IELB is a member of the International Lutheran Council.

The [[Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod]] (WELS) started a Brazilian mission, the first for WELS in the [[Portuguese language]], in the early 1980s. Its first work was done in the state of [[Rio Grande do Sul]], in the south of Brazil, alongside some small independent Lutheran churches which had asked for help from WELS. Today, the Brazilian WELS Lutheran Churches are self-supporting and an independent mission partner of the Latin America WELS missions team.