confraternity
noun
con·fra·ter·ni·ty ˌkän-frə-ˈtər-nə-tē 
1
: a society devoted especially to a religious or charitable cause
2
: fraternal union
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web In the 16th century, one confraternity built a small church inside the arena, Santa Maria della Pieta, which still exists. 
Elisabetta Povoledo, BostonGlobe.com, 12 June 2022 Little was immediately drawn to Garvey’s ethos of self-determination and Pan-African confraternity — as was Earl Little, a Baptist minister and recent immigrant who had escaped the violence of Jim Crow Georgia. New York Times, 19 Mar. 2022 The confraternity that had the chapel built in the 15th century still exists today -- as do other similar ones. Julia Buckley, CNN, 1 Feb. 2022 Literary biographers—writers who devote their lives to other writers’ lives—are a confraternity of old soldiers who like to trade battle stories. Judith Thurman, The New Yorker, 9 Sep. 2019 The band was followed by a religious confraternity in full regalia, as members of the military police’s art-theft unit carried the statue to Monteroduni’s main church. Elisabetta Povoledo, New York Times, 22 Oct. 2017 As a result, diversity moves us further away from Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of confraternity among different peoples and equal justice under the law and in the eyes of God. WSJ, 16 Aug. 2017 See More
Elisabetta Povoledo, BostonGlobe.com, 12 June 2022 Little was immediately drawn to Garvey’s ethos of self-determination and Pan-African confraternity — as was Earl Little, a Baptist minister and recent immigrant who had escaped the violence of Jim Crow Georgia. New York Times, 19 Mar. 2022 The confraternity that had the chapel built in the 15th century still exists today -- as do other similar ones. Julia Buckley, CNN, 1 Feb. 2022 Literary biographers—writers who devote their lives to other writers’ lives—are a confraternity of old soldiers who like to trade battle stories. Judith Thurman, The New Yorker, 9 Sep. 2019 The band was followed by a religious confraternity in full regalia, as members of the military police’s art-theft unit carried the statue to Monteroduni’s main church. Elisabetta Povoledo, New York Times, 22 Oct. 2017 As a result, diversity moves us further away from Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of confraternity among different peoples and equal justice under the law and in the eyes of God. WSJ, 16 Aug. 2017 See More Word History
Etymology
Middle English confraternite, from Medieval Latin confraternitat-, confraternitas, from confrater fellow, brother, from Latin com- + frater brother — more at brother
First Known Use
15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1