Schools Relations with: In the canon law of the Catholic Church, an ecclesial community (/ɪˈkliːziəl/) is a Christian religious group that does not meet the Catholic definition of a "Church".
However, the Catholic Church expressly excludes "those Christian communities born out of the Reformation of the sixteenth century," since, according to Catholic doctrine, these communities do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of orders, and therefore lack a constitutive element of the Church.
[3] This includes the Anglican Communion, the validity of whose orders the Roman Catholic Church has declared "absolutely null and utterly void".
This judgement, as enunciated in the papal bull Apostolicae curae of 1896, has been given as an example of a truth connected to revelation that is to be held definitively.
Ecclesial communities can refer to groups of individuals who gather for a spiritual reason, primarily for worship and fellowship that typically does not receive sacraments unless a sacramental minister, i.e., a priest or deacon, is available.