Full communion

A church fellowship, sometimes called a communion or communion, is the fellowship given by a church or the mutual recognition between churches or denominations that the partner churches embrace the essentials of the Christian faith. According to biblical understanding, it is Jesus' will that believers be one, just as he and the Father are one (John 17:11 LUT). In early Christianity, church divisions began at the time of Paul, with individual denominations being established (1 Cor 1:10-12 LUT). More advanced than church fellowship are Catholic church union and Protestant union in administration or also confession.

Full church communion - usually referred to as "full pulpit and Lord's Supper communion" in the area of the Reformation churches - includes:

• mutual recognition of baptism
• joint celebration of the Lord's Supper/ Eucharist (communion of the Lord's Supper)
• mutual recognition of ordained ministers
• mutual recognition of the sacraments
• shared commitment to mission
• Pulpit community

The partner churches of a church fellowship retain their theological, traditional and organizational autonomy.

Full church fellowship exists, for example, between

• the 15 autocephalous Orthodox churches of Byzantine tradition;
• the pre-Chalcedonian ancient Oriental churches of Alexandrian and Antiochian tradition, i.e. Armenian, Syriac, Malankarian (South Indian), Coptic (Egyptian), Ethiopian and Eritrean Christianity;
• the churches of Roman Catholic tradition, i.e. the Latin Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches;
• the Anglican Churches, the Old Catholic or Christian Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht, the Independent Philippine Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden;
• the 145 Evangelical Lutheran churches that are members of the Lutheran World Federation;
• the churches of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe, which includes Lutheran, Reformed and Methodist churches;
• the four major evangelical churches in the USA united on the basis of the Formula of Agreement (1997) (Evangelical Lutheran, Reformed, Presbyterian and the United Church of Christ);
• the major Lutheran and Anglican churches of the USA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Episcopal Church of the United States of America) and Canada (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Anglican Church of Canada);
• of the United Church of Christ and the German Union of Evangelical Churches (UEK);
• the twelve Reformation churches of the Porvoo communion (on the one hand the Anglican churches of the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula, on the other the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches);
• the Free Churches and other Baptist churches in the Baptist World Alliance;
• the 76 churches that belong to the World Council of Methodist Churches;
• of the Waldensian and Methodist Church in Italy, and the Union of Baptists there;

Excluded from this list are some "non-canonical" Orthodox churches, some Protestant denominations (Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Quakerism), anti-Trinitarian church communities (Unitarianism, Christadelphian, Jehovah's Witnesses), and Mormonism.

See also

• Pre-Reformation Churches