Other Churches
Other churches see full communion between them as meaning that their members may licitly participate in each others' rites, particularly in the partaking of the Eucharist in closed communion denominations, and involving also recognition of each other's offices of ministry as valid and thus, in most cases, interchangeability of ordained ministers. Importantly, the existence of full communion, as thus understood, does not presume that there is no difference in rites or in doctrine between the two Churches, but rather that these differences do not touch on points defined as essential.
The word "intercommunion" is sometimes used of this arrangement, which is much less close than the unity between Churches that share a common history, such as the Anglican Communion.
This understanding of "full communion" differs from that of the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Christianity in that the churches that enter into such arrangements do not consider themselves as forming together a single church.
It is in the stronger sense of becoming a single church that the Traditional Anglican Communion sought "full communion" with the Roman Catholic Church as a sui iuris (particular Church) jurisdiction. Its membership is now deciding whether to accept the offer of full communion (again in the stronger sense) within the framework of personal ordinariates of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church.
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