The term regional church (Ger. Landeskirche) denotes a church of or within a particular territory. Against the background of the church’s claim to be universal, of course, such a circumscription is ecclesiologically problematic. The semantic scope of the term is therefore limited to describing manifestations of the visible church in the sense of legally constituted bodies. We are therefore dealing here with a term and concept of church law, both ecclesiastical and (esp. in historical perspective) civil.
Catholic church polity with its hierarchical structur…