Relationship between the Universal Church and the Local Churches

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In the relationship between the universal Church and the local Churches, two false options are generally excluded. The first underlines that the universal Church is the simple result of a federation of already existing local Churches. The second emphasizes that the local Church is simply an administrative subdivision or part of the universal Church. Though the universal Church is ontologically prior to the local Church, as the letter Communionis notio claims, yet the local Church is the concrete manifestation of the universal Church in a determined time and space, as the universal Church exists “in and from” the local Churches. The terms in the formula in quibus et ex quibus are equally essential as is the relationship between them.