The term "High Church" refers to beliefs and practices of ecclesiology, liturgy and theology, generally with an emphasis on formality, and resistance to "modernization." Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term has traditionally been principally associated with the Anglican tradition.

The term is often used to describe Anglican churches using a number of ritual practices associated in the popular mind with Roman Catholicism. Sacrosanctum Concilium states that: "in the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy", having to do with sanctity and respect for God, Jesus, and the church as the Body of Christ. As such high church Anglicans espouse a position that the church as an organisation and the congregation at worship is "catholic" primarily in the sense that it is joined through its ritual to the "universal" church, and so they use the terms "High Church" and "Anglo-Catholic".

Because of its history, the term "High Church" also refers to aspects of Anglicanism quite distinct from the Oxford Movement or Anglo-Catholicism. There remain parishes that are "High Church" and yet adhere closely to the quintessentially Anglican usages and liturgical practices of the Book of Common Prayer.