Abstract

The Third sector Code does not mention ecclesiastical bodies, preferring to use the expression «civilly recognised religious bodies». This fact has been persuading some authors to think the ecclesiastical body lost its importance, in favour of a new conceptual category identified with the religious body recognised by the State. Actually, a careful consideration of the Third sector Code and of its implementing decrees, as well as of more recent judicial cases, seems the ecclesiastical body, characterised by the pursuit of religious and cult objectives, maintains its central position inside the wider genus of the religious bodies, it too characterised by the fulfilment of the religious and cult objective. This fact could support the idea according to which legal personality has functional nature, being conferred by the State in order that the new subject achieves some objectives esteemed worthy of protection.