In Anglican Christianity, low church refers to those who give little emphasis to ritual. The term is most often used in a liturgical sense, denoting a Protestant emphasis, whereas "high church" denotes an emphasis on ritual, often Anglo-Catholic.

The term was initially pejorative. During the series of doctrinal and ecclesiastic challenges to the established church in the 17th century, commentators and others—who favoured the theology, worship, and hierarchical structure of Anglicanism (such as the episcopate) as the true form of Christianity—began referring to that outlook (and the related practices) as "high church", and by the early 18th century those theologians and politicians who sought more reform in the English church and a greater liberalisation of church structure, were in contrast called "low church".