The basic jurisdictional division of the faithful in the Church is derived from a distinction of persons and laws that is today personal rather than territorial. Antecedent to any other ecclesiastical determination, even that of domicile or cognational relationship, and underlying the multiple and diverse classifications inherent in the canonical legal system, is the fundamental ascription of the individual to one or other of the various particular rites. Ritual membership, signals and confirmed by Baptism establishes the faithful in an autonomous community which exists even within the unity of Catholic belief and practice as a living, historical embodiment of a distinct and precious religious experience. This community or ritual family is itself a rich treasure of the spirit, engendering a whole body of ecclesiastical institutions, as well as giving rise to a multiplicity of distinctive liturgical, cultural, social and disciplinary relationships in which it is expressed and through which it live on in the concrete reality of the Christian life in the world. The rites are part of the tradition of the Church. They were formed in and are dependent upon a whole geographical and historical environment which finds in them the expression of an authentic human culture.