AbstractIn this paper we address our efforts to extend the well‐known connection in equational logic between equational theories and fully invariant congruences to other–possibly infinitary–logics. In the special case of algebras, this problem has been formerly treated by H. J. Hoehnke [10] and R. W. Quackenbush [14]. Here we show that the connection extends at least up to the universal fragment of logic. Namely, we establish that the concept of (infinitary) universal theory matches the abstract notion of fully invariant system. We also prove that, inside this wide group of theories, the ones which are strict universal Horn correspond to fully invariant closure systems, whereas those which are universal atomic can be characterized as principal fully invariant systems.