The
Eastern Catholic Churches are autonomous (in
Latin, sui iuris) particular Churches in full communion with the Bishop of Rome
—the pope. They preserve
the centuries-old liturgical and devotional traditions of the
various
Eastern Christian
Churches with which they are associated historically. While
doctrinal differences divide these other Eastern Christian Churches
into groups not in communion with one another, the Eastern Catholic
Churches are united with one another and with the
Latin or Western Church, although they vary in
theological emphasis, forms of
liturgical worship and popular piety,
canonical discipline and terminology. In particular, they recognize
the
central role of the
Bishop of Rome within the
College of
Bishops and his infallibility when speaking
ex cathedra.
Most Eastern Catholic Churches have counterparts in other Eastern
Churches, whether
Assyrian or
Oriental Orthodox, from whom they
are separated by a number of theological concerns, or the
Eastern Orthodox Churches, from whom
they are separated primarily by differences in understanding the
role of the Bishop of Rome in the church.
The Eastern Catholic Churches were located historically in
Eastern Europe, the Asian
Middle East,
Northern
Africa and India, but are now, because of migration, found also
in
Western Europe, the Americas and
Oceania to the extent of forming full-scale ecclesiastical
structures such as
eparchies, alongside the
Latin dioceses.
One country, Eritrea
, has only an
Eastern Catholic
hierarchy, with no Latin structure.
The terms
Byzantine Catholic and
Greek Catholic
are used of those who belong to Churches that use the
Byzantine liturgical rite. The terms
Oriental Catholic and
Eastern Catholic include
these, but are broader, since they also cover Catholics who follow
the Alexandrian, Antiochian, Armenian and Chaldean liturgical
traditions.
Juridical status
The term
Eastern Catholic Churches refers to 22 of the 23
autonomous particular Churches in communion with the Bishop of
Rome. (Every diocese is a
particular
Church, but not an autonomous one in the sense in which the
word is applied to these 22 Churches.) They follow different
Eastern Christian liturgical traditions:
Alexandrian,
Antiochian,
Armenian,
Byzantine and
Chaldean. Canonically, each Eastern
Catholic Church is
sui iuris or
autonomous with respect to other Catholic Churches, whether Eastern
or Latin, though all accept the spiritual and juridical authority
of the Pope. Thus a Maronite Catholic is normally subject only to a
Maronite bishop, not, for example to a Ukrainian or Latin Catholic
bishop. However, if in a country the members of some particular
Church are so few that no hierarchy of their own has been
established there, their spiritual care is entrusted to a bishop of
another ritual Church.
This holds also for Latin Catholics: in
Eritrea
, they are placed in the care of bishops of the
Ethiopic Catholic
Church. Theologically, all the particular Churches can
be viewed as "sister Churches". According to the
Second Vatican Council these Eastern
Churches, along with the larger
Latin
Church share "equal dignity, so that none of them is superior
to the others as regards rite and they enjoy the same rights and
are under the same obligations, also in respect of preaching the
Gospel to the whole world (cf. Mark 16:15) under the guidance of
the
Roman Pontiff."
The Eastern Catholic Churches are in
full communion of faith and of acceptance
of authority of the See of Rome, but retain their distinctive
liturgical rites, laws and customs,
traditional devotions and have their own theological emphases.
Terminology may vary: for instance,
diocese and
eparchy,
vicar general and
protosyncellus,
confirmation and
chrismation are respectively Western and
Eastern terms for the same realities. The mysteries (sacraments) of
baptism and chrismation are generally
administered, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, one
immediately after the other. Infants who are baptized and
chrismated are also given the
Eucharist.
The Eastern Catholic Churches are represented in the
Holy See and the
Roman
Curia through the
Congregation for the
Oriental Churches, which, as indicated on the Vatican website,
"is made up of a Cardinal Prefect (who directs and represents it
with the help of a Secretary) and 27 Cardinals, one Archbishop and
4 Bishops, designated by the Pope ad qui[n]quennium. Members by
right are the Patriarchs and the Major Archbishops of the Oriental
Churches and the President of the Pontifical Council for the
Promotion of Unity among Christians."
Terminology
Eastern Catholics are in full communion with the Roman Pontiff, and
in this sense are members of the Roman Catholic Church, but some
feel they are not "Roman Catholics" in the narrower senses of that
term, since they are not members of the local particular Church of
Rome nor of the
Western or Latin Church,
which uses the
Latin liturgical
rites, among which the
Roman Rite is
the most widespread. Other Eastern Catholics "are proud to call
themselves Roman Catholics".
"Rite"
Care must be taken to distinguish differing meanings of the word
"
rite". Apart from its reference to the liturgical
patrimony of a particular Church, the word has been and is still
sometimes, even if rarely, used of the particular Church itself.
Thus, the term
Latin rite can refer either to the
Latin Church or to one or more of the
Latin liturgical rites, which include
the majority
Roman Rite, but also the
Ambrosian Rite, the
Mozarabic Rite, and others.
In the
Code
of Canons of the Eastern Churches (published in 1990), the
terms
autonomous Church and
rite are thus
defined: "A group of Christian faithful linked in accordance with
the law by a hierarchy and expressly or tacitly recognized by the
supreme authority of the Church as autonomous is in this Code
called an autonomous Church" (canon 27); "1. A rite is the
liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary patrimony,
culture and circumstances of history of a distinct people, by which
its own manner of living the faith is manifested in each autonomous
[sui iuris] Church. 2. The rites treated in this code, unless
otherwise stated, are those which arise from the Alexandrian,
Antiochene, Armenian, Chaldean and Constantinopolitan traditions"
(canon 28) When speaking of the Eastern Catholic Churches, the 1983
Latin Code of Canon Law uses the terms
"ritual Church" or "ritual Church sui iuris" (canons 111 and 112),
and also speaks of "a subject of an Eastern rite" (canon 1015 §2),
"Ordinaries of another rite" (canon 450 §1), "the faithful of a
specific rite" (canon 476), etc. The Second Vatican Council spoke
of the Eastern Catholic Churches as "particular Churches or
rites".
The use of the term "rite" to refer to the Eastern and Western
Churches has now become rare. A publication of the National
Catholic Council of Catholic Bishops explains: "We have been
accustomed to speaking of the Latin (Roman or Western) Rite or the
Eastern Rites to designate these different Churches. However, the
Church's contemporary legislation as contained in the
Code of
Canon Law and the
Code of Canons of the Eastern
Churches makes it clear that we ought to speak, not of rites,
but of Churches. Canon 112 of the Code of Canon Law uses the phrase
'autonomous ritual Churches' to designate the various Churches."
And a writer in a periodical of January 2006 declared: "The Eastern
Churches are still mistakenly called 'Eastern-rite' Churches, a
reference to their various liturgical histories. They are most
properly called Eastern Churches, or Eastern Catholic
Churches."
"Uniate"
The term
Uniat or
Uniate is applied to those
Eastern Catholic churches who were previously Eastern Orthodox
churches, and to their members, primarily by Eastern Orthodox. The
term is now considered to have a negative, even derogatory,
connotation, though it was also historically used, even if less
frequently, by Latin and Eastern Catholics, especially prior to the
Second Vatican Council.
Official Catholic documents no longer use the term, due to its
perceived negative overtones. According to Eastern Orthodox
Professor John Erickson of St Vladimir's
Theological Seminary, "The term 'uniate' itself,
once used with pride in the Roman communion, had long since come to
be considered as pejorative. 'Eastern Rite Catholic' also was no
longer in vogue because it might suggest that the Catholics in
question differed from Latins only in the externals of worship. The
Second Vatican Council affirmed rather that Eastern Catholics
constituted
churches, whose vocation was to provide a
bridge to the separated churches of the East."
Eastern and Western (Latin) Catholics
Most Eastern Catholic Churches arose when a group within an ancient
Christian Church that was in
disagreement with the see of Rome chose to enter into
full communion with that see.
The Syro-Malabar Church, based in
Kerala
, India, has never been out of communion with
Rome. Other Christians of Kerala, who were originally of the
same East-Syrian tradition, passed instead to the West-Syrian
tradition and now form part of
Oriental Orthodoxy (some from the
Oriental Orthodox in India reunited with the Catholic Church in
1930 and became the
Syro-Malankara Catholic
Church).
Maronite Church also
claims never to have been separated from Rome, and has no
counterpart
Orthodox Church
out of
communion with the
Pope. It is therefore inaccurate to refer to it as a "Uniate"
Church. The
Italo-Albanian
Catholic Church has also never been out of communion with Rome,
but, unlike the Maronite Church, it uses the same
liturgical rite as the
Eastern Orthodox Churches.
The
canon law that the Eastern Catholic
Churches have in common has been codified in the 1990
Code of
Canons of the Eastern Churches. Within the
Roman Curia, the
dicastery that works with the Eastern Catholic
Churches is the
Congregation for the
Oriental Churches, which, by law, includes as members all
Eastern Catholic patriarchs and major archbishops.
All Catholics are subject to the
bishop of
the eparchy or diocese (the local particular Church) to which they
belong. They are also subject directly to the Pope, as is stated in
canon 43 of the
Code of Canons of the
Eastern Churches and canon 331 of the
Code of Canon Law. Most,
but not all, Eastern Catholics are also directly subject to a
patriarch,
major archbishop/
Catholicos, or
metropolitan who has authority for all
the bishops and the other faithful of the autonomous
particular Church (canons 56 and 151 of
the
Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches).
Supreme authority of the Church
Under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, the Roman Pontiff
(the Pope) enjoys supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary
power in the Church which he can always freely exercise. The full
description is under Title 3, Canons 42 to 54 of the Code of Canons
of the Eastern Churches.
Eastern patriarchs and major archbishops
The
Catholic patriarchs and major archbishops derive their titles from
the sees of Alexandria
(Copts), Antioch
(Syrians,
Melkites, Maronites), Babylonia
(Chaldaeans), Cilicia (Armenians), Kyiv
-Halych
(Ukrainians), Ernakulam
-Angamaly
(Syro-Malabars), Trivandrum
(Syro-Malankaras), and
Făgăraş-Alba Iulia (Romanians).
The Eastern Churches, their leaders and synods are governed under
Titles 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, respectively, under the Code of Canons
of the Eastern Churches.
Historical background

An Eastern Catholic cemetery in
northeastern Pennsylvania, where many Eastern Catholics settled in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Communion between Christian Churches has been broken over matters
of faith, when each side accused the other of
heresy or departure from the true faith (
orthodoxy). Communion has been broken also because
of disputes that do not involve matters of faith, as when there is
disagreement about questions of authority or the legitimacy of the
election of a particular bishop. In these latter cases, each side
accuses the other of
schism, but
not of heresy.
Major breaches of communion:
- The Churches that accepted the teaching of the 431 Council of Ephesus (which condemned
the views of Nestorius) classified as
heretics those who rejected the Council's teaching. Those who
accepted it lived mostly in the Roman
Empire and classified themselves as orthodox; they considered
the others, who lived mainly under Persian rule, as Nestorian heretics. These had a period of great
expansion in Asia. Monuments of their presence still exist in
China. Now they are relatively few in numbers and are divided into
three Churches, of which the Chaldaean Church, which is in
communion with Rome, is the most numerous, while the others have
recently split between the Assyrian Church of the East and
the Ancient Church of the
East.
- Those who accepted the 451 Council of Chalcedon similarly
classified those who rejected it as Monophysite heretics. The Churches that
refused to accept the Council considered instead that it was they
who were orthodox. The six present-day Churches that continue their
tradition reject the description Monophysite, preferring
instead Miaphysite. They are
often called, in English, Oriental Orthodox Church, to
distinguish them from the Eastern Orthodox Churches. This
distinction, by which the words oriental and
eastern, words that in themselves have exactly the same
meaning, are used as labels for two different realities, is
impossible in most other languages and is not universally accepted
even in English. These churches are also referred to as
pre-Chalcedonian or, now more rarely, as
non-Chalcedonian or anti-Chalcedonian. In
languages other than English, other means are used to distinguish
the two families of Churches. Some reserve the term "Orthodox" for
those that are here called "Eastern Orthodox" Churches, but members
of what are then called "Oriental/Eastern Orthodox" Churches
consider this unfair.
- The
East–West Schism came about
in a context of cultural
differences between the Greek-speaking East and the
Latin-speaking West and of rivalry between the Churches in Rome,
which claimed a primacy not merely of honour but also of authority,
and in Constantinople
, which claimed parity with that in Rome. The
rivalry and lack of comprehension gave rise to controversies, some
of which appear already in the acts of the Quinisext Council of 692. At the Council of Florence (1431-1445), these
controversies about Western theological elaborations and usages
were identified as, chiefly, the insertion of "Filioque" in the Nicene
Creed, the use of unleavened bread for
the Eucharist, purgatory, and the authority of the Pope. The
schism is conventionally dated to 1054, when the Patriarch of
Constantinople and the Papal Legate
Humbert of Mourmoutiers
issued mutual excommunications that
have since been revoked. In spite of that event, both Churches
continued for many years to maintain friendly relations and seemed
to be unaware of any formal or final rupture. However, estrangement
continued to grow. In 1190 Theodore
Balsamon, Patriarch of
Antioch, declared that "no Latin
should be given communion unless he first declares that he will
abstain from the doctrines and customs that separate him from us";
and the sack of Constantinople
in 1204 by the participants in the Fourth Crusade was seen as the West's
ultimate outrage. By then, each side considered that the
other no longer belonged to the Church that was orthodox and
catholic. But with the passage of centuries, it became customary to
refer to the Eastern side as the Orthodox Church and the Western as
the Catholic Church, without either side thereby renouncing its
claim to be the truly orthodox or the truly catholic Church. The
Churches that sided with Constantinople are known collectively as
the Eastern Orthodox
Churches. In each Church whose communion with the Church of
Rome was broken by these three divisions, there arose, at various
times, a group that considered it important to restore that
communion. The see of Rome accepted them as they were: there was no
question of requiring them to adopt the customs of the Latin
Church.
At a meeting in Balamand, Lebanon in June 1993, the Joint
International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the
Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church declared that these
initiatives that "led to the union of certain communities with the
See of Rome and brought with them, as a consequence, the breaking
of communion with their Mother Churches of the East ... took place
not without the interference of extra-ecclesial interests" (section
8 of the
document). Likewise, the Commission acknowledged that
"unacceptable means" were used in attempts to force Eastern
Catholics to return to the Orthodox Church (paragraph 11). The
missionary outlook and
proselytism that
accompanied the Unia (paragraph 10), was recognized to be
incompatible with the rediscovery of each other as "Sister
Churches" (section 12). Thus, the Commission concluded that the
"missionary apostolate ... which has been called 'uniatism', can no
longer be accepted either as a method to be followed nor as a model
of the unity our Churches are seeking (paragraph 12).
At the same time, the Commission stated:
- 3) Concerning the Eastern Catholic Churches, it is clear that
they, as part of the Catholic Communion, have the right to exist
and to act in response to the spiritual needs of their
faithful.
- 16) The Oriental Catholic Churches who have desired to
re-establish full communion with the See of Rome and have remained
faithful to it, have the rights and obligations which are connected
with this communion.
As remarked earlier, the identity of the Maronite Church and of the
Syro-Malabar Church is due to no such division within an Eastern
Church.
Eastern Catholic Churches make up 2% of the membership of the
Catholic Church when compared to the
Latin Rite which has over one billion
members. The 2008 statistics collected by the
CNEWA show that
Syriac Christians make up 47% of
Eastern Catholics and Byzantine Christians make up 46%. The largest
particular church is the Byzantine
Ukrainian Greek Catholic
Church with 25% (4.3 million) and the second largest is the
Syriac
Syro-Malabar
Catholic Church at 23% (3.9 million). The majority of Syriac
Christians are Catholic.
Historical issues of inter-rite transfer
Orientalium Dignitas
On 30 November 1894
Pope Leo XIII
issued the
apostolic
constitution Orientalium
Dignitas, in which he said "that the ancient Eastern rites
are a witness to the Apostolicity of the Catholic Church, that
their diversity, consistent with unity of the faith, is itself a
witness to the unity of the Church, that they add to her dignity
and honour. He says that the Catholic Church does not possess one
rite only, but that she embraces all the ancient rites of
Christendom; her unity consists not in a mechanical uniformity of
all her parts, but on the contrary, in their variety, according in
one principle and vivified by it."
Pope Leo broadened from Melkite Catholics to all Eastern Catholics
the prohibition in
Pope Benedict
XIV's
encyclical Demandatam on 24 December 1743, declaring:
"Any Latin rite missionary, whether of the secular or religious
clergy, who induces with his advice or assistance any Eastern rite
faithful to transfer to the Latin rite, will be deposed and
excluded from his benefice in addition to the
ipso facto
suspension
a divinis and other punishments that he will
incur as imposed in the aforesaid Constitution
Demandatam."
Modern reforms
Starting in 1964, a series of reforms have been issued concerning
Eastern Catholic Churches that have corrected a number of past
errors. Disputes between Latin bishops and Eastern Catholics had
led to difficulties that in the United States culminated in schism.
There had been confusion on the part of Western clergy as to the
legitimacy of a presence of the Churches of the East in countries
seen as belonging to the West, despite firm and repeated papal
confirmation of these Churches universal character over the
centuries. The Second Vatican Council brought the reform impulse to
visible fruition. Several documents, both during and after Vatican
II have led to significant reform and development within the
Eastern Catholic Churches.
Orientalium Ecclesiarum
In the decree
Orientalium
Ecclesiarum (21 November 1964), dealing with the Churches
of
Eastern Christianity, the
Second Vatican Council
directed that the traditions of the Eastern Catholic Churches
should be maintained. It declared that "it is the mind of the
Catholic Church that each individual Church or Rite should retain
its traditions whole and entire and likewise that it should adapt
its way of life to the different needs of time and place"
(paragraph 2), and that they should all "preserve their legitimate
liturgical rite and their established way of life, and ... these
may not be altered except to obtain for themselves an organic
improvement" (para. 6; cf. 22). It confirmed and approved the
ancient discipline of the sacraments existing in the Eastern
Churches, and the ritual practices connected with their celebration
and administration, and declared its ardent desire that this should
be re-established, if circumstances warranted (para. 12). It
applied this in particular to administration of
Confirmation by priests (para. 13). It
expressed the wish that, where the permanent
diaconate (ordination as deacons of men who are not
intended afterwards to become priests) had fallen into disuse, it
should be restored (section 17). Paragraphs 7-11 are devoted to the
powers of the patriarchs and major archbishops of the Eastern
Churches, whose rights and privileges, it says, should be
re-established in accordance with the ancient tradition of each of
the Churches and the decrees of the
ecumenical councils, adapted somewhat to
modern conditions. Where there is need, new patriarchates should be
established either by an ecumenical council or by the Roman
Pontiff.
Lumen Gentium
The Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,
Lumen Gentium (21 November
1964) deals with the Eastern Catholic Churches in paragraph 23,
stating:
By divine Providence
it has come about that various churches, established in various
places by the apostles and their successors, have in the course of
time coalesced into several groups, organically united, which,
preserving the unity of faith and the unique divine constitution of
the universal Church, enjoy their own discipline, their own
liturgical usage, and their own theological and spiritual heritage.
Some of these churches, notably the ancient patriarchal churches,
as parent-stocks of the Faith, so to speak, have begotten others as
daughter churches, with which they are connected down to our own
time by a close bond of charity in their sacramental life and in
their mutual respect for their rights and duties. This variety of
local churches with one common aspiration is splendid evidence of
the catholicity of the undivided Church. In like manner the
Episcopal bodies of today are in a position to render a manifold
and fruitful assistance, so that this collegiate feeling may be put
into practical application.
Unitatis Redintegratio
The decree
Unitatis
Redintegratio (also of 21 November 1964) deals with the Eastern
Catholic Churches in paragraphs 14-17.
Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches
During the
First Vatican
Council the need for a common code for the Eastern Churches was
discussed, but no concrete action was taken. Only after the
benefits of the 1917 Latin code were appreciated was a serious
effort made to create a similar code for the Eastern Catholic
Churches. This came to fruition with the promulgation in 1990 of
the
Code of
Canons of the Eastern Churches, which came into effect in 1991.
It is a framework document that lays out the canons that are a
consequence of the
common patrimony of the Churches of the
East: each individual sui iuris Church has its own canons, its own
particular law, layered on top of this code.
Instruction for Applying the Liturgical Prescriptions of the
Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches
The
Instructions of 6 January 1996 are intended to bring together
in one place the developments that took place in the previous
texts. The 'Instruction' is "an expository expansion based upon the
canons, with constant emphasis upon the preservation of Eastern
liturgical traditions and a return to those usages whenever
possible - certainly in preference to the usages of the
Latin church, however much some principles and
norms of the
conciliar
constitution on the
Roman rite, 'in
the very nature of things, affect other
rites as well'." The Instruction
states:
The liturgical laws valid for all the Eastern Churches
are important because they provide the general orientation.
However, being distributed among various texts, they risk remaining
ignored, poorly coordinated and poorly interpreted. It seemed
opportune, therefore, to gather them in a systematic whole,
completing them with further clarification: thus, the intent of the
Instruction, presented to the Eastern Churches which are in full
communion with the Apostolic See, is
to help them fully realize their own identity. The authoritative
general directive of this Instruction, formulated to be implemented
in Eastern celebrations and liturgical life, articulates itself in
propositions of a juridical-pastoral nature, constantly taking
initiative from a theological perspective.
These modern developments were necessitated by a series of
unsatisfactory initiatives in the past.
These interventions felt the effects of the mentality
and convictions of the times, according to which a certain
subordination of the non-Latin liturgies was perceived toward the
Latin-rite liturgy which was considered "ritus praestantior". This attitude may
have led to interventions in the Eastern liturgical texts which
today, in light of theological studies and progress, have need of
revision, in the sense of a return to ancestral traditions. The
work of the commissions, nevertheless, availing themselves of the
best experts of the times, succeeded in safeguarding a major part
of the Eastern heritage, often defending it against aggressive
initiatives and publishing precious editions of liturgical texts
for numerous Eastern Churches. Today, particularly after the solemn
declarations of the Apostolic Letter Orientalium Dignitas by Leo XIII, after
the creation of the still active special Commission for the liturgy
within the Congregation for the Eastern Churches in 1931, and above
all after the Second Vatican Council and the Apostolic Letter
Orientale Lumen by John Paul II,
respect for the Eastern liturgies is an indisputable attitude and
the Apostolic See can offer a more complete service to the
Churches.
List of Eastern Catholic Churches
The Holy See's
Annuario
Pontificio gives the following list of Eastern Catholic
Churches with residence and of countries (or other political areas,
consisting of more than country) in which they possess an episcopal
ecclesiastical
jurisdiction (date of union or foundation in parenthesis,
membership in brackets):
- Alexandrian liturgical
tradition
- Coptic
Catholic Church (patriarchate): Cairo
, [163,849],
Egypt (1741)
- Ethiopian Catholic Church[30396] (metropolia):
Addis
Ababa
, [208,093], Ethiopia, Eritrea (1846)
- Antiochian (Antiochene or
West-Syrian) liturgical tradition
- Maronite
Church[30397] (patriarchate): Bkerke
,
[3,105,278], Lebanon, Cyprus, Jordan, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Egypt,
Syria, Argentina, Brazil, United States, Australia, Canada, Mexico
(union re-affirmed 1182)
- Syriac
Catholic Church[30398] (patriarchate): Beirut
,[131,692],
Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Sudan,
Syria, Turkey, United States and Canada, Venezuela
(1781)
- Syro-Malankara Catholic
Church[30399] (major archiepiscopate): Trivandrum
, [412,640], India, United States (1930)
- Armenian liturgical tradition:
- Armenian
Catholic Church[30400] (patriarchate): Beirut
, [375,182],
Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Palestinian
Authority, Ukraine, France, Greece, Latin
America, Argentina, Romania, United States, Canada, Eastern
Europe (1742)
- Chaldean or East Syrian
liturgical tradition:
- Chaldean
Catholic Church[30401] (patriarchate): Baghdad
, [418,194], Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria,
Turkey, United States (1692)
- Syro-Malabar Church[30402] (major
archiepiscopate): Ernakulam
, [3,902,089], India, Middle East, Europe and
America (date disputed)
- Byzantine
(Constantinopolitan
) liturgical tradition:
- Albanian Greek
Catholic Church (apostolic administration): [3,510], Albania
(1628)
- Belarusian Greek
Catholic Church (no established hierarchy at present):
[10,000], Belarus (1596)
- Bulgarian Greek Catholic
Church[30403] (apostolic exarchate): Sofia
, [10,107],
Bulgaria (1861)
- Byzantine Church of the Eparchy
of Križevci[30404] (an eparchy and an apostolic
exarchate): Križevci
, Ruski
Krstur
[21,480] + [22,653], Croatia, Serbia
, and
Montenegro
(1611)
- Greek Byzantine Catholic
Church[30405] (two apostolic exarchates): Athens
, [2,325],
Greece, Turkey (1829)
- Hungarian Greek Catholic
Church[30406] (an eparchy and an apostolic exarchate):
Nyiregyháza
, [290,000], Hungary (1646)
- Italo-Albanian Catholic
Church (two eparchies and a territorial abbacy): [63,240], Italy
(Never separated)
- Macedonian Greek Catholic
Church (an apostolic exarchate): Skopje
, [11,491],
Republic of
Macedonia
(1918)
- Melkite Greek Catholic
Church[30407] (patriarchate): Damascus
, [1,346,635], Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel,
Brazil, United States, Canada, Mexico, Iraq, Egypt and Sudan,
Kuwait, Australia, Venezuela, Argentina (1726)
- Romanian Church
United with Rome, Greek-Catholic[30408] (major archiepiscopate): Blaj
, [776,529]
Romania, United States (1697)
- Russian Catholic
Church[30409]: (two apostolic exarchates, at present with no
published hierarchs): Russia, China (1905); currently about 20
parishes and communities scattered around the world, including five
in Russia itself, answering to bishops of other jurisdictions
- Ruthenian Catholic Church[30410] (a sui
juris metropolia[30411], an eparchy[30412], and an apostolic exarchate[30413]): Uzhhorod
, Pittsburgh
, [594,465], United States, Ukraine, Czech
Republic
(1646)
- Slovak Greek Catholic Church
(metropolia): Prešov
, [243,335],
Slovak Republic, Canada (1646)
- Ukrainian Greek Catholic
Church[30414] (major archiepiscopate): Kyiv
,
[4,223,425], Ukraine, Poland, United States, Canada, Great Britain
, Australia, Germany and Scandinavia, France,
Brazil, Argentina (1595)
Note:
Georgian Byzantine-Rite
Catholics are not recognized as a
particular Church (cf.
canon 27 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern
Churches).
The majority of Eastern Catholic Christians
in the Georgian
Republic
worship under the form of the Armenian liturgical rite.
The list shows that an individual autonomous particular Church may
have distinct jurisdictions (local particular Churches) in several
countries.
The Ruthenian Catholic Church is organized in an exceptional way
because of a constituent metropolia, the
Byzantine
Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh, which is referred
to also, but not officially, as the Byzantine Catholic Church in
America. Canon law treats it as if it held the rank of an
autonomous ("sui iuris") metropolitan particular Church because of
the circumstances surrounding its 1969 establishment as an
ecclesiastical province. At that time, conditions in the
Rusyn homeland, known as
Carpatho-Rus, admitted no other solution
because the Byzantine Catholic Church had been forcibly suppressed
by the Soviet authorities. When Communist rule ended, the Eparchy
of Mukacheve (founded in 1771) re-emerged. It has some 320,000
adherents, greater than the number in the Pittsburgh metropolia. In
addition, an apostolic exarchate established in 1996 for Catholics
of Byzantine rite in the Czech Republic is classed as another part
of the Ruthenian Catholic Church.
On an
EWTN website the Apostolic Exarchate for
Byzantine-rite Catholics in the Czech Republic is mentioned in a
list of Eastern Churches, of which all the rest are autonomous
particular Churches. This appears to be a mistake, since
recognition within the Catholic Church of the autonomous status of
a particular Church can only be granted by the Holy See (cf. canon
27 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches), which instead
classifies this Church as one of the constituent local particular
Churches of the autonomous (
sui iuris) Ruthenian Catholic
Church.
Byzantine-rite Catholics of Georgian nationality or
descent
Some have treated
Byzantine Rite
Catholics within the
Georgian
Catholic Church as a separate particular Church with a reunion
date of either 1861 or 1917. A study by Deacon Methodios Stadnik
states: "The Georgian Byzantine Catholic Exarch, Fr. Shio
Batmanishviii (sic), and two Georgian Catholic priests of the Latin
rite were executed by the Soviet authorities in 1937 after having
been held in captivity in Solovki prison and the northern gulags
from 1923." In his book
The Forgotten: Catholics of the Soviet
Union Empire from Lenin through Stalin, Father Christopher
Zugger writes: "By 1936, the Byzantine Catholic
Church of Georgia had two
communities, served by a bishop and four priests, with 8,000
believers", and he identifies the bishop as Shio Batmalashvili. The
Ukrainian Helsinki
Human Rights Union
mentions "the Catholic administrator for Georgia Shio
Batmalashvili" as one of those who were executed as "anti-Soviet
elements" in 1937.
The second of these sources calls Batmalashvili a bishop. The first
is ambiguous, calling him an Exarch but giving him the title of
Father. The third merely refers to him as "the Catholic
administrator" without specifying whether he was a bishop or a
priest and whether he was in charge of a Latin or a Byzantine
jurisdiction.
If
Batmalashvili was an Exarch, and not instead a bishop
connected with the Latin diocese of Tiraspol, which had
its seat at Saratov
on the Volga River, to
which Georgian Catholics even of Byzantine rite belonged this would
mean that a Georgian Byzantine-Rite Catholic Church existed, even
if only as a local particular Church. However, since the
establishment of a new hierarchical jurisdiction must be published
in the
Acta Apostolicae
Sedis, and no mention of the setting up of such a jurisdiction
for Byzantine Georgian Catholics exists in that official gazette of
the Holy See, the claim appears to be unfounded.
The
Annuario Pontificio, which
normally lists all the bishops of the Catholic Church, does not
mention Batmalashvili in its editions of the 1930s.
If indeed he was a
bishop, he may then have been one of the priests secretly ordained
bishops of titular sees for the service of the Church in the
Soviet
Union
by French Jesuit Bishop Michel d'Herbigny, who was head of the
Pontifical Commission "Pro Russia" from 1925 to 1934, and who
perhaps were given exclusive jurisdiction for no particular area of
the Soviet Union. In the circumstances of that time, the
Holy See would have been incapable of and would not even have
thought of setting up new dioceses or exarchates within the Soviet
Union, especially not a Byzantine one, since Byzantine Catholics in
the Soviet Union were being forced to become officially members of
the
Russian Orthodox
Church.
Batmalashvili's name is not among those given in
Roman Catholic Regional Hierarchy as the four
"underground" apostolic administrators (only one of whom appears to
have been a bishop) for the four sections into which the diocese of
Tiraspol was divided after the resignation in 1930 of its already
exiled last bishop,
Joseph Aloysius Kessler. This source gives
Father Stefan Demurow as
apostolic administrator of "Tbilisi
and Georgia" and says he was executed in 1938.
Other sources
associate Father Demurow with Azerbaijan
and say that, rather than being executed, he died
in a Siberian
concentration
camp.
Until 1994, the United States
annual
publication Catholic Almanac used to go further,
listing "Georgian" among the Byzantine Churches. Until corrected in
1995, it appears to have been making a mistake similar to that made
on the equally unofficial EWTN site about the Czech Byzantine
Catholics.
There was also a short-lived Byzantine Catholic movement among the
ethnic Estonians in the Orthodox Church in Estonia during the
interwar period of the twentieth
century, consisting of two to three parishes, not raised to the
level of a local particular church with its own head. This group
was liquidated by the Soviet regime and is now extinct.
Biritual faculties
While "clerics and members of
institutes
of consecrated life are bound to observe their own rite
faithfully," priests are occasionally given permission to celebrate
the liturgy of a rite other than the priest's own rite, by what is
known as a grant of "biritual faculties". The reason for this
permission is usually the service of Catholics who have no priest
of their own rite. Thus priests of the
Syro-Malabar Church working as
missionaries in areas of India in which there were no structures of
their own Church, were authorized, while remaining priests of the
Syro-Malabar Church, to use the Roman Rite in those areas, and
Latin-Rite priests are, after due preparation, given permission to
use an Eastern rite for the service of members of an Eastern
Catholic Church living in a country in which there are no priests
of their own particular Church.
The Pope, to whose pastoral guidance the individual Churches both
Eastern and Western are all equally entrusted, can celebrate the
liturgy according to any rite. However, because he is Bishop of
Rome, he normally uses the
Roman
Rite.
For a just cause (especially in order to foster Christian love and
manifest the unity between the different particular Churches) and
with the permission of the local bishop, priests of different
autonomous ritual Churches may concelebrate, using strictly,
without admixture, the rite of the principal celebrant; it is
preferable that each wears the vestments of his own rite. For this
no indult of biritualism is required.
Biritual faculties may concern not only clergy but also religious,
enabling them to become members of an institute of an autonomous
Church other than their own.
The laity are obliged to foster an understanding and appreciation
of their own rite, and are held to observe it everywhere unless
something is excepted by the law. This does not forbid occasional
or even, for a just cause, habitual participation in the liturgy of
a different autonomous Church, Western or Eastern. The obligation
of assisting at the Eucharist or, for members of some Eastern
Churches, at Vespers, is satisfied wherever the liturgy is
celebrated in a Catholic rite.
Clerical celibacy
Eastern and Western Christian churches have different traditions
concerning
clerical celibacy.
These differences and the resulting controversies have played a
role in the relationship between the two groups in some
Western countries.
Most Eastern Churches distinguish between "monastic" and
"non-monastic" clergy.
Monastics do not
necessarily live as monks or in monasteries, but have spent at
least part of their period of training in such a context. Their
monastic vows include a vow of
celibate chastity.
Bishops are normally selected from the monastic clergy, and in most
Eastern Churches a large percentage of priests and deacons also are
celibate, while a portion of the clergy (typically, parish priests)
may be married. If a future priest or deacon is to be married, his
marriage must take place before ordination to the diaconate. While
in some countries the marriage continues usually to be arranged by
the families, cultural changes sometimes make it difficult for such
seminarians to find women prepared to be the wife of a priest,
necessitating a hiatus in the seminarians' studies.
In countries where Eastern traditions prevail among Christians, a
married clergy caused little controversy; but it aroused opposition
in other countries to which Eastern Catholics immigrated. In
response to requests from the Latin bishops of those countries, the
Sacred
Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith set out rules in
a letter of 2 May 1890 to
François-Marie-Benjamin
Richard, the
Archbishop of Paris,
which the Congregation applied on 1 May 1897 to the United States,
stating that only celibates or widowed priests coming without their
children should be permitted in the United States. This rule was
restated with special reference to Catholics of
Ruthenian Rite by the 1 March 1929
decree
Cum data fuerit, which was renewed for a further
ten years in 1939. Dissatisfaction by many Ruthenian Catholics in
the United States gave rise to the
American
Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese. This rule was abolished with
the promulgation of the Decree on the Catholic churches of the
Eastern Rite; since then, married men have been ordained to the
priesthood in the United States, and numerous married priests have
come from eastern countries to serve parishes in the
Americas.
Some Eastern Catholic Churches have decided to adopt mandatory
clerical celibacy, as in the Latin Church. They include the
Syro-Malankara Catholic
Church and the
Ethiopic
Catholic Church.
See also
References
- The New York Times Guide To Essential
Knowledge: A Desk Reference for the Curious Mind - Page 499
- "Note on the Expression 'sister Churches'", Section 11.
Available online at:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000630_chiese-sorelle_en.html
- Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches,
Section 3
- Catechism of the Catholic Church Section
1233
- Profile
- Examples of the use of "Roman Catholic Church" by Popes, even
when not addressing members of non-Catholic Churches, are the
encyclicals Divini illius Magistri and Humani generis, and the talk by
Pope
John Paul II at the general audience of 26 June 1985 ( actual text in Italian, Spanish translation) in which he treated "Roman
Catholic Church " as synonymous with "Catholic Church". The term
"Roman Catholic Church" is repeatedly used to refer to the whole
Church in communion with the see of Rome, including Eastern
Catholics, in official documents concerning dialogue between the
Church as a whole (not just the Western part) and groups outside
her fold. Examples of such documents can be found at the links on
the Vatican website under the heading Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity. The Holy
See never uses "Roman Catholic Church" to refer only to the
Western or Latin Church. In the First Vatican
Council's Dogmatic Constitution de fide catholica, the
phrase the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church (in
Latin, Sancta catholica apostolica Romana ecclesia) also
refers to something other than the Latin-Rite or Western
Church.
- Some Eastern Catholics who use the Byzantine liturgical rite
and call themselves "Byzantine Catholics" deny that they are "Roman
Catholics", using this word to mean either Catholics who use the
Roman Rite or
perhaps the whole of the Western Church, including those parts that
use the Ambrosian Rite or other non-Roman liturgical
rites: "We're Byzantine rite, which is Catholic, but not Roman
Catholic" ( Ukrainian church pastor honored).
- Canon 27 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern
Churches In the original Latin the word for autonomous is "sui iuris":
Coetus christifidelium hierarchia ad normam iuris iunctus, quem
ut sui iuris expresse vel tacite agnoscit suprema Ecclesiae
auctoritas, vocatur in hoc Codice Ecclesia sui iuris
- Canon 28 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern
Churches
- Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Catholic
Eastern Churches Orientalium Ecclesiarum, section
2
- Eastern Catholics in the United States of America
available from the NCCB at:
http://www.usccbpublishing.org/productdetails.cfm?sku=5-287&disccode=sum0625
- Catholic Update: What All Catholics Should Know About
Eastern Catholic Churches
- See "The Word 'Uniate'" from www.oca.org
- The term was used by the Holy See (e.g., in the Ex Quo of Pope Benedict XIV), available online
at: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pope0247m.htm. The 1909
Catholic Encyclopedia consistently
used the term "Uniat" to refer to Eastern Catholics, stating: "The
Uniat Church is therefore really synonymous with
Eastern Churches united to Rome, and Uniats is
synonymous with Eastern Christians united with Rome.
Available online at:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06752a.htm
- "It should be mentioned that in the past the Eastern Catholic
churches were often referred to as 'Uniate' churches. Since the
term is now considered derogatory, it is no longer used." "The Catholic Eastern Churches" from the
website of CNEWA: A Papal Agency for Humanitarian and Pastoral
Support
- Quoted in Richard John Neuhaus, Orthodoxy and "Parallel
Monologues", in the March 2002 issue of First Things
- Code of Canons of the Oriental Churches, Title 3, Canon
43
- Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches
- Codex canonum Ecclesiarium orientalium
- Theodore Balsamon on the Powers of the Patriarch of
Constantinople
- "In the third sitting of the Council, Julian, after mutual
congratulations, showed that the principal points of dispute
between the Greeks and Latins were in the doctrine (a) on the
procession of the
Holy Ghost, (b) on azymes in the Eucharist, (c) on purgatory,
and (d) on the Papal supremacy" The Orthodox Response to the Latin Doctrine of
Purgatory from the 1400s.
- Milton V. Anastos, Constantinople and
Rome
- The Great Schism: The Estrangement of Eastern and
Western Christendom
- The Eastern Catholic Churches, 2008
- The Uniate Eastern Churches, by Adrian Fortescue, George D. Smith
(2001 reprint ISBN 0971598630), p. 40
- Orientalium Dignitas, protocol 1
- English translation of Orientalium
Ecclesiarum
- De iuribus Sedium patriarchalium, cfr. Conc. Nicaenum, I can. 6
de Alexandria et Antiochia, et can. 7 de Hierosolymis: Conc. I Oec.
Decr., p. 8. Conc. Later. IV, anno 1215, Constit. V: De dignigate
Patriarcharum: ibid. p. 212.-| Conc. Ferr.-Flor.: ibid. p.
504.
- New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law: Study Edition, by
John P. Beal, James A. Coriden (Paulist Press 2002 ISBN
0809140667), p. 27
- New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law: Study Edition, by
John P. Beal, James A. Coriden (Paulist Press 2002 ISBN
0809140667), p. 998
- Official text of Orientale Lumen
- A Concise History of the Georgian Byzantine
Catholic Church
- Syracuse University Press 2001, pages 224 and following
- In Memory of the Victims of the Solovky embarkation
point
- Oriente Cattolico (Vatican City 1974), page 194
- For instance, Small Catholic community comes to life in former
Communist country
- canon 40 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern
Churches
- Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 3
- canon 701 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern
Churches. This imperfect English translation of the Code omits the
word "optabiliter" of the original text.
- canons 451 and 517
§2 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches
- canon 40 §3 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern
Churches. The defective translation in the source gives "is
excused" instead of "is excepted" as a translation of
"excipitur".
- Can. 1248 §1 of the Code of Canon Law; canons 881 and 883 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches
- Acta Sanctae Sedis, vol. 1891/92, p.390
- Collectanea No. 1966
External links
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