Portal:Catholic Church/Eastern Churches

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 sacraments ("mysteries") 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 Holy See's Annuario Pontificio gives the following list of Eastern Catholic Churches and of countries (or other political areas) in which they possess an episcopal ecclesiastical jurisdiction (date of reunion in parentheses):

• Alexandrian liturgical tradition
  • Coptic Catholic Church (patriarchate): Egypt (1741)
  • Ethiopian or Ethiopic Catholic Church (metropolia): Ethiopia, Eritrea (1846)
  • Eritrean Catholic Church (metropolia): Asmara, Eritrea (2015)
• Antiochian (Antiochene or West-Syrian) liturgical tradition
  • Maronite Church (patriarchate): Lebanon, Cyprus, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Argentina, Brazil, USA, Australia, Canada, Mexico (union re-affirmed 1182)
  • Syrian or Syriac Catholic Church (patriarchate): Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, United States and Canada, Venezuela (1781)
  • Syro-Malankara Catholic Church (major archiepiscopate): India, United States of America (1930)
• Armenian liturgical tradition:
  • Armenian Catholic Church (patriarchate): Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Palestine, Ukraine, France, Greece, Latin America, Argentina, Romania, United States and Canada, Eastern Europe (1742)
• Chaldean or East Syrian liturgical tradition:
  • Chaldean Catholic Church (patriarchate): Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, United States of America (1692)
  • Syro-Malabar Church (major archiepiscopate): India, United States of America (at latest, 1599)
• Byzantine (Constantinopolitan) liturgical tradition:
  • Albanian Greek Catholic Church (apostolic administration): Albania (1628)
  • Belarusian Greek Catholic Church (no established hierarchy at present): Belarus (1596)
  • Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church (apostolic exarchate): Bulgaria (1861)
  • Greek Catholic Church of Croatia and Serbia (two eparchies): Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro (1611)
  • Greek Byzantine Catholic Church (two apostolic exarchates): Greece, Turkey (1829)
  • Hungarian Greek Catholic Church (metropolia): Hungary (1646)
  • Italo-Albanian Catholic Church (two eparchies and a territorial abbacy): Italy (Never separated)
  • Macedonian Greek Catholic Church (an eparchy): Republic of Macedonia (1918)
  • Melkite Greek Catholic Church (patriarchate): Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Jerusalem, Brazil, USA, Canada, Mexico, Iraq, Egypt and Sudan, Kuwait, Australia, Venezuela, Argentina (1726)
  • Romanian Greek Catholic Church (major archiepiscopate): Romania, United States of America (1697)
  • Russian Greek Catholic Church: (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 (a sui juris metropolia, an eparchy, and an apostolic exarchate): United States of America, Ukraine, Czech Republic (1646)
  • Slovak Greek Catholic Church (metropolia): Slovak Republic, Canada (1646)
  • Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (major archiepiscopate): Ukraine, Poland, USA, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Germany and Scandinavia, France, Brazil, Argentina (1595)