Albanian Greek Catholic Church
Not to be confused with the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church, the 4,000 or so members of this Byzantine Rite community, established in 1628, live largely in Albania.Armenian Catholic Church
Cilician Armenians accepted union with Rome in 1307, while those in Greater Armenia toyed with the idea but never followed through. The Armenian Catholic Church is therefore much smaller than the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Belarusian Greek Catholic Church
This Church’s members are the heirs in Belarus of those who entered into full communion with Rome through the Union of Brest in 1595/96.
Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church
Led by the merchant Dragan Tsankov, a group of Christians reconciled with Rome under Pope Pius IX in 1861, establishing this community.
Chaldean Catholic Church
After centuries of confusion, the Patriarchate of Babylon (based in Baghdad) was established in 1930, with the customs and discipline of the Latin Rite combined with Syriac liturgical traditions.
Coptic Catholic Church
The Coptic Catholic Church was recognised by Rome from 1741 when a Coptic bishop in Jerusalem, Anba Athanasius, became a Catholic.
Eritrean Catholic Church
The newest of the Eastern Churches, it was granted autonomy from the Ethiopian Catholic Church in 2015.
Ethiopian Catholic Church
Ethiopian Catholic liturgies follow the Alexandrian Rite and use Ge’ez, a South Semitic language that fell out of daily use centuries ago.
Greek Byzantine Catholic Church
Employing the Byzantine liturgical rite in both Koine Greek and Modern Greek, this Church has members in Greece and Turkey.
Greek Catholic Church of Croatia and Serbia
The Greek Catholic Church of Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia – to give it its full name – uses a Slavonic form of Byzantine Rite. Its structure changed following the break-up of Yugoslavia.
Hungarian Greek Catholic Church
Based in Debrecen – once known as the “Calvinist Rome” – this Church was recognised by Pope Pius X in 1912. He gave the community three years to switch from Hungarian to Greek in its liturgy, but the outbreak of war prolonged the use of Hungarian indefinitely.
Italo-Albanian Catholic Church
This Church’s 61,000 members are concentrated in southern Italy and Sicily.
Macedonian Greek Catholic Church
Established in 2001 by St John Paul II, this Church, which comprises a single eparchy, celebrates the liturgy in Macedonian.
Maronite Church
Officially known as the Syriac Maronite Church of Antioch, this community has more than three million members, a third of whom live in Lebanon.
Melkite Greek Catholic Church
Based in the Syrian capital, Damascus, these Byzantine Rite Catholics trace their history back to the early Christians of Antioch.
Romanian Greek Catholic Church
Established in 1698, the Church was outlawed in 1948 under Stalin’s orders, but regained its freedom in 1990.
Russian Greek Catholic Church
The smallest of the Eastern Catholic Churches, with just 3,200 members.
Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church
Known in the United States as the Byzantine Catholic Church, this community also has European eparchies in Ukraine and the Czech Republic.
Slovak Greek Catholic Church
There are some 350,000 members of this Church in Slovakia and 2,000 under its Canadian Eparchy of Saints Cyril and Methodius of Toronto.
Syriac Catholic Church
A Catholic minority within Syriac Christendom, its members experienced great persecution in the 18th century. Today, its headquarters are in Beirut.
Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
Tracing its origins back to St Thomas the Apostle, this Syriac Rite Church has more than five million members.
Syro-Malankara Catholic Church
After several failed attempts at union with Rome, this community, which uses the ancient Antiochene Rite, finally entered into full communion in 1930.
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Believed to be the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches, it affirmed its full communion with Rome at the Union of Brest.
