The Eastern Catholic Churches (historically known by the now non-complimentary term Uniate Churches, which is still in use in some areas, and also by the inaccurate term eastern-rite Churches) are autonomous, self-governing (in Latin, sui iuris) particular churches in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. Together with the Latin Church, they compose the worldwide Catholic Church. They preserve many centuries-old eastern liturgical, devotional, and theological traditions, shared in most cases with the various other Eastern Christian churches with which they were once associated. A few have never been out of communion with the Pope, a claim made, for instance, by the Maronites. Although the Churches with which most were formerly associated may be of traditions out of communion with each other (Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, Church of the East), Eastern Catholic Churches of whatever tradition are all in communion with one another and with the Latin or Western Church. However, they vary in theological emphasis, forms of liturgical worship and popular piety, canonical discipline and terminology. They all recognize the central role of the Bishop of Rome within the College of Bishops and his infallibility when speaking ex cathedra. As a number of theological issues separate them from their counterparts who are of similar traditions, but who are out of communion with Rome, they do not admit members of such other churches to the Eucharist or the other sacraments except in the circumstances indicated in canon law. In the case of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, these issues result primarily, though not exclusively, from differences in the understanding of the role and the extent of the authority of the Bishop of Rome.
Historically, Eastern Catholic Churches were located in Eastern Europe, the Asian Middle East, Northern Africa, and India. Due to migration they are now also in Western Europe, the Americas and Oceania, where eparchies have been established alongside the Latin dioceses. 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 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.
Read more about Eastern Catholic Churches: Juridical Status, Terminology, Emergence of Eastern Catholics, Supreme Authority of The Church, Eastern Patriarchs and Major Archbishops, Historical Background, Numbers, Orientalium Dignitas, Modern Reforms, List of Churches, Bi-ritual Faculties, Clerical Celibacy
Famous quotes containing the words eastern, catholic and/or churches:
“All the morning we had heard the sea roar on the eastern shore, which was several miles distant.... It was a very inspiriting sound to walk by, filling the whole air, that of the sea dashing against the land, heard several miles inland. Instead of having a dog to growl before your door, to have an Atlantic Ocean to growl for a whole Cape!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Carlyle is not a seer, but a brave looker-on and reviewer; not the most free and catholic observer of men and events, for they are likely to find him preoccupied, but unexpectedly free and catholic when they fall within the focus of his lens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?”
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)