Chronology of Catholic Dioceses:The Greek Catholic Church

See a list of abbreviations used in this list.

1: Historical Background

2: Jurisdictions

1: Historical Background

The Greek Catholic Church is an automous Catholic Church of the Byzantine (or Constantinopelitan) liturgical, historical and cultural tradition, which is linked to the early Christian Patriarchate of Constantinople, the See of St. Andrew.

The Ottoman Sultan Mohammed II removed his non-Latin Catholic subjects from the civil authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1829. The formation of Byzantine Catholic communities in the empire was now possible for the first time.

A Latin priest, Fr. John Marangos, began missionary work among the Greek Orthodox in Constantinople in 1856 and eventually formed a very small group of Byzantine Catholics. In the 1880's Byzantine Catholic communities were also formed in two villages in Thrace.

Before the Church was organized, it was under the Apostolic Delegate at Constantinople. Parishes and missions existed at Constantinople, Cadi-Keui, Peramos, Gallipoli, Malgara and Cæsarea in Cappadocia. The faithful numbered in 1910 about 1000, under the care of a dozen priests, of whom seven were Assumptionists. There were also Catholics of this rite in Greece. They were subject to the Delegation at Athens.

On 11 June 1911 Pope Pius X created an Apostolic Exarchate for the Byzantine Rite Catholics in Turkey. Later, virtually the entire Byzantine Catholic community immigrated from Constantinople to Athens, and those of the two villages in Thrace to a town in Macedonia. This was part of a general exchange of populations that took place between Greece and Turkey in the 1920's. In view of this new situation, the Holy See erected a separate Apostolic Exarchate for the Byzantine Rite Catholics in Greece on 11 June 1932.

As of 31 December 1998, there were 2.340 members of the Greek Catholic Church, of whom only 40 were in Turkey.

-CT (based on Robertson 1995, CE, and AP 2000)

2: Jurisdictions

1911 (and 1996)
Istanbul, Konstantinopolis (ApEx [Gr.-Byz.]) - Turkey
1932
Greece (ApEx [Gr.-Byz.], detached from Istanbul, Konstantinopolis (ApEx.)) - Greece
av Webmaster publisert 08.09.2004, sist endret 08.09.2004 - 12:11