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 parenthesis):

• Alexandrian liturgical tradition
  • Coptic Catholic Church (patriarchate): Egypt (1741)
  • Ethiopic Catholic Church (metropolia): Ethiopia, Eritrea (1846)
• 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 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 Byzantine 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)
  • Byzantine Church of the Eparchy of Križevci (an eparchy and an apostolic exarchate): Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro (1611)
  • Greek Byzantine Catholic Church (two apostolic exarchates): Greece, Turkey (1829)
  • Hungarian Greek Catholic Church (an eparchy and an apostolic exarchate): Hungary (1646)
  • Italo-Albanian Catholic Church (two eparchies and a territorial abbacy): Italy (Never separated)
  • Macedonian Greek Catholic Church (an apostolic exarchate): 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 Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic (major archiepiscopate): Romania, United States of America (1697)
  • Russian Byzantine 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 (two eparchies and an apostolic exarchate): Slovak Republic, Canada (1646)
  • Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (major archiepiscopate): Ukraine, Poland, USA, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Germany and Scandinavia, France, Brazil, Argentina (1595

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original article was at Portal:Catholicism/Eastern Churches. The list of authors can be seen in the page history.