www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Eastern Catholic Church Stats from Annuario Pontificio 2005

Not sure if these were posted here before, but I thought I wold share them. These are ranked in order of size:

1. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (Major Archepiscopal: 4,268,577)


2. The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church (Major Archepiscopal: 3,699,142)


3. The Maronite Catholic Church (Patriarchal: 3,107,344)


4. The Melkite Greek Catholic Church (Patriarchal: 1,342,014)


5. The Romanian Greek Catholic Church (Major Archepiscopal: 741,917)


6. The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church (Major Archepiscopal: 402,702)


7. The Armenian Catholic Church (Patriarchal: 368,101)


8. The Chaldean Catholic Church (Patriarchal: 358,682)


9. The Eparchy of Mukačevo (320,000)


10. The Hungarian Greek Catholic Church (268,935)


11. The Coptic Catholic Church (Patriarchal: 252,790)


12. The Slovak Greek Catholic Church (225,369)


13. The Ethiopian/Eritrean Catholic Church (Metropolitan: 225,224)


14. The Ruthenian Apostolic Exarchate in Czech Republic (177,704)


15. The Syrian Catholic Church (Patriarchal: 123,668)


16. The (Ruthenian) Byzantine Catholic Church USA (Metropolitan: 99,381)


17. The Italo-Albanian Greek Catholic Church (61,398)


18. The Apostolic Exarchate for Serbia and Montenegro (22,934)


19. The Eparchy of Križevci (15,311)


20. The Apostolic Exarchate in FYROM (Macedonia) (11,398)


21. The Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church (10,000)


22. The Greek Catholic Church in Greece and Turkey (2,340)

THAT BRINGS THE WORLDWIDE GRAND TOTAL OF EASTERN CATHOLICS OF VARIOUS RITES AND CHURCHES TO: 16,104,931

Byzantine Catholics of various stripes total approximately 7.5 million.

The total number of Catholics worldwide is 1.1 Billion.

Gordo

Christ is Born!...Glorify Him!

Hello Gordo,
Thank you for sharing this information. It puts a lot of things in perspective, such as why the Romanian church was recently elevated to Major-Archepiscopal ranking.

It seems to me that if the "Ruthenian" core constituent churches could be organized into a single church structure crossing political bounderies it would be a considerable entity as well, easily deserving a Major-Archbishop and a greater degree of self-determination.

I regard these churches to be #'s 9, 10, 12, 14 and 16, with possibly #'s 18, 19 and 20 attached. Imagine the possibilities!

+T+
Michael

Christ is born - Glory Him!

I think you are definitely on to something, Michael. Although, I would argue that all of the ones you listed should go under #1 (which should be listed as Patriarchal! ). Then you would have essentially a single Kievian Byzantine Catholic Church (would that not have been the vision of Sts. Cyril and Methodius?) united under the Patriarch of Kiev. Add to that possibly the reuniting of most of the Orthodox jurisdictions of Kiev, and it could be quite the powerhouse for mission, evangelization and growth in the world.

This would mean the dropping of the nationalistic and ethnic names such as Ukrainian, Serbian, Slovak, Ruthenian, etc etc from the nomenclature of the churches...

That would bring the total number by 2005 figures to 5,409.609 under a single Patriarchal jurisdiction.

It's a tall order, but we can dream, can't we?

God bless!

Gordo
"Unite the clans...unite them!" William Wallace to Robert the Bruce in Braveheart

Gordo and Michael, Christ is born!

It is a nice vision and dream, but in reality I can not see it happening unless the respective churches were to shrink so much that it would make it easier to handle administratively in merging.

Also when you talk about dropping national affliations, as you can tell by just reading posts on this forum, you will definitely invoke a lot of emotion.

Again, a nice dream and maybe it is the will of God, but I do not see that happening for a very long time to come.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

I appreciate cultural traditions, but I think the Byzantine Catholic Church would prosper if it considered itself The American Byzantine Catholic Church. It should encounter every branch described and report up to a Metroplolitan/Patriarch. Now that is in theory, as we have seen on other message boards, our hierarchy does not have the leadership nor the heart to acomplish this succesfully.

Lord have Mercy!

I agree Father Anthony.
I met a lady from Eastern Slovakia. She's American now, but only has been here a few years. She said she had heard that the Poles, Ukrainains, Rusyns and Slovakians fought terribly here years ago. She affirmed this by saying that not much has really changed back in the homeland.

Plus in some rites (like the Romanian) have a different set of tones from the Ruthenian, along with other customs, which would make it a little less than easy to merge everyone.

Christ is Born!

Perhaps I should elaborate on my ideas a little bit more. Because certain things should be kept in mind.

First I recognize the difficulty of ethnic rivalry that can happen when different sorts are put together in the same parish (although it works out more often than not regardless of the public perception), but that is not what I am suggesting. We have to get out of the mindset that I am suggesting merging them in Europe, or standardizing their practices, it's just not necessary. The merging of those groups under one hierarchy was accomplished in the USA 100 years ago, and that is your Ruthenian Metropolia of Pittsburgh. Such standardization of tones and texts as we have in the USA would not be needed or desirable in Europe, although they may already be quite similar aside from languages.

The diocesan bounderies could remain as they are across eastern europe, and they could have liturgy in Slavonic or any language that pleases them locally. My contention is the division along national lines is artificial and only serves to weaken them as a class. Also, the churches south of the Carpathian mountains were not evangelized from Kiev (the conversion of which began 100 years afterward), and if not for some cultural similarities no one would be thinking that they belong together.

Each of those churches I refer to as 'Ruthenian' were together under the Patriarch of Constantinople before the union, and all have their origin in the mission of Ss Cyril and Methodius. The separate hierachies that exist for each of them are rather recent, having been erected by the Vatican at various times after the Union of Uzhorod.

I just don't see the need to attach these churches to the church in Ukraine, any more than the church in Romania. In fact, by observation they seem more like the Romanian church and the Serbian church in practice than either the Ukrainian or Russian church.

By keeping these churches in smaller segments they are totally dependent upon the Pope of Rome, they need and deserve a Major Archbishop of their own, and a synod capable of appointing it's own bishops without requiring an approval 'upstairs'. In fact what I am saying is that even if they were attached to the Primate (or patriarch) of a Kievan-Rus church (however one will style it), they would still deserve a Major Archbishop under that Primate!

Since they are together under the Pope with no problems, let them be under their own Major-Archbishop in the same way.

In any case it's no longer my personal concern, but I thought this viewpoint deserved an airing.

Glorify Him!!

+T+
Michael

Michael, Christ is born!

I have to say it is a nice idea, but in reality that is were I think it will stay, in the idea stage and be filed as such.

I can not forsee anything along those ever happening in the forseeable future with the state of mind of both hierarchy and the laity. Many of the examples you refer to in regards to hierarchies do not have competition of multiplicity of "jurisdictions" in the old country as they do here.

I know many in the Orthodox Church dream of a united church, but again I believe it will not happen in my lifetime, though we can still pray for that to happen.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

Where are the Russian Catholic numbers?

Basil, from the little I have seen in person, that seems to be happening. In other words, I can only speak from the parish I attend (as well as the people I have met online). From what I can tell, the work of acculturation to American culture is virtually completed. Yes, there is still a little Slovakian sung by the choir during Divine Liturgy, but that is out of respect to the few (and very old) members of the parish whose parents immigrated and who learned Slovakian at home. Otherwise, everything is in the Liturgy is in English, the culture is American, and the people think of themselves (and describe themselves) as "Eastern Catholics" or "Byzantine Catholics." Those are the labels they use to descrube themselves. So, I think the shift in ethnic identification has pretty much happenedd -- at least, at my parish.


I'm not so sure about that. It's easy to blame the leadership, and I have been guilty of that too on occasion. But, the Byzantine Catholic Metropolitanate as a whole in America seems to be quite good at acculturating the Church to American culture. Indeed, that work seems mostly done. Now, we need a fresh vision for what we shall be today and tomorrow . . . (see the "evangelization" board on this forum). But, as far as providing the Mysteries and assisting in acculturation, the leadership of the Byzantine Catholic Church has done (with some exceptions) a generally good job from what I can tell.

That's just my two cents' worth.

-- John

Wow. I knew the Byzantines were small, but I didn't know *HOW* small.

Oh well: Small can be beautiful too. And, there is plenty of potential for growth . . .

-- John

To put ourselves into perspective, this how the world's 10 largest religions stack up amongst each other, as determined by some demographers:

Christianity at 2.1 billion, of which Catholics number about 1.1 billion;

Islam (all sects) at 1.3 billion

Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion

Hinduism: 900 million

Chinese traditional religion: 394 million

Buddhism: 376 million

Primal-indigenous: 300 million

African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million

Sikhism: 23 million

Juche: 19 million

We have a long way to go before the Gospel is heard by all of humanity!

Amado

I would think that most people on the planet have heard the Gospel. But, sadly they have rejected it. But, I would agree we still have a long way to go to reach all 4 corners of the earth.

There are only less than a third of the world's population of 6.5 billion who are Christians. About 2/3 of all humanity have not heard the Gospel.

Have they heard the Gospel and rejected it? I don't think so. Just imagine the 1 billion + Indians and the 1.2 billion Chinese and the hundreds of millions of Muslims who were born into their own faith.

We got plenty of work to do, I must say!

Amado