The Greek Byzantine Catholic Church is a particular Church within the Roman Catholic Church and uses the Byzantine liturgical rite in the Greek language. Its membership includes inhabitants of Greece and Turkey. A Particular Church , in Roman Catholic theology and canon law, is any of the individual constituent ecclesial communities in full communion with the Church of Rome and thus make up the Catholic Communion. ... The Roman Catholic Church, (also known as the Catholic Church), is the ancient Christian Church led by the Bishop of Rome (commonly called the Pope). ...

History

Although, after the failure of the attempts by the Council of Lyons in 1274 and by the Council of Florence in 1439 to repair the breach of the East-West Schism between Greek and Latin Christians, many individual Greeks, then under Ottoman rule, embraced Catholicism, it was not until the 1880s that a church specifically for Greek Catholics who followed the Byzantine Rite was built in the village of Malgara in Thrace. Before the end of the nineteenth century two more such churches were built, one in Constantinople, the other in Kadiköy, Turkey. There were two major councils at Lyons, both regarding the Roman Catholic Church: The First Council of Lyons (1245, the Crusades) The Second Council of Lyons (1274, papal elections) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A decree of the Council of Constance (9 October 1417), sanctioned by Pope Martin V obliged the papacy to summon general councils periodically. ... The East-West Schism, known also as the Great Schism (though this latter term sometimes refers to the later Western Schism), was the event that divided Chalcedonian Christianity into Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. ... Christianity is a monotheistic religion that recognizes Jesus Christ as its central figure, Lord and Messiah. ... The Roman Catholic Church, (also known as the Catholic Church), is the ancient Christian Church led by the Bishop of Rome (commonly called the Pope). ... Map of Constantinople. ...

Much more numerous were the Greek Catholics of Latin Rite, who formed the majority of the population in some Aegean islands. To a large extent these Catholics were fully Hellenized descendants of Venetians, Genoese and Amalfitans who had settled in Greece for trading and other reasons.

In 1907, Father Isaias Papadopoulos, the priest who had built the church in Thrace, was appointed vicar general for the Greek Catholics within the apostolic delegation of Constantinople, and in 1911 he was given episcopal consecration and put in charge of the newly established ordinariate for Greek Catholics, which later became an exarchate. Thus was founded the particular Church of Byzantine-Rite Greek Catholics. A Particular Church , in Roman Catholic theology and canon law, is any of the individual constituent ecclesial communities in full communion with the Church of Rome and thus make up the Catholic Communion. ...

As a result of the conflict between Greece and Turkey after the First World War, the Greek Catholics of Malgara and of the neighbouring village of Daudeli moved to Yannitsa in Macedonia, and many of those who lived in Constantinople emigrated to Athens, among them the bishop who had succeeded to the position of Exarch and the religious institute of the Sisters of the Pammakaristos, founded in 1920. Athens (Greek: Αθήνα, Athína; IPA ) is the capital of Greece, and of the Attica prefecture of Greece. ...

In 1932 the territory of the Exarchate for Byzantine-Rite Greek Catholics was limited to that of the Greek state, and a separate Exarchate of İstanbul/Constantinople was established for those resident in Turkey. Due to continued emigration, the Catholics of the latter exarchate have become reduced to extremely few. The Catholics of the exarchate for Greece, who were never very numerous, are now outnumbered by the Ukrainian Catholic immigrants in its care, who are assisted also by priests and religious sisters from Ukraine. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), also known as the Ukrainian Catholic Church, is one of the successor Churches to the acceptance of Christianity by Grand Prince Vladimir the Great (Ukrainian Volodymyr) of Kiev (Kyiv), in 988. ...

Sources

• Oriente Cattolico (Vatican City: The Sacred Congregation for the Eastern Churches, 1974)
• Annuario Pontificio.