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Albanian Greek Catholic Church | |
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Classification | Eastern Catholic |
Polity | Episcopal |
Governance | Apostolic administration |
Pope | Francis |
Apostolic Administrator | Giovanni Peragine |
Associations | Congregation for the Oriental Churches |
Region | Southern Albania |
Liturgy | Byzantine Rite |
Headquarters | Elbasan |
Congregations | 9 |
Members | 3,845[ citation needed ] |
Ministers | 12 |
Other name(s) | Apostolic Administration of Southern Albania |
The Albanian Greek Catholic Church (Latin : Ecclesiae Graecae Catholico Albanica; Albanian : Kisha Katolike Bizantine Shqiptare), also known as the Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church, is an autonomous ( sui iuris in Latin) Byzantine Rite particular church in full communion with the Catholic Church and the Pope of Rome, whose members live in Albania and which comprises the Apostolic Administration of Southern Albania. The Albanian Greek Catholic Church, with its Byzantine Rite, is closely linked to the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church sharing a significant commonality of history, identity and traditions.
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Particular churches sui iuris of the Catholic Church |
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Particular churches are grouped by rite. |
Alexandrian Rite |
Armenian Rite |
Byzantine Rite |
East Syriac Rite |
Latin liturgical rites |
West Syriac Rite |
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History of Albania (Origin of the Albanians) |
The conversion to Christianity of Albania took place under Latin Christianity (and its Roman Rite liturgy) influence in the north and Byzantine Christianity in the south. Christianity was the first and the oldest monotheistic religion of Albanian people. After the fifteenth-century Ottoman conquest, some two thirds of the population accepted Islam. In 1967, Communist-ruled Albania was officially declared an atheist state.
Though the Greek liturgical rite was used in many of its churches, Albania was part of the patriarchate of Rome until 731, when Byzantine Emperor Leo III, in reprisal for the opposition of Pope Gregory III to the emperor's iconoclast policy, attached the whole of Eastern Illyricum to the patriarchate of Constantinople.
Catholics of the Latin Church were long established in the north of the country. A Catholic mission worked in the south between 1660, when the Orthodox archbishop joined the Catholic Church, to 1765 when the effort was abandoned because of obstacles placed by the Ottoman rulers. In 1895 a group of villages in Mali Shpati, southeast of Elbasan in central Albania, decided to become Catholic and demanded a bishop of their own rite, a proposal to which the consular representatives of Russia and Montenegro raised objections with the civil authorities. At about the same time, another group of Greek Catholics arose, centred on an archimandrite, George Germanos, who was a nephew of the Orthodox metropolitan in 1900, and concluded a definitive movement of Catholic unity formed in Elbasan. Numbers grew only to a small extent, but enough for southern Albania to become in 1939 a separate ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the care of an Apostolic Administrator. However, after less than seven years, the administrator was expelled, and contact seemed lost with the Byzantine faithful, who found themselves under strict Communist rule.
Only in 1992 was it possible to appoint a new apostolic administrator. At first the post was given to the Holy See's diplomatic representative in Tirana, Archbishop Ivan Dias, who later became Archbishop of Mumbai and a cardinal. Archbishop Dias's successor as Apostolic Administrator of Southern Albania, not as Nuncio, is the Croatian-born Byzantine-Rite Franciscan bishop Hil Kabashi, who was appointed in 1996.
The apostolic administratorship of Southern Albania has 3,200 Catholics in nine parishes, with 11 churches, and is served by four diocesan and 10 religious priests, 10 male and 97 female religious, who administer 10 schools and 20 charitable institutions. The great majority of these are of the Latin Church.[ citation needed ]
The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via local synods. The church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the head of the Roman Catholic Church—the Pope—but the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognized by them as primus inter pares and regarded as the spiritual leader of many of the eastern Christian parishes. As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The Eastern Orthodox Church officially calls itself the Orthodox Catholic Church.
The ecumenical patriarch is the archbishop of Constantinople (Istanbul), New Rome and primus inter pares among the heads of the several autocephalous churches which compose the Eastern Orthodox Church. The ecumenical patriarch is regarded as the representative and spiritual leader of many Orthodox Christians worldwide. The term ecumenical in the title is a historical reference to the Ecumene, a Greek designation for the civilised world, i.e. the Roman Empire, and it stems from Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon.
The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church, the Hussite Church, some Independent Catholic Churches, and the Church of the East are termed patriarchs.
Patriarchate is an ecclesiological term in Christianity, designating the office and jurisdiction of an ecclesiastical patriarch. According to Christian tradition three patriarchates were established by the apostles as apostolic sees in the 1st century: Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. Constantinople was added in the 4th century and Jerusalem in the 5th century. Eventually, together, these five were recognised as the pentarchy by the Council of Ephesus in 431.
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The Melkite Greek Catholic Church or Melkite Byzantine Catholic Church, is an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Holy See as part of the worldwide Catholic Church. Its chief pastor is Patriarch Youssef Absi, headquartered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Dormition, Damascus, Syria. The Melkites, Byzantine Rite Catholics, trace their history to the early Christians of Antioch, formerly part of Syria and now in Turkey, of the 1st century AD, where Christianity was introduced by Saint Peter.
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Alphabetical list of Eastern Christianity-related articles on English Wikipedia
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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Catholic Church: