The Twenty-Four Catholic Churches sui iuris

Authority level: Authoritative doctrine
Disciplinary status: Church discipline
Evidence type: Historical account
GuideThe communion and equal dignity of the Catholic Churches are authoritative doctrine; their canonical status and enumeration are governed by law.
Contents

The Twenty-Four Catholic Churches sui iuris is the Latin Church and twenty-three Eastern Catholic Churches: distinct self-governing Churches united in full Catholic communion.

Church, rite, and communion

A Church sui iuris is a community of the Christian faithful joined by a hierarchy and recognized as self-governing by the Church's supreme authority. It is not merely a style of worship. Its patrimony includes liturgy, theology, spirituality, discipline, history, and culture. A rite is that patrimony, so several Churches can use the same rite.[1]

The Catholic communion is conventionally described as twenty-four Churches sui iuris: the Latin Church and twenty-three Eastern Catholic Churches. They differ greatly in size and canonical organization. Eastern canon law distinguishes patriarchal, major archiepiscopal, metropolitan, and other Churches sui iuris. Their concrete structures can include eparchies, exarchies, or smaller immediately subject jurisdictions; eparchy and exarchy name jurisdictions, not additional canonical classes of Church sui iuris.[2]

The complete overview

The Latin tradition is represented by the Latin Church. The Alexandrian family comprises the Coptic, Ethiopian, and Eritrean Catholic Churches. The Armenian family comprises the Armenian Catholic Church. The East Syriac or Chaldean family comprises the Chaldean and Syro-Malabar Catholic Churches. The West Syriac or Antiochene family comprises the Maronite Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

The Byzantine or Constantinopolitan family comprises the Albanian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Greek Byzantine, Hungarian, Italo-Albanian, Macedonian, Melkite Greek, Romanian Greek, Russian, Ruthenian, Slovak, Ukrainian Greek, and Croatian and Serbian Greek Catholic Churches. Conventional English names can conceal complicated canonical arrangements, especially among the small Byzantine communities of central and eastern Europe.[3]

Equal dignity

Vatican II declared that these Churches enjoy equal dignity and that none is superior because of rite. Communion with the bishop of Rome joins them without making Eastern Catholics members of the Latin Church. Catholics are canonically ascribed to a Church sui iuris, ordinarily through baptism or reception, and do not change that ascription simply by attending another Catholic liturgy.

References

  1. 1.Orientalium Ecclesiarum — Sections 2–6 on diversity, equality, and preservation
  2. 2.Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches — Canons 27–41 and 55–176 define Churches sui iuris, rites, ascription, and the four canonical classes; canons 311–321 govern exarchies
  3. 3.The Catholic Eastern Churches — CNEWA's church-by-church reference guide and canonical classification