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Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church

Quick Facts

Tradition
Christianity · Catholic · Eastern
Current leader
Metropolitan William C. Skurla
Leader since
January 19th 2012
Days in office

Intro

The Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church is covered on Wikipedia as the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church rooted in the Carpathian region that uses the Byzantine Rite and includes communities in Europe and North America.

Structure

As of 2016, the membership of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church was estimated at some 419,500 faithful, with seven bishops, 664 parishes, 557 priests, 76 deacons, and 192 men and women religious. The Church is not organised as a single synod. This is mainly because some of the priests and faithful of the Eparchy of Mukachevo desire that it should be part of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The eparchy is immediately subject to the Holy See and is dependent on the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches.

The North American jurisdiction of the Ruthenian Church, formally the Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh, is the only self-governing Eastern Catholic metropolitan church in the United States. Its governing body is the Council of Hierarchs under the metropolitan archbishop, consisting of bishops from each eparchy. The relationship between the three jurisdictions of the Ruthenian Church has not been clarified.

Metropolitan Archbishop William C. Skurla commissioned a video documentary commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Byzantine-Ruthenian Catholic Church in the United States. Produced by Bob and Diane Grip, "Treasury of Blessings" aired on EWTN and is now available on YouTube.

The canonical territory of the metropolis includes the whole of the United States of America and Canada. It was erected as a metropolis (archdiocese) by Pope Paul VI in 1969. The apostolic exarchate in Canada serves Slovak Greek Catholics.

Source(s)

Source: Intro adapted from the Wikipedia article "Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church". Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Source: Structure section text copied verbatim from the Wikipedia article "Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church". Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.