Eparchy of Aleppo (Chaldean)

Eparchia Aleppensis Chaldaeorum
Location
CountrySyria
Statistics
Population
- Catholics		(as of 2012)
30,000[1]
Parishes14
Information
DenominationChaldean Catholic Church
RiteEast Syriac Rite
Established1957
Current leadership
PopeFrancis
PatriarchLouis Raphael I Sako
EparchAntoine Audo

The Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Aleppo (also Halab in Arabic, or Beroa as in Antiquity) is the only eparchy (Eastern Catholic diocese) of the Chaldean Catholic Church (which uses the Syro-Oriental Rite, in Syriac or Aramaic languages) in Syria.

Territory and statistics

The eparchy extends its jurisdiction over the faithful of the Chaldean Catholic Church of Syria. It is directly subject to the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon (actually in Baghdad, Iraq), not part of any ecclesiastical province.

Its cathedral episcopal see is the St. Joseph's Cathedral, in Aleppo, the largest city in Syria.

The territory is divided into 14 parishes.

History

A colony of Chaldean Christians was certainly present in Aleppo in the early 16th century, most probably from the city of Diyarbakır in Upper Mesopotamia. In 1723 the Chaldean patriarch Joseph III obtained from the Ottoman government a firman who recognized his jurisdiction over the Chaldean faithful of the city. However, the number of the Chaldean faithful remained always reduced; at the beginning of the twentieth century the community included only 250 people. In 1901, however, Pope Leo XIII authorized the institution of a patriarchal vicariate, directly dependent on the patriarch.

The eparchy was erected on July 3, 1957, with the bull Almost pastor[2] of Pope Pius XII, with which the pontiff suppressed the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Gazireh of the Chaldeans and established the new ecclesiastical circumscription.

Episcopal ordinaries

(all Chaldean Rite)

Exempt Eparch (Bishop) of Syria
  • (vacant ? unavailable ?)
Exempt Eparchs (Bishops) of Aleppo

Sources

  • Fiey, Jean Maurice (1993). Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus: Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux. Beirut: Orient-Institut. ISBN 9783515057189.
  • C. Karalevsky, v. Alep, in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. XII, Paris 1953, coll. 112–113, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6561037d/f74.image

36°11′00″N 37°09′00″E / 36.1833°N 37.1500°E / 36.1833; 37.1500

References

  1. ↑ catholic-hierarchy.org
  2. ↑ [Bolla Quasi pastor, AAS 50 (1958), p. 249]
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