•What’s an Eparchy in the Catholic Church?

✓Scope of the Catholic Church

To understand an Eparchy, one must understand the scope of the Catholic Church, that is, how many churches that constitute the Catholic Church.

✓Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches

In the Catholic Church under one head, currently Pope Francis, there are 24 individual churches designated by rites. One is the Latin rite or Roman Catholic Church which constitutes about 98% of the Catholics worldwide, and other 23 Eastern or Oriental Catholic churches. Thus, one can group the Catholic Church into two main categories: the Latin rite or the Roman Catholic Church, and the Eastern rites or Eastern/Oriental Catholic churches.

The Eastern Catholic churches are those Catholics under the Pope but are not Roman Catholics. They include the Alexandrian Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Byzantine Catholics, East Syriac Catholics, and West Syriac Catholics. They have their own Canon Law different from the Latin rite Canon Law and their candidates to the Catholic Priesthood can get married, but it must be strictly before ordination. AFTER PRIESTLY ORDINATION, ONE CAN NO LONGER MARRY.

These should not be confused with Eastern Orthodox Churches, who are not Catholics and not under nor in full communion with the Pope.

Under the Pope, a Catholic is either a Latin/Roman Catholic or an Eastern/Oriental Catholic. Hence, one is either a Catholic or not a Catholic.

✓An Eparchy

What a diocese is to the Latin rite or Roman Catholic Church, the same an Eparchy is to the Eastern Catholic Churches. That is, the Roman Catholic Church calls it diocese, while the Oriental churches calls it an Eparchy.

For example:

The Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church States that “A diocese is a portion of the people of God which is entrusted to a bishop for him to shepherd with the cooperation of the presbyterium, so that, adhering to its pastor and gathered by him in the Holy Spirit through the gospel and the Eucharist, it constitutes a particular church in which the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and operative”(CIC, Can 369).

The Canon Law of the Eastern/Oriental Catholic Churches states that “An eparchy is a portion of the people of God which is entrusted for pastoral care to a bishop with the cooperation of the presbyterate so that, adhering to its pastor and gathered by him in the Holy Spirit through the Gospel and the Eucharist, it constitutes a particular Church in which the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and operative” ( CCEO, Can 177 §1).

✓An Eparchy in Nigeria

However in Nigeria, there’s one Eparchy, a Marionite Eastern/Oriental Catholic church belonging West Syriac Catholics (not Roman Catholics), located at Ibadan Oyo State, called “Our Lady of the Annunciation” (Annunciazione), erected on 28 February 2018.

Just like a diocese, it has its own Eparch (equivalent to a Bishop) by name Bishop Simon T. Faddoul. And akin every diocese, it answers to the Pope. Moreover, every Eparchy is independent, with its own territorial boundaries and answers to the Pope (CCEO, Can 178).

✓Index

CCEO – abbreviation for the Latin title, Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium, which is the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. It was promulgated by Pope St. John Paul II in 1990.

CIC— abbreviation for Latin title Codex Iuris Canonici, The 1983 Code of Canon Law, promulgated by Pope John Paul II. The is the Law of the Roman Catholic Church