I’ve heard that if a region has both Latin Rite churches and Eastern Rite churches, there will be 2 bishops there, one for the Latin, and one for the Eastern. But how is it possible? Shouldn’t each region should have only one bishop? If so then does the Latin bishop has any influences over the Eastern bishop and vice versa?
Yes, according to the most ancient canons, a
geographical territory can only have one
proper bishop.
The jurisdictional regulations of the Catholic Church is a somewhat unique (“somewhat” because we are not the only communion that possesses it). It exists due to exigent realities within the Catholic communion. In the ancient Church, when a Christian of one ritual Tradition moves into a region of another ritual Tradition, that Christian simply adopts the ritual Tradition of his/her new home. If enough Christians of a certain ritual Tradition exist in the new region, then the proper bishop of that region will (should) provide for the liturgical needs of the group, yet that group will remain under the omophor of the local hierarch.
But the (bad) experience of the Eastern Catholic Church in the U.S. changed all this. In the late 19th/early 20th century, Eastern Catholics came to the U.S., but the local Latin hierarchs were not good pastors to these Eastern Catholics. This resulted in a Pope providing the Eastern Catholics with their own bishop. So what we have in the Catholic Church are “ritual jurisdictions” (more properly called “personal jurisdictions”) within territorial jurisdictions. In Western countries, the Traditional territorial jurisdiction is held by Latin bishops, while the personal jurisdictions are held by Eastern or Oriental bishops. In Traditionally Eastern (normally some Mediterranean or Eastern European country) or Oriental (normally Middle East, India, or Africa) territories, it is the Eastern or Oriental bishop which holds the territorial jurisdiction, while the Latin bishop holds a personal jurisdiction (NOTE: the existence of this principle in Traditionally Eastern or Oriental lands came about through a different set of circumstances than what was experienced by Eastern Catholics in the U.S.).
The system works because we understand that “jurisdiction” applies properly to people and not to land.
The Catholic communion is not the first to exercise this ecclesiastical exigency. The Oriental Orthodox Church first realized the value of the principle of “ritual (personal) jurisdiction within territorial jurisdiction” back in the early second millenium, a forced reality due to conflicts between the Coptic and Syriac Orthodox Churches over jurisdiction. So today, for example, the Syriac Orthodox in Egypt are under the direct omophor of a Syriac hierarch, not the local Coptic hierarch.
The principle of “ritual (personal) jurisduction within territorial jurisdiction” is prominent in the Catholic and Oriental Orthodox communions because there is more than one Tradition in these communions (the OOC have at least 3, while the CC have many more). The principle does not really exist in the Eastern Orthodox Church because there is only one Tradition in the EOC: the Byzantine-Constantinopolitan Tradition. (Interestingly, the fact that there is only one Tradition within EO’xy causes it to have more problems with jurisdictionalism than the OOC or CC, which EO admit is a problem).
There is currently one particular Catholic Church that still exercises the ancient patristic standard - the Ethiopian Catholic Church. There, the Latin Catholics are under the omophor of the local Oriental Catholic hierarch.
Blessings,
Marduk
