What are population breakdowns of Eastern churches?

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I think the Ukranian church was the largest Eastern church. But they seem to have topped out at 5 million members or so. One of the Indian rites - Syro or Syro-Malibar is not too far from that number.

Does anyone have a breakdown?

The Ukranian Catholic church seems to not be growing much. Which Eastern Rites are experiencing growth? Again I recall an article from CWR talking about one of the Indian Rites expericening some growth.
 
I did a quick calculation, and I came out with about 16,390,000

God bless,

Rony
 
I had this information a while back based upon the Annuario Pontificio 2005 (I think), not 2007, and I came up these figures:

Armenian
368,101 - 2.29%

Byzantine
7,565,278 - 47%

Antiochene (East and West)
7,691,538 - 47.76%

Alexandrian
478,014 - 2.97%

I sorted the various particular churches out into the parent traditions, keeping the Armenians in a unique category, although it’s arguable.

It should be remembered that the reporting is uneven in places and there have been some wild swings from year to year. The percentages I show are rough.

The total for that year was 16,107,931, not far from Rony’s number, which represents an increase of 1.7%.

Interestingly, just as an exercise I took all of the particular churches that make up the core populations of the Ruthenian Metropolia USA (these included Mukachevo Ukraine plus Hungary, Czech and Slovak jurisdictions, the USA being the smallest church) and they came to more than one million, almost 1.1 million, but the churches are divided into multiple smaller jurisdictions over modern political bounderies. It seems to me this consideration of them as separate churches is a big reason why they do not have a Major-Metropolitan of their own…just a thought.
 
Dear Michael:

The 2005 Annuario separates the Ruthenians from the Hungarian and Slovak sui iuris Churches. (I think there is no Czech sui iuris Church.)

Thus, the Ruthenians number about 600,000 while the Hungarian Byzantine Catholic Church numbers 290,000 and the Slovak Greek Catholic Church numbers around 220,000, which in total corresponds to your count of 1.1 million Ruthenians.

Today, however, the Hungarians and the Slovaks should not be lumped together with the Ruthenians.
 
Hi Amado,
Amadeus said:
Dear Michael:

The 2005 Annuario separates the Ruthenians from the Hungarian and Slovak sui iuris Churches. (I think there is no Czech sui iuris Church.)

Thus, the Ruthenians number about 600,000 while the Hungarian Byzantine Catholic Church numbers 290,000 and the Slovak Greek Catholic Church numbers around 220,000, which in total corresponds to your count of 1.1 million Ruthenians.

Today, however, the Hungarians and the Slovaks should not be lumped together with the Ruthenians.
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I realize that this is a decision the church has made, however I was only speculating on what could be…for their sake.

They were in the past one church under the Archbishop of Eger (I think) and I don’t see any reason why they could not be together again under their own Major-Metropolitan. Conveniently, elements of all of these churches comprise the modern Metropolia of Pittsburgh in the USA, that is how Rome organized it in the 20th century.

Michael
 
Michael:

The Ruthenians now do have the Metropolitan Archeparchy of Pittsburgh.

I think you mean a Major Archeparchy (Major Archbishopric, a la the UGCC)?
 
Amadeus said:
Michael:

The Ruthenians now do have the Metropolitan Archeparchy of Pittsburgh.

I think you mean a Major Archeparchy (Major Archbishopric, a la the UGCC)?
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I think it would make perfect sense if all of them were associated with a single Major Metropolitan.

Thanks
 
Amadeus said:
Michael:

The Ruthenians now do have the Metropolitan Archeparchy of Pittsburgh.

I think you mean a Major Archeparchy (Major Archbishopric, a la the UGCC)?
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No, The Pitsburgh Metropolia is not a Major Archiepiscopal church.

There are 5 levels of sui iuris church from my read of the CCEO:
  1. Patriarchal
  2. Major Archiepiscopal (UGCC) which has subordinate metropolitans…
  3. Metropolitan (subordinate eparchs only)
  4. Eparchial (only one Bishop)
  5. Exarchial (no bishop of their own)
Pittsburgh is a metropolitan church, with only one metropolitan-archbishop, and 4 bishops; the two exarchial eparchies are not part of the metropolitan church, but are directly from the pope. But they are of the same sui iuris church in tradition and enrollment. It’s an oddity.
 
Amado is one of the most knowledgeable individuals on these matters I have ever encountered anywhere. I think he could write volumes on the subject. I remember we have discussed this kind of thing together before.

I am just stating an opinion that the Metropolia of Pittsburgh could be under the Major-Metropolitan of (fill in the blank here) and all of these sub-Carpathian Ruthenian Recension churches could be considered an organic whole Sui Iuris church. There are a lot of potential little benefits that can go along with this. Having a synod and home territory might mean naming their own bishops for one thing.

The Pope just raised Presov to Metropolitan status, equal then to Pittsburgh (and probably long overdue). Presov or Mukachevo (currently an eparchy, but the earliest from the Union of Uzhorod) could be the Major-Metropolitanate. I don’t see why not.
 
Hesychios,

Thanks for the breakdown on the 2005 #s. The only issue I would have is the usage of:

Antiochene (East and West)

The Assyrians/Chaldeans, and the Malabars of India who have inherited the Assyro-Chaldaic tradition, are not of the Apostolic line and ritual tradition of Antioch. This is confirmed in the current Code of Canons which lists Chaldean as a distinct tradition from the Antiochene tradition, rather than an East-West distinction in one Antiochene tradition.

God bless,

Rony
 
Hesychios said:
The Pope just raised Presov to Metropolitan status, equal then to Pittsburgh (and probably long overdue). Presov or Mukachevo (currently an eparchy, but the earliest from the Union of Uzhorod) could be the Major-Metropolitanate. I don’t see why not.
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Because Basil doesn’t play well with others and after the fiasco of the RDL and everything that has happened with JMT, hearing what the Metropolitan from Presov and the other Bishops have to say about what’s he’s done might not sit to well.

From what I’ve heard from overseas, they are not very happy with RDL and all that’s happened.
 
Hi Rony,
ronyodish said:
Hesychios,

Thanks for the breakdown on the 2005 #s. The only issue I would have is the usage of:

Antiochene (East and West)

The Assyrians/Chaldeans, and the Malabars of India who have inherited the Assyro-Chaldaic tradition, are not of the Apostolic line and ritual tradition of Antioch. This is confirmed in the current Code of Canons which lists Chaldean as a distinct tradition from the Antiochene tradition, rather than an East-West distinction in one Antiochene tradition.

God bless,

Rony
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OK, I can see that the Assyrian tradition does not necessarily stem from Antioch itself. Perhaps I should have termed it something more like East-West Syriac.

The whole thing was my own personal breakdown anyway. I pretty much did a quick spreadsheet about two years ago and the conventional designations in discussions with schmucks like me was that the Church of the East was “East Syrian” tradition. While the Syriac Catholic and Maronite Catholic churches were “West Syrian” tradition. So I lumped them together for my own purposes and apparently mis-labeled them.
 
Patchunky said:
Because Basil doesn’t play well with others and after the fiasco of the RDL and everything that has happened with JMT, hearing what the Metropolitan from Presov and the other Bishops have to say about what’s he’s done might not sit to well.

From what I’ve heard from overseas, they are not very happy with RDL and all that’s happened.
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Being a former, not current, Ruthenian Catholic myself, I loathed to mention it, especially since I left for my own reasons before the big Bruhaha and never experienced that revision. But I think it is worth considering as a political issue in the church now that you mentioned it.

It may very well be as you say.

I need to make something clear here, I have met the Professor on several occasions, and I think he is a brilliant man. I really liked him, and I used to sing (not cantor) in the Parma Eparchy, so I am familiar with some of his work. I don’t know the entire story but I believe that he sincerely worked very hard to do the right thing, even if the assumptions he initially labored under turned out to be misplaced.

The issue is very complex and there is no way for me to know how much real damage was done to the liturgy or why. I think my old parish handled the music portion fairly well, at least from what I have heard. A_Pilgrim and GregoryPalamas here are both from that parish and they might like to share their thoughts about it.

I get the sense that there may have been at least a subsidiary motive among some higher ups involved to differentiate the Metropolia from other Byzantine jurisdictions, both Catholic and Orthodox. This could have been (I speculate here) due to the plunging membership. Altering the Liturgy can be something of a poison pill (as it is said in business), if you know what I mean.
 
Patchunky said:
Because Basil doesn’t play well with others and after the fiasco of the RDL and everything that has happened with JMT, hearing what the Metropolitan from Presov and the other Bishops have to say about what’s he’s done might not sit to well.

From what I’ve heard from overseas, they are not very happy with RDL and all that’s happened.
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Well before the RDL it had become obvious we are two different churches on two different trajectories.
 
Hesychios said:
I get the sense that there may have been at least a subsidiary motive among some higher ups involved to differentiate the Metropolia from other Byzantine jurisdictions, both Catholic and Orthodox. This could have been (I speculate here) due to the plunging membership. Altering the Liturgy can be something of a poison pill (as it is said in business), if you know what I mean.
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I suspect you are right in a fashion about liturgical differentiation. At least you are not the first to mention it.

Our aging demagraphics being what they are, it is difficult to tell what the next effect has or will be. I was not terribly enthused about it, but I don’t see it as the end of the world. Without it we would have been in pretty much the exact same boat as a number of correspondant Eastern jurisdictions - both Catholic and Orthodox… Will it be worse now? It is hard to say.
 
Aramis said:
No, The Pitsburgh Metropolia is not a Major Archiepiscopal church.

There are 5 levels of sui iuris church from my read of the CCEO:
  1. Patriarchal
  2. Major Archiepiscopal (UGCC) which has subordinate metropolitans…
  3. Metropolitan (subordinate eparchs only)
  4. Eparchial (only one Bishop)
  5. Exarchial (no bishop of their own)
Pittsburgh is a metropolitan church, with only one metropolitan-archbishop, and 4 bishops; the two exarchial eparchies are not part of the metropolitan church, but are directly from the pope. But they are of the same sui iuris church in tradition and enrollment. It’s an oddity.
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Aramis:

We know that the BCA is now “merely” a Metropolitan Church.

Nobody said that the Ruthenians are a Major Archiepiscopal Church. 😛

Michael is just proposing that they should be if we can group them with the Hungarians and the Slovaks as the 3 Churches sui iuris would number about 1.1 million altogether.
 
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