Byzantine Rite in the context of "Eastern Catholic churches"

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, also known as the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, is an autocephalous church within the wider communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Established in the mid-fifth century as one of the oldest patriarchates in Christendom, it is headquartered in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and led by the patriarch of Jerusalem, currently Theophilos III. The patriarchate's ecclesiastical jurisdiction includes roughly 200,000 to 500,000 Orthodox Christians across the Holy Land in Palestine, Jordan and Israel.

The church traces its foundation in Jerusalem to the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit, according to Christian beliefs, descended on the disciples of Jesus Christ and ushered the spread of the Gospel. The church celebrates its liturgy in the ancient Byzantine Rite – whose sacred language, Koine Greek, is the original language of the New Testament – and follows its own liturgical year under the Julian calendar.

A synaxis (Greek: σύναξις "gathering"; Slavonic: собор, sobor) is a liturgical assembly in Eastern Christianity (the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite).

Religion in Hungary is varied, with Christianity being the largest religion. In the national census of 2022, 42.5% of the population identified themselves as Christians, of whom 29.2% were adherents of Catholicism (27.5% following the Roman Rite, and 1.7% the Greek Rite), 9.8% of Calvinism, 1.8% of Lutheranism, 0.2% of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and 1.5% of other Christian denominations. 1.3% of the population identified themselves as adherents of other religions; minorities practising Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, the Baháʼí Faith, Taoism, Hungarian Neopaganism and other Neopaganisms, and New Age, are present in the country. At the same time, 40.1% of the population did not answer, not identifying their beliefs or non-beliefs, while 16.1% identified themselves as not religious.

The history of Christianity in Ukraine dates back to the earliest centuries of the history of Christianity, to the Apostolic Age, with mission trips along the Black Sea and a legend of Andrew the Apostle even ascending the hills of Kiev. The first Christian community on territory of modern Ukraine is documented as early as the 4th century with the establishment of the Metropolitanate of Gothia, which was centered in the Crimean peninsula. However, on territory of the Old Rus in Kiev, Christianity became the dominant religion since its official acceptance in 989 by Vladimir the Great (Volodymyr the Great), who brought it from Byzantine Crimea and installed it as the state religion of medieval Kievan Rus (Ruthenia), with the metropolitan see in Kiev.

Although separated into various Christian denominations, most Ukrainian Christians share a common faith based on Eastern Christianity. This tradition is represented in Ukraine by the Byzantine Rite, the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, which have been at various historic times closely aligned with Ukrainian national self-identity and Byzantine culture.

The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also known as the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous (sui iuris) particular churches of the Catholic Church in full communion with the pope in Rome. Although they are distinct theologically, liturgically, and historically from the Latin Church, they are all in full communion with it and with each other. Eastern Catholics are a minority within the Catholic Church; of the 1.3 billion Catholics in communion with the pope, approximately 18 million are members of the Eastern churches. The largest numbers of Eastern Catholics are found in Eastern Europe, Eastern Africa, the Middle East, and India. As of 2022, the Syro-Malabar Church is the largest Eastern Catholic Church, followed by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

With the exception of the Maronite Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches are groups that, at different points in the past, used to belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, or the Church of the East; these churches underwent various schisms through history. Eastern Catholic Churches that were formerly part of other communions have been points of controversy in ecumenical relations with the Eastern Orthodox and other non-Catholic churches. The five historic liturgical traditions of Eastern Christianity, namely the Alexandrian Rite, the Armenian Rite, the Byzantine Rite, the East Syriac Rite, and the West Syriac Rite, are all represented within Eastern Catholic liturgy. On occasion, this leads to a conflation of the liturgical word "rite" and the institutional word "church". Some Eastern Catholic jurisdictions admit members of churches not in communion with Rome to the Eucharist and the other sacraments.

The term Byzantine commonwealth was coined by 20th-century historian Dimitri Obolensky to refer to the area where Byzantine general influence (Byzantine liturgical and cultural tradition) was spread during the Middle Ages by the Byzantine Empire and its missionaries. This area covers approximately the modern-day countries of Greece, Cyprus, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, southwestern Russia, and Georgia (known as the region of Eastern Orthodoxy in Europe or the Orthodox Civilization). According to Anthony Kaldellis, the Byzantines in general did not have a ecumenical outlook, nor did they think about the notion of a panorthodox commonwealth, which he describes as "Roman chauvinism".

The Greek Byzantine Catholic Church (Greek: Ελληνόρρυθμη Καθολική Εκκλησία, Ellinórrythmi Katholikí Ekklisía) or the Greek-Catholic Church of Greece is a sui iuris Eastern Catholic particular church of the Catholic Church that uses the Byzantine Rite in Koine Greek and Modern Greek. Its membership includes inhabitants of Greece and Turkey, with some links with Italy and Corsica.

The Melkite Greek Catholic Church (كنيسة الروم الملكيين الكاثوليك, Kanīsat ar-Rūm al-Malakiyyīn al-Kāṯūlīk; Μελχιτική Ελληνική Καθολική Εκκλησία; Ecclesia Graeca Melchitarum Catholica), also known as the Melkite Byzantine Catholic Church, is an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Holy See as part of the worldwide Catholic Church. Its chief hierarch is Patriarch Youssef Absi, whose see is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Dormition in Damascus, Syria.

The Melkite Church follows the Byzantine Rite and traces its origins to the early Christian community of the Patriarchate of Antioch in the 1st century AD, traditionally founded by the apostle Saint Peter.

Melkite (/ˈmɛlkaɪt/) or Melchite churches are various Eastern Christian churches of the Byzantine Rite, and their members. The name comes from the Central Semitic root m-l-k 'royal', referring to the loyalty to the Byzantine emperor, and became a denominational designation for Christians who accepted imperial religious policies, notably the Council of Chalcedon (451).

Originally, during the Early Middle Ages, Melkites used both Koine Greek and Aramaic (Classical Syriac & Syro-Palestinian) language in their religious life, and initially employed the Antiochian rite in their liturgy, but later (10th–11th century) accepted the Constantinopolitan rite, and incorporated Arabic in parts of their liturgical practices.

Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembrance, supplication, or repentance. It forms a basis for establishing a relationship with God or the divine.

Technically speaking, liturgy forms a subset of ritual. The word liturgy, sometimes equated in English as "service", refers to a formal ritual enacted by those who understand themselves to be participating in an action with the divine.