Catholic particular churches and liturgical rites in the context of "Catholic Christianity"

The Catholic Church (Latin: Ecclesia Catholica), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. The Church consists of 24 sui iuris (autonomous) churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies around the world, each overseen by one or more bishops. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church.

The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles, and that the pope is the successor of Saint Peter, upon whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ. It maintains that it practises the original Christian faith taught by the apostles, preserving the faith infallibly through scripture and sacred tradition as authentically interpreted through the magisterium or teaching office of the church. The Roman Rite and others of the Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic liturgies, and communities and societies such as mendicant orders, enclosed monastic orders, third orders and voluntary charitable lay associations reflect a variety of theological and spiritual emphases in the church.

The Latin Church (Latin: Ecclesia Latina) is the largest autonomous (sui iuris) particular church within the Catholic Church, whose members constitute the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Catholics. The Latin Church is one of 24 sui iuris churches in full communion with the pope; the other 23 are collectively referred to as the Eastern Catholic Churches, and they have approximately 18 million members combined.

The Latin Church is directly headed by the pope in his role as the bishop of Rome, whose cathedra as a bishop is located in the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome, Italy. The Latin Church both developed within and strongly influenced Western culture; as such, it is sometimes called the Western Church (Latin: Ecclesia Occidentalis), which is reflected in one of the pope's traditional titles in some eras and contexts, the Patriarch of the West. It is also known as the Roman Church (Latin: Ecclesia Romana), the Latin Catholic Church, and in some contexts as the Roman Catholic Church (though this name can also refer to the Catholic Church as a whole).

The Catholic Church is "the Catholic Communion of Churches, both Roman and Eastern, or Oriental, that are in full communion with the Bishop of Rome (the pope)." This communion comprises the Latin Church (the Roman or Western Church) as well as 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, canonically called sui juris churches, each led by either a patriarch or a major archbishop in full communion with the pope. Historically, these bodies separated from Eastern Christian communions, either to remain in or to return to full communion with the Catholic Church. The Vatican II decree on Eastern Catholic Churches, however, explicitly recognizes them as churches and not just rites within the Catholic Church. This communion "exists among and between the individual Churches and dioceses of the universal Catholic Church. Its structural expression is the College of Bishops, each of whom represents and embodies his own local church." In addition to Eastern Catholic Churches, the Catholic Church oversees the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, the largest Charismatic movement of a single institution in 2020, with over 100 million members, primarily in the Global South. The Catholic Church is also described as an "amalgam of parts" (i.e., thousands of individual dioceses and religious orders) globally dispersed, but in communion with Rome.

The Catholic Church is the "world's oldest continuously functioning international institution." It is also the largest non-government provider of education and health care in the world, while the diplomatic status of the Holy See facilitates access to its vast international network of charities. These entities include 5,000 hospitals, 10,000 orphanages, 95,000 elementary schools and 47,000 secondary schools.

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.

Maronites (Arabic: الموارنة, romanized: Al-Mawārinah; Syriac: ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ, romanized: Mārōnōye) are a Syriac Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant (particularly Lebanon) whose members belong to the Maronite Church. The largest concentration has traditionally resided near Mount Lebanon in modern Lebanon. The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church in full communion with the pope and the rest of the Catholic Church.

The Maronites derive their name from Saint Maron, (350-410 AD.), a monk whose teachings spread throughout the Northern Levant becoming the basis of the Maronite tradition. The spread of Christianity was very slow in the Lebanese region; in the 5th century AD in the highlands they were still pagan. St. Maron sent the apostle Abraham of Cyrrhus known as the "Apostle of Lebanon" with a mandate to convert the pagan inhabitants of Mount Lebanon to Christianity. After their conversion, the inhabitants of the region renamed the Adonis River to the Abrahamic River in honor of the Saint who preached there.