Slovak Greek Catholic Church

Coordinates: 48.9942°N 21.2432°E

The Slovak Greek Catholic Church[a] or Byzantine Catholic

Church in Slovakia, is a sui iuris (autonomous) Eastern Catholic
church based in Slovakia. As a particular church of the Catholic Slovak Greek Catholic
Church, it is in full communion with the Holy See. The church is Church
organised as a single ecclesiastical province with one metropolitan
see.[2] Its liturgical rite is the Byzantine Rite. In 2008 in Slovakia
alone, the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia had some 350,000
faithful, 374 priests and 254 parishes. In 2017, the Catholic
Church counted 207,320 Greek Catholics in Slovakia worldwide,
representing roughly one percent of all Eastern Catholics.[3]

History
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in
Since the unanimous acceptance of the Union of Uzhhorod on the
Prešov
territory that includes present day eastern Slovakia in 1646, the
history of the Slovak Greek Catholic Church was intertwined with Classification Eastern Catholic
that of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church for a period of Orientation Eastern
several centuries. At the end of World War I, most Greek Catholic Christianity
Ruthenians and Slovaks were included within the territory of
Czechoslovakia, including two eparchies, Prešov and Mukačevo. Theology Catholic theology
The eparchy of Prešov, created on September 22, 1818, was Polity Episcopal
removed in 1937 from the jurisdiction of the Hungarian primate Governance Metropolitanate
and subjected directly to the Holy See, while the 21 parishes of the
eparchy of Prešov that were in Hungary were formed into the new Pope Francis
exarchate of Miskolc. Primate Jonáš Maxim

After World War II, the eparchy of Mukačevo in Transcarpathia Associations Congregation for
was annexed by the Soviet Union, thus the eparchy of Prešov the Oriental
included all the Greek Catholics that remained in Czechoslovakia. Churches
After communists seized the country in April 1950, a "synod" was Region Slovakia
convoked at Prešov, at which five priests and a number of laymen
signed a document declaring that the union with Rome was Liturgy Byzantine Rite
disbanded and asking to be received into the jurisdiction of the Headquarters Prešov, Slovakia
Moscow Patriarchate, later the Orthodox Church of Members 207,320[1]
Czechoslovakia. Greek Catholic bishop Blessed Pavel Petro
Gojdič of Prešov along with his auxiliary, Blessed Basil Hopko, Other name(s) Slovak Byzantine
were imprisoned and bishop Gojdič died in prison in 1960. Catholic Church

During the Prague Spring in 1968, the former Greek Catholic parishes were allowed to restore communion
with Rome.[4] Of the 292 parishes involved, 205 voted in favor. This was one of the few reforms by
Dubček that survived the Soviet invasion the same year. However, most of their church buildings remained
in the hands of Orthodox Church.
After communism was overthrown in the 1989 Velvet Revolution, Church property was gradually returned
to the Slovak Greek Catholic Church. This process was almost completed by 1993, the year after the
dissolution of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. For Greek Catholics in the Czech
Republic, a separate Apostolic Vicariate was created, elevated in 1996 to an exarchate thus forming the
Apostolic Exarchate in the Czech Republic (now considered part of Ruthenian Catholic Church); the 2007
Annuario Pontificio indicated that it had by then grown to having 177,704 faithful, 37 priests and 25
parishes.

In Slovakia itself, Pope John Paul II created an Apostolic Exarchate of Košice in 1997. Pope Benedict XVI
raised this to the level of an Eparchy on January 30, 2008 and at the same time erected the new Byzantine-
rite Eparchy of Bratislava. He also raised Prešov to the level of a metropolitan see, constituting the Slovak
Greek Catholic Church as a sui iuris metropolitan Church.

Structure
Slovakia:

Archeparchy of Prešov with the following suffragans:

Eparchy of Bratislava
Eparchy of Košice

Eparchies in Slovakia
Abroad
In the United States and Canada, the Slovak Greek Catholics fall under the jurisdiction of the Ruthenian
Greek Catholic Church, with the Exarchate of Saints Cyril and Methodius of Toronto for Slovak Greek
Catholics reduced from an eparchy and transferred to Ruthenian authority in 2022.[5]

Notes
a. Slovak: Gréckokatolícka cirkev na Slovensku; Latin: Ecclesia Graeco Catholica Slovacica

References
1. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20161020094357/http://www.cnewa.org/sourc
e-images/roberson-eastcath-statistics/eastcatholic-stat16.pdf) (PDF). Archived from the
original (http://www.cnewa.org/source-images/Roberson-eastcath-statistics/eastcatholic-stat
16.pdf) (PDF) on 2016-10-20. Retrieved 2017-03-24.
2. "Metropolitan Archeparchy of Prešov" (https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dprby.htm
l).
3. "Eastern Catholic Churches Worldwide 2017" (https://cnewa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/0
3/2017-Statistics-Worldwide-pie-chart.pdf) (PDF). Annuario Pontificio. 2017. Retrieved
26 October 2021 – via Catholic Near East Welfare Association.
4. "Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eastern-Orthodoxy).
`Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 25 September 2022.
 5. "Rinunce e nomine, 03.03.2022" (https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pu
bblico/2022/03/03/0152/00329.html#rin). 3 March 2022. Retrieved 4 March 2022.

Sources
Tóth, István György (2002). "Počiatky rekatolizácie na východnom Slovensku (The
Beginning of re-Catholicization in Eastern Slovakia)" (https://books.google.com/books?id=L
ngMAQAAMAAJ). Historický časopis. 50 (4): 587–606.

External links
Byzantine Catholic Church in Slovakia - unofficial website (http://www.grkat.nfo.sk/eng/inde
x.html)
(in Slovak) Gréckokatolícke arcibiskupstvo Prešov (http://www.grkatpo.sk/)
(in Slovak) Gréckokatolícka eparchia Košice (http://www.grkatke.sk/)
(in Slovak) Gréckokatolícka eparchia Bratislava (http://www.grkatba.sk/)
Eparchy of Ss. Cyril and Methodius (http://eparchy.blogspot.com/) for Slovaks of the
Byzantine Rite in Canada
(in Czech) Apoštolský exarchát řeckokatolické církve v České republice (http://www.exarcha
t.cz/)
(in Slovak) Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Prešov (http://www.gojdic.sk/)
Slovak Cathedral of the Nativity of the Mother of God (https://web.archive.org/web/20110531
041209/http://chramen.slovak-net.com/) (Toronto)
(in Slovak) Gréckokatolícka farnosť a protopresbyterát Medzilaborce (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20100506012511/http://www.grkat-ml.sk/)
Article on the Slovak Greek Catholic Church by Ronald Roberson on the CNEWA web site
(https://cnewa.org/eastern-christian-churches/toc/the-catholic-eastern-churches/from-the-orth
odox-church/the-slovak-catholic-church/)
www.damian-hungs.de (in German) (http://www.damian-hungs.de/geistliches/ostkirchen/grie
chisch-katholische-kirche-in-der-slowakei/)

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