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Eritrean Catholic Church
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Eritrean Catholic Church
The Eritrean Catholic Church is a sui iuris (autonomous) Eastern Catholic Church based in Eritrea. As a Local Church of the Catholic Church, it is in full communion with the Apostolic See. It was established in 2015 when its territory was separated from the Ethiopian Catholic Church. The Church is organized under a metropolitan bishop who exercises oversight of a number of suffragan dioceses. In its liturgical services, it uses the Alexandrian Rite in the Geʽez language.
Within the Tewahedo tradition, the principal distinction is ecclesial: the Eritrean Catholic Tewahedo Church is in full communion with the Pope of Rome, whereas the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church is not; both preserve Cyrillian Miaphysitism, the Geʽez Rite, and the historic Tewahedo liturgical-theological heritage.
In 1839 Giustino de Jacobis, an Italian Vincentian priest, arrived as a missionary in the area that is now Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. He preferred to employ the local liturgical rite in Geʽez rather than the Roman Rite in Latin. He attracted a considerable number of local priests and laity to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. He died in 1860 at Halai, near Hebo, in what is now the Southern Administrative Region of Eritrea.
In 1869, Italy began to occupy Eritrea and in 1890 declared it a colony of the Kingdom of Italy, fostering immigration of Italians. In view of the changed situation, the Holy See set up on 19 September 1894 the Apostolic Prefecture of Eritrea, entrusted to Italian Capuchins, thus removing Eritrea from the territory of the Apostolic Vicariate of Abyssinia of the Vincentians, who were predominantly French. In the following year, the governor of the colony expelled the remaining Vincentian priests on the unfounded suspicion of having encouraged armed resistance.
Most of the local population who became Catholics had been members of the Coptic Orthodox Church, whose Ethiopian portion became the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the mid-20th century when it was granted its own patriarch by Cyril VI, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. They kept the rites of that church in the ancient liturgical language of Geʽez, giving rise to an Ethiopic-Rite Catholic community.
The prefecture apostolic of Eritrea was raised by the Holy See to the status of Apostolic Vicariate (headed by a titular bishop) in 1911. In addition, an Ethiopic Rite Ordinariate of Eritrea was established on 4 July 1930, removing those Catholics from the jurisdiction of the then much larger Latin Church Vicariate. Father Kidanè-Maryam Cassà, who since 1926 had been their pro-vicar within the Vicariate, was appointed their ordinary and on 3 August 1930 was ordained titular bishop of Thibaris in the chapel of the Pontifical Ethiopian College in Vatican City. At that time they numbered less than 3% of the population of Eritrea.
The greater importance at that time of the Latin Vicariate is reflected in the impressive church dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary that was completed in 1923 as the seat of the Apostolic Vicariate. Even after the demise of the Vicariate in 1995, it is still called "the cathedral".
At the beginning of the 1940s nearly 28% of the population of Italian Eritrea, which had been part of Italian East Africa since 1936, was Catholic; mostly Italians and of the Latin Church. There was a pronounced fall in the number of Italians present after the end of the Second World War, when Eritrea was at first under British military administration. The British census of 1949 showed that Asmara, the capital, had only 17,183 Italians out of a total population of 127,579. The departure of Italians accelerated further when Eritrea came under Ethiopian authority at the end of 1950. The relationship between the Latin Vicariate and the Ethiopic Ordinariate was thus inverted. On 31 October 1951, the Ordinariate of Eritrea was raised to the level of an Exarchate (the Eastern equivalent of a Vicariate) under the name of the Apostolic Exarchate of Asmara, at the same time as the Apostolic Exarchate of Addis Ababa was created. On 25 July 1959, the name of the Latin Vicariate of Eritrea, which in spite of the greatly reduced number of its faithful kept its rank, was changed to Apostolic Vicariate of Asmara. However, after the fourth and last bishop who was Vicar Apostolic of Asmara retired on 2 June 1974, the Vicariate was administered by the Capuchin priest Luca Milesi, who became a bishop only when the Vicariate was suppressed in 1995 and he was appointed the first Eparch of Barentu.
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Eritrean Catholic Church
The Eritrean Catholic Church is a sui iuris (autonomous) Eastern Catholic Church based in Eritrea. As a Local Church of the Catholic Church, it is in full communion with the Apostolic See. It was established in 2015 when its territory was separated from the Ethiopian Catholic Church. The Church is organized under a metropolitan bishop who exercises oversight of a number of suffragan dioceses. In its liturgical services, it uses the Alexandrian Rite in the Geʽez language.
Within the Tewahedo tradition, the principal distinction is ecclesial: the Eritrean Catholic Tewahedo Church is in full communion with the Pope of Rome, whereas the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church is not; both preserve Cyrillian Miaphysitism, the Geʽez Rite, and the historic Tewahedo liturgical-theological heritage.
In 1839 Giustino de Jacobis, an Italian Vincentian priest, arrived as a missionary in the area that is now Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. He preferred to employ the local liturgical rite in Geʽez rather than the Roman Rite in Latin. He attracted a considerable number of local priests and laity to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. He died in 1860 at Halai, near Hebo, in what is now the Southern Administrative Region of Eritrea.
In 1869, Italy began to occupy Eritrea and in 1890 declared it a colony of the Kingdom of Italy, fostering immigration of Italians. In view of the changed situation, the Holy See set up on 19 September 1894 the Apostolic Prefecture of Eritrea, entrusted to Italian Capuchins, thus removing Eritrea from the territory of the Apostolic Vicariate of Abyssinia of the Vincentians, who were predominantly French. In the following year, the governor of the colony expelled the remaining Vincentian priests on the unfounded suspicion of having encouraged armed resistance.
Most of the local population who became Catholics had been members of the Coptic Orthodox Church, whose Ethiopian portion became the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the mid-20th century when it was granted its own patriarch by Cyril VI, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. They kept the rites of that church in the ancient liturgical language of Geʽez, giving rise to an Ethiopic-Rite Catholic community.
The prefecture apostolic of Eritrea was raised by the Holy See to the status of Apostolic Vicariate (headed by a titular bishop) in 1911. In addition, an Ethiopic Rite Ordinariate of Eritrea was established on 4 July 1930, removing those Catholics from the jurisdiction of the then much larger Latin Church Vicariate. Father Kidanè-Maryam Cassà, who since 1926 had been their pro-vicar within the Vicariate, was appointed their ordinary and on 3 August 1930 was ordained titular bishop of Thibaris in the chapel of the Pontifical Ethiopian College in Vatican City. At that time they numbered less than 3% of the population of Eritrea.
The greater importance at that time of the Latin Vicariate is reflected in the impressive church dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary that was completed in 1923 as the seat of the Apostolic Vicariate. Even after the demise of the Vicariate in 1995, it is still called "the cathedral".
At the beginning of the 1940s nearly 28% of the population of Italian Eritrea, which had been part of Italian East Africa since 1936, was Catholic; mostly Italians and of the Latin Church. There was a pronounced fall in the number of Italians present after the end of the Second World War, when Eritrea was at first under British military administration. The British census of 1949 showed that Asmara, the capital, had only 17,183 Italians out of a total population of 127,579. The departure of Italians accelerated further when Eritrea came under Ethiopian authority at the end of 1950. The relationship between the Latin Vicariate and the Ethiopic Ordinariate was thus inverted. On 31 October 1951, the Ordinariate of Eritrea was raised to the level of an Exarchate (the Eastern equivalent of a Vicariate) under the name of the Apostolic Exarchate of Asmara, at the same time as the Apostolic Exarchate of Addis Ababa was created. On 25 July 1959, the name of the Latin Vicariate of Eritrea, which in spite of the greatly reduced number of its faithful kept its rank, was changed to Apostolic Vicariate of Asmara. However, after the fourth and last bishop who was Vicar Apostolic of Asmara retired on 2 June 1974, the Vicariate was administered by the Capuchin priest Luca Milesi, who became a bishop only when the Vicariate was suppressed in 1995 and he was appointed the first Eparch of Barentu.
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