page_title: Eastern Christianity
section_title: Eastern Catholic Churches
hierarchical_section_title: Eastern Christianity / Families of churches / Eastern Catholic Churches
caption_attribution_description: English: Mar Mathew Arackal (Bishop of Kanjirappally Eparchy) and Rev. Dr. Prasant Payyappilly Palakkappilly C.M.I (Principal, Thevara Sacred Heart College) along with other priests at the tomb of Servant of God Mar Varghese Payyappilly Palakkappilly during his 81st Dukrana. Mar Thoma Cross, symbolizing the heritage and identity of the Syrian Church of Saint Thomas Christians, is seen in the hands of the bishop.
context_page_description: Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Malabar coast of southern India, and parts of the Far East. The term does not describe a single communion or religious denomination. Major Eastern Christian bodies include the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Eastern Catholic Churches, Protestant Eastern Christian churches who are Protestant in theology but Eastern Christian in cultural practice, and the denominations descended from the historic Church of the East. The various Eastern churches do not normally refer to themselves as "Eastern", with the exception of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East.
  Historically the term Eastern Church was used in contrast with the Latin Church, centered on Rome, which uses the Latin liturgical rites.
context_section_description: The twenty-three Eastern Catholic Churches are in communion with the Holy See at the Vatican despite being rooted in the theological and liturgical traditions of Eastern Christianity. These churches were originally part of the Orthodox East, but have since been reconciled to the Roman Church.
  Many of these churches were originally part of one of the above families and so are closely related to them by way of ethos and liturgical practice. As in the other Eastern churches, married men may become priests, and parish priests administer the mystery of confirmation to newborn infants immediately after baptism, via the rite of chrismation; the infants are then administered Holy Communion.
  The Syro-Malabar Church, which is part of the Saint Thomas Christian community in India, follows East Syriac traditions and liturgy. Other Saint Thomas Christians of India, who were originally of the same East Syriac tradition, passed instead to the West Syriac tradition and now form part of Oriental Orthodoxy (some from the Oriental Orthodox in India united with the Catholic Church in 1930 and became the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church). The Maronite Church also claims never to have been separated from Rome, and has no counterpart Orthodox Church out of communion with the Pope. It is therefore inaccurate to refer to it as a "Uniate" Church. The Italo-Albanian Catholic Church has also never been out of communion with Rome, but, unlike the Maronite Church, it resembles Orthodox Church's liturgical rite.
caption: An Eastern Catholic bishop of the Syro-Malabar Church holding the Mar Thoma Cross which symbolizes the heritage and identity of the Saint Thomas Christians of India
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