The Congregation for the Oriental Churches (Congregatio pro Ecclesiis Orientalibus) is the congregation of the Roman Curia responsible for contact with the Oriental Catholic Churches for the sake of assisting their development, protecting their rights and also maintaining whole and entire in the one Catholic Church, alongside the liturgical, disciplinary and spiritual patrimony of the Latin Rite, the heritage of the various Oriental Christian traditions. It has exclusive authority over the following regions: Egypt and the Sinai ...
In hierarchical Christian churches, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the bishop of a metropolis; that is, the chief city of an old Roman province, ecclesiastical province, or regional capital.
In the Western patriarchate of the Roman Catholic Church, metropolitans have supervisory authority over the other bishops in their ecclesiastical province, called suffragan bishops. They also have authority over the dioceses in their province when there is a vacancy caused by the death or ...
A congregation is a type of dicastery of the Roman Curia, the Roman Catholic Church government. Each is led by a prefect, who is a Cardinal. If a non-cardinal is appointed to head a congregation, he serves as a pro-prefect until he is made a cardinal in a consistory.
Current congregations include:
Congregation for Bishops
Congregation for Catholic Education (for Seminaries and Institutes of Study)
Congregation for the Causes of Saints
Congregation for the Clergy
Congregation for ...
Cardinal Bishops, or Cardinals of the Episcopal Order, are among the most senior prelates of the Roman Catholic Church.
Originally this term referred specifically and exclusively to the men named to head the six suburbicarian dioceses, who include the Dean of the College of Cardinals. In 1965 Pope Paul VI decreed in his motu proprio Ad purpuratorum patrum that Eastern Rite patriarchs who were named Cardinals would also be part of the episcopal order, ranked after the six Cardinal Bishops of the suburbicaria ...
The following organs or charges, according to the official website of the Holy See ([1]), compose the Curia:
The Secretariat of State (Vatican) - created in the 15th century, it is now the dicastery most involved in coordination of the Holy See's activities [2]. It is headed by the Cardinal Secretary of State.
Section for General Affairs
Section for Relations with States
The Congregations [3] -
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (once the Sacred ...
The Section for General Affairs handles the normal operations of the Church. In the Vatican, the first section organizes the activities of the Curia and appointments to curial offices, maintains papal documents, keeps the papal seal and Fisherman's Ring, handles the concerns of embassies to the Holy See, and publishes official communications. Abroad, the first section is responsible for organizing the activities of nuncios around the world in their activities concerning the local church.
The first section is headed by an archbishop known as th ...
