Ordinariate for Eastern Catholic faithful

An ordinariate for the faithful of Eastern rite is a geographical ecclesiastical format for Eastern Catholic communities in areas where no eparchy of their own particular Church has been established. This order was reported by the apostolic letter Officium supremi Apostolatus of 15 July 1912.

In the apostolic exarchates. Of these ordinariates, four in Argentina, Brazil, France and Poland are generically for any Eastern Catholics who lack a 'proper' diocesan jurisdiction of their own rite in the particular country and who are therefore entrusted to the care of a Latin Archbishop in the country. The one in Austria is for Catholics belonging to any of the fourteen particular Churches that usage the Byzantine Rite. The other three Ex-Soviet 'Eastern Europe', Greece and Romania are exclusively for members of the Armenian Catholic Church.