The term ‘Uniates’ refers to the faithful of the so-called ‘United Churches’ or ‘Churches of the Union’ (from the Latin unio = union ). This term mainly refers to those ecclesiastical organisations of the Eastern Rite (Byzantine, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, etc. tradition) which, over time, have entered into union with the Roman Catholic Church, i.e. have been incorporated into the structures of the Roman Catholic Universal Church. In most cases, this took place on the condition that the Eastern Churches or Oriental Churches involved retained their own spirituality, liturgy and (national) identity. The unions are mostly of a jurisdictional nature, with recognition of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. They are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church in terms of prayer and the sacraments. The Uniate Churches are sometimes also referred to as ‘Catholic Eastern Churches’ and, from a canon law perspective, are subject to the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium.

Engl. Eastern Catholic Churches, Uniate churches; franz. églises catholiques orientales; les églises uniates; ital. chiese cattoliche di rito orientale, chiese uniate; rum. Churches united with Rome; Slovak: východné katolícke cirkvi; Hungarian: keleti katolikus egyházak; Polish: kościół unicki; Ukrainian: греко-католицькацерква (greko-katolic’ka cerkva).

The Uniate Churches are – as mentioned – jurisdictionally united with Rome; that is to say, they adopt not only the Roman canon law and ecclesiastical structures developed for them, but also the dogma (e.g. the controversial Filioque). From a liturgical perspective, however, these churches retain their Eastern rites as well as elements of their spirituality (e.g. prayer practices, fasting traditions). One cannot speak of an independent doctrine of the Uniate Churches.

The Churches united with Rome in the Eastern region are classified into the following categories: 1. Churches of the Alexandrian rite (Coptic and Ethiopian Churches); 2. Churches of the Antiochene rite (West Syriac, Maronite and Syro-Malankara Churches); 3. Churches of the Armenian rite (Armenian Church); 4. Churches of the Byzantine Rite (the Ukrainian Greek Catholic, Romanian Greek Catholic and Ruthenian Greek Catholic Churches, as well as smaller Uniate churches in the former Yugoslavia, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, etc.); 5. Churches of the Chaldean Rite (Chaldean East Syrian and South Indian Churches).

As early as the Early Byzantine period, there were (coercive) attempts by the Byzantine emperors and authorities to incorporate ‘non-conforming’ religious communities, such as the Nestorians of Syria (5th century) or the Miaphysite Christians of Armenia (6th century), into the official imperial church, which may be regarded as a form of so-called ‘Uniatism’. Ecclesiastical unions between religious communities that were originally divided along confessional lines began to form, particularly following the Great Schism of 1054. For religious, political, economic or geostrategic reasons, repeated attempts were subsequently made in both the Christian East and West to restore the unity of the Christian Church. With the participation of the Byzantine Imperial Church (and other Eastern Churches) as well as the Latin Church, a series of so-called ‘union councils’ took place during the High and Late Middle Ages. The best known are the Councils of Lyon in 1274 and Ferrara/Florence in 1438–1439 (which included representatives from other Eastern Churches).

In the context of the early modern European state church system and in accordance with the principle of cuius regio eius religio , the Roman Catholic Church sought , through missionary work and proselytism (the poaching of believers from other faiths) to persuade Eastern Rite churches to enter into union with Rome. The best-known union is that of 1595 in theUkrainian-Belarusian region. A number of bishops from the Metropolis of Kyiv resolved to finally implement the Union with Rome, which had already been signed by the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Isidor (d. 1463), in the 15th century at the Council of Ferrara/Florence, which had been vehemently rejected by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. In December 1595, Bishops Cyril Terleckyj (d. 1607) and Ipatij Pociej (1541–1613) recognised the Union with the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. This was then officially confirmed by a synod in Brest, which was also attended by the Polish king, and enforced (in some cases by force) with the help of state structures. After a long and arduous journey under Tsarist and Stalinist rule, the UkrainianGreek Catholic Church (Ukraïns’ka Greko-Katolic’ka Cerkva) is today an independent patriarchate based in Kyiv. It has approximately 4.5 million followers in Ukraine, the USA, Canada, South America, Western Europe and Australia.

Also very well known is the Greek Catholic Church of Transylvania (Biserica Greco-Catolică), which was established during the reign (1658–1705) of Emperor Leopold I (1640–1705). The Danube Monarchy, which was on the offensive, aimed to strengthen its southern front against the Ottomans by incorporating the demographically significant Orthodox Romanians of Transylvania. The Orthodox Romanians, who were classified in Transylvania’s estates system (receptae nationes) merely as ‘tolerated’ (tolerati), were promised equal rights with Catholic subjects should they opt for union with Rome. In 1697, the Orthodox Bishop of Karlsburg/Alba Iulia, Theophil (d. 1697), together with several priests and faithful from his eparchy, signed a resolution of union, which was confirmed in 1698 by his successor, Athanasius Anghel (d. 1713), and was consistently (and in some cases forcibly) enforced by the Habsburg authorities from 1701 onwards. The Transylvanian Uniates’ condition was that they be permitted to retain their traditional liturgical practices, their liturgical language, their ministries and their spirituality. In return, they recognised papal primacy and Catholic canon law. Although strongly favoured within the Danube Monarchy, the Uniates suffered severe persecution during Romania’s communist era after 1945. Today, the Greek Catholic Church of Romania, based in Blasendorf/Blaj, has approximately 700,000 faithful in Romania and the USA.

Other Uniate Churches emerged in Europe, the Middle East, Asia Minor, India and North Africa, mainly between the 16th and 20th centuries, partly in the context of the colonisation of the world by the European powers. These include: 1. the Maronite Church (1181) with approximately 3.3 million followers; 2. the Armenian Catholic Church (1438–1439), with approximately 470,000 followers; 3. the Serbian Greek Catholic Church (1611), with approximately 60,000 followers; 4. the Ruthenian Church (in the Carpathian region of Ukraine) (1646) with approximately 650,000 followers; 5. the Melkite Church (1724) with approximately 1.6 million followers; 6. the Coptic Church (1739) with approximately 170,000 members; 7. the West Syrian Church (1774) with approximately 160,000 members; 8. the Ethiopian Catholic Church (1839) with approximately 230,000 members; 9. the Bulgarian Catholic Church (1860) with approximately 10,000 members; 10. the Syro-Malenkar Church (1930) with approximately 430,000 members.^[1]

• Libero Gerosa, Sabine Demel, Peter Krämer, Michael Kunzler (eds.): *Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium*. Code of Canons of the Eastern Catholic Churches, Latin–German edition. Paderborn 2000 (AMATECA – Associazione di Manuali di Teologia Cattolica, Repertoria 2).
• Ferdinand R. Grahbauer: ‘II. Unions of the Orthodox Churches with the Roman Catholic Church’, section within the article ‘Unions, ecclesiastical’. In: Gerhard Müller et al. (eds.): Theological Real Encyclopaedia. Vol. 34. Berlin, New York 2002, pp. 313–318.
• John Webster Grant: The United Churches. Stuttgart 1973 (Churches of the World 10).
• Hans-Joachim Härtel: Article ‘Unions with Rome’. In: Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning, Bernd Janowski, Eberhard Jüngel (eds.): Religion in History and the Present. Concise Dictionary of Theology and Religious Studies. 4th, completely revised edition. Vol. 8. Tübingen 2005, pp. 756–759.
• Michael Lacko S.J.: *Atlas Hierarchicus Ecclesiae Catholicae Orientalis*. Rome 1962.
• Hans-Christian Maner, Norbert Spannenberger (eds.): Confessional Identity and Nation-Building. The Greek Catholic Churches in Eastern Central and South-Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Stuttgart 2007 (Research in the History and Culture of Eastern Central Europe 25).
• Andriy Mykhaleyko: The Eastern Catholic Churches. Göttingen 2012 (The Churches of the Present 3; Bensheimer Hefte 113).
• Johannes Oeldemann: The Churches of the Christian East. Orthodox, Oriental and Eastern Churches in Union with Rome. 2nd, updated ed. Munich et al. 2008 (Topos Paperbacks 577).
• Ronald G. Robertson, CSP: The Eastern Christian Churches. Rome 1995.

• www.pro-oriente.at/Katholische-Ostkirchen/ (Eastern Catholic Churches)
• cnewa.org/eastern-christian-churches/ (The Eastern Catholic Churches 2014)

[1] For data, see www.pro-oriente.at/ (accessed 1 November 2021).

Mihai-D. Grigore: Uniates (Greek Catholics, etc.). In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2015. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32702 (as at 1 November 2021).