Dicastery for the Eastern Churches

It was founded by the motu proprio Dei providentis of Pope Benedict XV as the "Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Church" on 1 May 1917.

Structure

• all matters which relate to the Oriental churches referred to the Holy See (structure and organisation of the churches; exercise of the offices of teaching, sanctifying and ruling; status, rights, and obligations of persons), and
• the
  ad limina visits of Eastern bishops.^[5]

The congregation pays special attention to communities of Eastern Catholic faithful who live in the territory of the Latin Church and attends to their spiritual needs by providing visitors and even their own hierarchs, so far as possible and where numbers and circumstances require, in consultation with the congregation competent to establish particular churches in the region.[8]

In regions where the Eastern churches have been dominant from ancient times, apostolic and missionary activity is solely the responsibility of this congregation, even if the above is carried out by Latin Church missionaries.^[9]

The congregation collaborates with the

The current prefect of the dicastery is Claudio Gugerotti.^[15] The secretary is Michel Jalakh.^{[16][circular reference][17]} The undersecretary is Flavio Pace.^[18] Two are clerics of the Latin Church with Jalakh being a Maronite.

Leadership

From 1917 to 1967, the pope held the title of prefect of the Congregation, which was headed by a cardinal secretary. From then until 2022 it was headed by a cardinal prefect. When Claudio Gugerotti was named to head this Curia office, by then called a dicastery, he was an archbishop.

No.		Name	From	Until	Prefect/Appointer
1		Niccolò Marini	1917	1922	Benedict XV
2		Giovanni Tacci Porcelli	1922	1927	Pius XI
3		Luigi Sincero	1927	1936	Pius XI
4		Eugène-Gabriel- Gervais-Laurent Tisserant	1936	1959	Pius XI
5		Amleto Giovanni Cicognani	1959	1961	John XXIII
6		Gabriel Acacius Coussa	1961 Pro-Prefect	1962 Prefect	John XXIII
7		Gustavo Testa	1962	1967	John XXIII

No.		Name	From	Until	Appointer
1		Gustavo Testa	15 August 1967	13 January 1968	Paul VI
2		Maximilien de Furstenberg	15 January 1968	8 February 1973	Paul VI
3		Paul-Pierre Philippe	6 March 1973	27 June 1980	Paul VI
4		Władysław Rubin	27 June 1980	30 October 1985	John Paul II
5		Duraisamy Simon Lourdusamy	30 October 1985	24 May 1991	John Paul II
6		Achille Silvestrini	24 May 1991	7 September 2000	John Paul II
7		Ignatius Moussa Daoud	25 November 2000	9 June 2007[19]	John Paul II
7		Leonardo Sandri	9 June 2007[19]	21 November 2022[15]	Benedict XVI
7		Claudio Gugerotti	21 November 2022[15]	Incumbent	Francis

Notes