The twenty-three Eastern churches in full communion with Rome, keeping their own rites, theologies, and married clergy under their own hierarchs.
The Eastern Catholic Churches are the Catholic Church's Eastern half: churches of Orthodox heritage and rite that stand in communion with the Bishop of Rome while governing themselves under their own patriarchs and canon law.
Sources
Primary
- The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (1990).
Secondary
- Edward G. Farrugia, ed., The Catholic Eastern Churches (2015).