Pope creates North American eparchy for Armenian Catholics

Published: 2005-09-12

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI Sept. 12 raised the Armenian Catholic Exarchate of the U.S.A. and Canada to an eparchy. Bishop Manuel Batakian, head of the exarchate since 2001, becomes the first eparch. The changes were announced by Msgr. Leopoldo Girelli, charge d'affaires at the apostolic nunciature in Washington. Dioceses in Eastern Catholic churches are called eparchies. An exarchate is a church jurisdiction formed in areas where there are enough Catholics of that rite to establish a hierarchy but the church is not sufficiently developed yet to form an eparchy, or full diocesan structure. There are about 25,000 Armenian Catholics in the United States and about 10,000 in Canada. The church has two parishes in Canada, in Toronto and Montreal, and seven in the United States -- two in California and one each in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. The new eparchy, which has its headquarters in New York, will be called Our Lady of Nareg in New York for Armenian Catholics. The village of Nareg in Armenia was the site of a famous monastery and home to one of Armenia's most noted theologians and saints, St. Gregory of Nareg.

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