CWN - Pope Francis has established an exarchate for Syrian Catholics in Canada.
The new exarchate will take over jurisdiction for Canadian territory previously within the Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance of Newark, which was set up in 1995 to care for the Syrian Catholics in North America. Father Antoine Nassif, the rector of the Syrian Catholic seminary in Lebanon, has been named by the Pontiff to head the exarchate, with headquarters in Montreal.
The Syrian Catholic Church, which shares its liturgical traditions with the Syrian Orthodox Church, has been in communion with the Holy See since the late 18th century. It is a self-governing body, with headquarters in Beirut, led by Patriarch Ignace Joseph Younan of Antioch.
The establishment of a Syrian Catholic exarchate in Canada comes only a few days after the Pope erected a new eparchy for another ecommunity of Eastern Christians in communion with the Holy See: the Syro-Malankara Catholics of the US and Canada.
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