Apostolic Vicariate of Aleppo


The Apostolic Vicariate of Aleppo is an apostolic vicariate and is immediately subject to the Holy See and its missionary Roman Congregation for the Oriental Churches
The seat of the vicariate is the city of Aleppo, where the Cathedral of the Child Jesus, was opened by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri on 15 January 2011. Its episcopal see is the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi, in Aleppo, Syria's greatest city before the civil war. It is currently ruled by the bishop Georges Abou Khazen, O.F.M..
It is Syria's only Latin jurisdiction, so there is no episcopal conference, but the Apostolic Vicar and the Eastern Catholic hierarchs of five rite-specific Catholic churches, and these form the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries in Syria. The Apostolic Vicar is also a member of the Conference of the Latin Bishops of the Arab Regions.

Statistics

The Apostolic Vicariate extends its jurisdiction over the Catholics of the Latin Rite of all Syria, as per 2014 pastorally serving 13,000 Catholics in 10 parishes and 6 missions with 38 priests and 243 lay religious.

History

From the early decades of the seventeenth century some religious orders, particularly the Order of the Friars Minor Capuchin, the Carmelites and the Society of Jesus, settled in Syria and Aleppo. There were several conversions to Catholicism of the Latin rite, and this led Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples to establish a diocese in Aleppo.
A first attempt to build an apostolic vicariate was in 1645. On 31 July 1645 was appointed bishop the Franciscan Giovanni Battista Dovara, which, however, "that he had achieved such a dignity, otherwise do not bother to go to his residence, despite the replicated excitations that he was moved by the Holy Congregation. Nor from that time on he was thought to depute a Latin bishop in that city". The vicariate so he died in the bud: the jurisdiction of the Latin returned to the Custodian of the Holy Land, as it was previously.
The Apostolic Vicariate of Aleppo was erected properly on 27 June 1762, when Pope Clement XIII appointed the Congregation of the Mission member Frenchman Arnaud Bossu, who had been Apostolic Vicar of Algiers. In a Papal brief, Bossu receives the title of Vicar Apostolic of Aleppo, with jurisdiction over the Eastern Europeans and the Latin Rite of the patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem, including the Maronite and Armenian patriarchates. The vicar, however, did not put his residence in Aleppo, but at Antoura in Lebanon, and never received episcopal consecration. Also on this occasion, the vicariate was short-lived due to the Suppression of the Jesuit Order in 1773 and the French Revolution, which, among other consequences, involved the removal of all French religious orders not only in motherland, but also in mission lands.
After the Congress of Vienna, the missionary Roman Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples restored the apostolic vicariate in 1817, with the name of the Apostolic vicariate of Syria, Egypt, Arabia and Cyprus. It had jurisdiction over much of Catholic missions of the central and southern regions of the Ottoman Empire, namely : Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Palestine, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Abyssinia and Nubia. Also included was the south-central part of Anatolia, including the cities of Antioch and Alexandretta.
On 1824.08.15 it lost Egyptian territory to establish the Coptic Catholic Patriarchate of Alexandria.
On 18 May 1839 it ceded part of its territory for the creation of the Apostolic Vicariate of Egypt and Arabia and the Apostolic Prefecture of Abyssinia, and simultaneously took the name of the Apostolic Vicariate of Aleppo.
On October 4, 1847, it ceded Palestine, Cyprus and the areas corresponding to Jordan for the restoration of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
With the end of the Ottoman Empire, the birth of modern Turkey and especially with the passage of Hatay from Syria to Turkey, under the Papal bull of Pope Pius XII Ad maius christifidelium of 5 October 1939 and Quo sacrorum of 9 December 1939, the Vicariate Apostolic of Aleppo lost the Turkish territories that passed to the Apostolic Vicariate of Istanbul.
On June 4, 1953, it gave another portion of territory for the creation of the Apostolic Vicariate of Beirut. From this moment the Vicariate Apostolic of Aleppo geographically corresponding to the Arab republic of Syria's territory. Only from this territorial change, the apostolic vicars have permanent residence in Aleppo, preferring previously reside in Lebanon.

Episcopal ordinaries

;Apostolic Vicars of Aleppo
;Apostolic Vicars of Syria, Egypt, Arabia and Cyprus
;Apostolic Vicars of Aleppo