Syriac Catholic Church

The Syriac Catholic Church (or Syrian Catholic Church) (Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ‎ ʿīṯo suryaiṯo qaṯolīqaiṯo) is a Christian church in the Levant and a wide diaspora using the Syrian Rite, which has many practices and rites in common with the Syriac Orthodox Church. Being one of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, the Syriac Catholic Church has full autonomy and is a self-governed sui iuris Church, while in full communion with the Holy See of Rome. Mor Ignatius Joseph III Younan became patriarch in 2009.

The Patriarch of Antioch of this church has the title of Patriarch of Antioch and all the East of the Syrians. and resides in Beirut, Lebanon.

Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries began to work among the Syriac Orthodox in Aleppo in 1626. So many of them were received into communion with Rome that in 1662, when the Patriarchate had fallen vacant, the Catholic party was able to elect one of its own, Andrew Akijan, as Patriarch of the Syriac Church. This provoked a split in the community, and after Akijan’s death in 1677 two opposing patriarchs were elected, one being the uncle of the other, representing the two parties (one pro-Catholic, the other anti-Catholic). But when the Catholic Patriarch died in 1702, this very brief line of Catholic Patriarchs upon the Syriac Church's See of Antioch died out with him.