Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches

The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEC; Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium, abbreviated CCEO) is the title of the 1990 work which is a codification of the common portions of the canon law for the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in the Catholic Church. It is divided into 30 titles and has a total of 1546 canons. The code entered into force in 1991. The western Latin Church is governed by its own particular code, the 1983 Code of Canon Law. The 23 sui iuris Churches which collectively make up the Eastern Catholic Churches had been invited by the Holy See to codify their own particular laws and submit them to the pope so that there may be a full, complete code of all religious law within Eastern Catholicism. Pope John Paul II promulgated the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches on 18 October 1990, by the document Sacri Canones. The code came into force on 1 October 1991. Ecclesiastical Latin The official language of the canon law common to all the Eastern Catholic Churches (called "common law") is Latin. Although Latin is the language of the Latin Church and not of the Eastern Churches, Latin was chosen as the language of the common law because there is no common language in use among all the Eastern Catholic Churches. The members of these churches use a diversity of languages, including Greek, Arabic, Romanian, Malayalam, English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, but no single one of these languages could be used as the language of the common law. Latin was chosen because it has a long history of legal and juridical tradition and was suitable for serving as the common text from which translations could be made. In 1998, Pope John Paul II issued the motu proprio Ad Tuendam Fidem, which amended two canons (750 and 1371) of the 1983 Code of Canon Law and two canons (598 and 1436) of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, so as to add "new norms which expressly impose the obligation of upholding truths proposed in a definitive way by the Magisterium of the Church, and which also establish related canonical sanctions".