Ordinariate for Catholics of Armenian Rite in Eastern Europe

The Armenian Catholic Ordinariate of Eastern Europe is an Ordinariate (quasi-diocese) of the Armenian Catholic Church (Eastern Catholic, Armenian Rite in Armenian language) for its faithful in certain Eastern European ex-Soviet countries without proper Ordinary for their particular church sui iuris. It is exempt, i.e. immediately subject to the Holy See (notably the Roman Congregation for the Oriental Churches), not part of any ecclesiastical province. Between 1720 and 1760 large communities of Armenian Catholic refugees from Turkey and Persia settled in the territory of the North Caucasus. The flow of Armenian immigrants to Christian Russia increased with the Armenian genocide executed by the Turkish authorities, especially since the late nineteenth century. Some of the faithful were able to take refuge in southern Armenia and Georgia. From 1907 in Krasnodar there was a special vicar for priests of the Armenian Catholic rite. In 1760 the Catholics in Astrakhan were 1/5 of the population of the city and they had a parish. Armenian Catholic communities were established in Astrakhan, Voronezh, Penza, Rostov-on-Don, Saratov, Samara and Tsaritsyn. Another region of mass residence of Armenian Catholics was Georgia, in Ajaltsije, Ajalkalaki, Bogdanovsky and Chirac. In 1848 the Diocese of Tiraspol was created with headquarters in Saratov, to which the Armenian Catholic parishes were added in Russian territory as a dean. In 1850 Pope Pius IX established an Armenian eparchy of Artvin for the Catholic Armenian faithful of the Ottoman Empire and Russia. In 1878 Russia occupied all the territory of this eparchy and, by decision of the authorities, subjected its parishes to the Latin eparchy of Tiraspol. However, this situation was not recognized by Rome until 1912, but the eparchy of Artvin formally continued to exist until 1972. In 1909 the pope appointed Sarkis Der Aprahamian as apostolic administrator for Armenian Catholics, as a formal part of Artvin's non-existent eparchy.