Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Akka


Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Akka is a diocese of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, directly subject to the Melkite Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch. Its cathedral episcopal see is St. Elijah Greek-Melkite Cathedral, in Haifa.
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Territory and statistics

The archeparchy extends its jurisdiction to Melkites of Israel, especially of Galilee.
The headquarters of the archeparchy is Haifa, where the Saint Elias Cathedral is located. The Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Akka counted 73,921 baptised members, and had a territory subdivided into thirty-seven parishes in 2022.
As of 2014 the Melkite Greek Catholic Church was the largest Christian community in Israel, with roughly 60 per cent of Israeli Christians belonging to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.
The city of Haifa has the largest Melkite Greek Catholic community in Israel, followed by the cities of Nazareth and Shefa-Amr. Melkite Greek Catholic communities exist in a number of other towns in Galilee, either as the sole religious community or amongst other communities of Muslims, Druze and other Christians, including in: They also have a presence in other mixed cities, especially Jerusalem and Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Ramleh, Lod, Acre, Nof HaGalil, and Ma'alot Tarshiha. It is reported that all the inhabitants of Fassuta and Mi'ilya are Melkite Christians.

History

Ancient Ptolemais-Acre was visited by Paul of Tarsus during his trip described in chapter 21 of the Acts of Apostles. Soon, the city was a strong Christian community. In the third century was established headquarters of an ancient episcopal see here and the capital of the bishop of the diocese, which is suffragan of the Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Tyre, referring to the ancient period in Ptolemais in Phoenicia, called Acre in the Crusader period.
In 1753, the see was restored as a Melkite diocese by Patriarch Cyril VI Tanas and attached once again to Tyre, which had become independent from Jerusalem. However, the Melkite bishops of Acre began to reside there only in 1804.
Before 1932, the jurisdiction of Acre included Transjordan. The see became an Archeparchy on 18 November 1964 with the Papal Bull Apostolic constitution of Pope Paul VI and includes all Galilee.

List of episcopal ordinaries

Eparchs of Akka

The following were Melkite Greek Catholic eparchs of Akka:

Archeparchs of Akka

A list of Melkite Greek Catholic archeparchs of Akka is shown below: