What is the historical origin of the Latin-rite Catholic Church of Greece? Why most Greek catholics belong to the Roman or Latin-rite instead of the Byzantine-rite? The Byzantine Catholic community is extremely small.

Christianity was brought to Greece in the first century by the earliest leaders of the Church, most notably St. Paul who arrived in the country on his second missionary journey (52-53) with Silas and Timothy. Paul founded the Church at Philippi, the first Christian community on European soil (Acts 16:12), and then went to Thessalonica (17:1), Berea (17:10), and then to Athens (17:15). From there, he traveled to Corinth (18:1) where he was brought before the proconsul of Achaia (Achaea), Gallio. Later, on his third missionary journey (54-58), he spent three months in Corinth. From that beginning, the Greek Church spread swiftly, although the two most prominent communities in the early period were Corinth and Athens. There were a number of bishops in Greece by the second century, as proven by the martyrdoms of several prelates during persecutions. Publius, bishop of Athens, for example, was martyred during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (117-138).

Under the extensive changes in organization that occurred during the reign of Constantine the Great (d. 337), the Greeks were attached to the prefecture of Illyricum, Gaul, and Italy, meaning that its disposition was to be Western. This orientation did not take place, however, and the Greek Church was more Eastern in outlook. Thus, when the empire was divided into East and West in 379, the eastern half of the prefecture (Macedonia, Achaia – including Greece – Thessaly, and other smaller territories) was included in the Eastern Empire. From that time, the Greeks effectively belonged to the Eastern Church, and the patriarch of Constantinople was able to claim jurisdiction over the region, despite the vigorous protests of the popes. Local clergy were most often highly independent in action, frequently siding with their communities against the authorities of Constantinople. This was especially the case in the Iconoclastic Controversy, as the Greeks were highly devoted to their images.

The Eastern membership of the Greek Church was certified in 1054 with the schism that erupted between the Eastern and Western Churches. They fully adopted the Byzantine rite and rejected the Roman (or Latin) rite, going so far as to strike the pope's name from their diptychs. When Constantinople fell to the forces of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and a Latin patriarch was installed over them, the Greeks still retained Eastern custom and suffered persecution from their Frankish overlords until the restoration of the Byzantine Empire in 1261. The Greeks were quite hostile, thereafter, although Greek bishops attended the Councils of Lyons (1274) and Ferrara-Florence (1439) and agreed halfheartedly to the reunion. This, of course, lasted only a short time, and in 1453 the Greek Church fell under the rule of the Ottoman Turks with the capture of Constantinople, cutting off the Orthodox Christians even further from contact with the West. In May 2001, Pope John Paul II visited Greece, the first papal journey to the country since the 8th century. While there, the pontiff spoke in conciliatory terms for the past wrongs against the Orthodox by some Latins, including the sack of Constantinople in the early 13th-century by the forces of the Fourth Crusades.

Today, there is a small Catholic population under an archbishop and four dioceses. There are 133,000 Catholics out of a total population of 11,200,000.

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