Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Latakia
eparchy
The Eparchy of Latakia or Latakia of the Maronites (in Latin: Eparchia Laodicenus Maronitarum) is a Maronite Church ecclesiastical territory or eparchy of the Catholic Church in Syria. As of 2011, there were 35,000 members. The current eparch is Antoine Chbeir.
Territory and statistics
It is immediately subject to the Maronite Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, not part of any ecclesiastical province.
The territory includes the city of Latakia, where the Our Lady of Latakia Cathedral is located ,
the former Laodicea ad Mare.
The territory is divided into 32 parishes. In 2011, there were 35,000 Maronite Catholics.
History
Until the eighteenth century the Maronite patriarchate was formally divided into eparchies: in fact the bishops were all considered as auxiliary of the Patriarch, the only true leader of the Maronite nation. The bishops of Laodicea, like other Maronite bishops, in fact, had only the title of their home, and pursues not any real jurisdiction and do not even have a place to reside.
The Synod of Mount Lebanon in 1736, which at the request of Propaganda Fide decided the canonical erection of the Maronite diocese, gave no consideration to Laodicea, which therefore continued to be the seat of a titular bishop.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1346529. Authority coordinates are 35.516, 35.776. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011 and 1736.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Latakia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.