Latin Church in the Middle East
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The Latin Church of the Catholic Church has several dispersed populations of members in the Middle East, notably in Turkey, Cyprus and the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan). Latin Catholics employ the Latin liturgical rites, in contrast to Eastern Catholics who fall under their respective church's patriarchs and employ distinct Eastern Catholic liturgies, while being in full communion with the worldwide Catholic Church. Latin Catholics in the Middle East are often of European descent, particularly from the medieval Crusader era and later the 20th-century colonial period.
Depending on the specific area in question, due to their cultural heritage descending from Catholics who lived under the Ottoman Empire, they are sometimes referred to as Levantines, Template:III, or Franco-Levantines (Template:Lang-ar; Template:Lang-fr; Template:Lang-it; Template:Lang-el; Template:Lang-tr or Tatlısu Frenkleri) after Frankokratia.
A distinctive era of influence occurred during the Crusades with the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the Middle Ages. As with the case of Eastern Catholics and other Christians in the Middle East, Latin Catholics have both a history and a present of persecution.
History
Levantines were mostly of Italian (especially Venetian and Genoese), French, or other Euro-Mediterranean origin. They have been living in the eastern Mediterranean coast of Lebanon and Syria since the middle Byzantine or the Ottoman era and in Constantinople (Istanbul), Smyrna (İzmir) and other parts of Anatolia (such as the port towns of Amasra, Sinop, Trabzon, Enez, Çanakkale, Foça, Çeşme, Bodrum, Alanya, Mersin, Iskenderun, etc., where the colonies of Genoese and Venetian merchants existed) in present-day Turkey.
The majority are either the descendants of traders from the maritime republics of Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Ancona and Ragusa who had colonies in the East Mediterranean coast; or the descendants of the French/Italian Levantines who lived in the Crusader states of the Levant (in present-day Lebanon, Israel and Syria), especially in port towns such as Beirut, Tripoli, Tyre, Byblos, Acre, Jaffa, Latakia, etc.; or in major cities near the coast, such as Tarsus, Antioch, Jerusalem, etc. Others may be converts to Catholicism, immigrants from Anglo-French colonization, or Eastern Christians who had resided there for centuries.
Levant
When the United Kingdom took over the southern portion of Ottoman Syria in the aftermath of the First World War, some of the new rulers adapted the term "Levantine" pejoratively to refer to the inhabitants of mixed Arab and European descent in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, and to Europeans (usually French, Italian or Greek) who had assimilated and adopted local dress and customs.
Today, a small percentage of Lebanon's small group of Latin Catholics are of at least partial French/Italian descent.
See also
- Catholic Church in the Middle East
- Italian Lebanese
- French Lebanese
- Embriaco family
- House of Lusignan
- House of Camondo
- Enrico Dandolo
- Gattilusi
- Bailo
- Bailo of Constantinople
- Andrea Gritti
- Alvise Gritti
- Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha
- Cağaloğlu
- Hekimoğlu Ali Pasha
- Alexander Vallaury
- Raimondo Tommaso D'Aronco
