Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Petra and Philadelphia in Amman (Latin: Archeparchy Petrensis et Philadelphiensis) is a branch of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church immediately subject to the Patriarchate of Antioch of the Melkites. In 2007 there were 27,000 baptized. Joseph Gébara was elected Archeparch on February 20, 2018.
Territory and statistics
The archeparchy extends its jurisdiction over all the faithful of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in Jordan.
The foundation of the Archieparchy was the occasion of a comparison between the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch and the Holy See. The patriarch thought that the erection of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction depended on him, as the new home was an integral part of his patriarchate. Rome instead started from the principle that most of the territory of the new eparchy depended on the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, of which the patriarch of Antioch was only administrator, and that the conditions of this administration had never been determined or clarified.
In the above the bubble archeparchy assumed the name of Transjordan, terminology foreign to the history and tradition not only of the Melkite Church, but of all the Christian East. Moreover, the same bubble adds that "Transjordaniam regionem in veram ac propriam archidioecesim erigimus et constituimus," without specifying further if with Archidioecesis meant a home or an autocephalous metropolis of distinct groups in the Oriental Canon Law.
Patriarch Cyril IX Moghabghab consecrated in Cairo June 5, 1932 the first archeparch Paul Salman, entrusting him with the title of Metropolitan of Petra, Philadelphia and Transjordan. These securities to him two ancient sites, Petra and Philadelphia of Palestine of Arabia: the first is a metropolitan see and the second a simple suffragan dioceses; the first part of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the second that of Antioch. According to Korolevsky (Dict. Hist. Et Geogr. Eccl.), these inaccuracies are signs of 'complete absence of knowledge on the subject of ecclesiastical geography ancient and traditional."[2]
