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catholicworldreport.com - 01.12.2025 - In Orientalium Ecclesiarum, the 1964 Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches, the fathers of the Second Vatican Council declared: "The Catholic Church holds in high esteem the institutions, liturgical rites, ecclesiastical traditions and the established standards of the Christian life of the Eastern Churches, for in them, distinguished as they are for their venerable antiquity, there remains conspicuous the tradition that has been handed down from the Apostles through the Fathers and that forms part of the divinely revealed and undivided heritage of the universal Church." In doing so, the council fathers echoed Pope Leo XIII’s praises seven decades earlier in his encyclical letter Orientalium Dignitas. Pope Leo wrote that “the Churches of the East are worthy of the glory and reverence that they hold throughout the whole of Christendom in virtue of those extremely ancient, singular memorials that they have bequeathed to us.” He explained: "For it was in that part of the world that the first actions for the redemption of the human race began, in accord with the all-kind plan of God. They swiftly gave forth their yield: there flowered in first blush the glories of preaching the True Faith to the nations, of martyrdom, and of holiness. They gave us the first joys of the fruits of salvation. From them has come a wondrously grand and powerful flood of benefits upon the other peoples of the world, no matter how far-flung." For more information, read the full story at: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/12/01/eastern-catholics-in-the-united-states-a-look-at-the-numbers/