Armenian Catholic Church

After the Armenian Apostolic Church formally broke off from the Universal Church, numerous Armenian bishops made attempts to restore communion with the (now no longer universal) Catholic Church. In 1195 during the Crusades, the church of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia entered into a union with the Roman Catholic Church which lasted until Cilicia was conquered by Tatars in 1375.

The union was later re-established during the council of Florence in 1439, but did not have any real effects until the year 1740, when Abraham-Pierre I Ardzivian, who earlier became a Catholic, was elected as the patriarch of Sis. Two years later Pope Benedict XIV formally established the Armenian Catholic Church. The headquarters of the patriarchate was later moved to Beirut. During the Armenian genocide in 1915–1918 the church scattered among neighbouring countries, mainly Syria.

The church is one of the Eastern-Rite Catholic churches and uses the Armenian rite and Armenian language in liturgy.