How many eastern Catholic rites are there?

Answer 1

I have encountered the following 7.

Others may well exist (in fact they probably do...)

The Armenian Catholic Church [mostly made up of ethnic Armenians outside of Armenia, particularly in Syria/Lebanon etc]

The Ukrainian Catholic Church (sometimes called Ukrainian Greek Catholic) [big in the Ukraine, particularly the Western Ukraine. Present in other countries too]

The Syriac Catholic Church [big in Syria, present in Palestine/Jordan/Lebanon too]

The Greek Catholic Church [Very big in the Middle East in general. The Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch was one of the senior churchmen who offered prayers over the coffin of Pope John Paul II at his funeral. I think this is the largest group of Catholics in the Arab world]

The Maronite Catholic Church [Mostly originating in Lebanon, with significant communities in Syria, Cyprus, and overseas. They arose out of the Monothelite doctrine in the 400s AD, but later joined with Rome.]

The Nestorian Catholic Church (also called Chaldean, or the Church of the East) [Big in Iraq, Pope John Paul II called this church 'the Martyrs' Church', because they've survived through such problems over their history]

The Coptic Catholic Church [I understand this church to be really small. Indigenous to Egypt, there are quite a lot of Coptic Orthodox, but very few Coptic Catholics.]

Answer 2

The answer to this question depends on how you count the Rite, particularly if you count some Rites as sub-Rites of others, and if you count disused Rites at at all.

Nonetheless, here are the Rites that one might find in the history of the Catholic Church: 1. The Roman or Latin Rite, including several pre-Tridentine Rites, the Tridentine Rite, the Mass of Paul VI, and the Anglican Usage. 2. Included in the Latin Rite are several sub-Rites used or formerly used by various religious orders, such as the Benedictine Rite, Carmelite Rite, Carthusian Rite, Cistercian Rite, Dominican Rite, Franciscan Rite, the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin Rite, the Premonstratensian Rite and the Servite Rite. 3. There are several Rites or sub-Rites of the Roman Rite that are or were tied to geographical regions, such as the Ambrosian Rite of Milan Italy, the defunct Aquileian Rite of Northeastern Italy, the Bracarensis Rite of Braga Portugal, the defunct Durham Rite of Durham England, the defunct Gallican Rite of France, the Mozarbic Rite of Toledo and Salamanca, Spain, the defunct Celtic Rite of the British Isles, and the defunct Sarum Rite of Salisbury, England.

In the Eastern Catholic Churches one might find 4. the Alexandrian Rite, comprising the Coptic and Ethiopic Rite. 5. The Antiochian Rite, comprising the Maronite Rite, the West Syrian Rite, and the Syro-Malenkara Rite. 6. The Armenian Rite. 7. The Chaldean or East Syrian Rite, comprising the Chaldean Rite and the Syro-Malabar Rite. and 8. The Byzantine or Constantinopolitan Rite, which is uniform in text but is celebrated in fourteen sub-rites according to language groups, Albanian, Belorussian. Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek, Hungarian, Italo-Albanian, Macedonian, Melkite, Romanian, Russian, Ruthenian, Slovak, and Ukranian Rites