The Dicastery for the Eastern Churches (also called Dicastery for the Oriental Churches), previously named Congregation for the Oriental Churches or Congregation for the Eastern Churches (), is a dicastery of the Roman Curia responsible for contact with the Eastern Catholic churches for the sake of assisting their development and protecting their rights. It also maintains whole and entire in the one Catholic Church the heritage and canon law of the various Eastern Catholic traditions. It has exclusive authority over the following regions: Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula, Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, southern Albania and Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel (and Palestinian territories), Syria, Jordan and Turkey, and also oversees jurisdictions based in Romania, Southern Italy, Hungary, India and Ukraine. It was founded by the motu proprio Dei providentis of Pope Benedict XV as the "Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Church" on 1 May 1917. Structure Patriarchs and major archbishops of the Oriental churches, and the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, are members of this congregation by virtue of the law itself. The consultors and officials are selected to reflect the diversity of rites. Authority This congregation has authority over: all matters which relate to the Oriental churches referred to the Holy See (structure and organisation of the churches; exercise of the offices of teaching, sanctifying and ruling; status, rights, and obligations of persons), and the ad limina visits of Eastern bishops. This congregation's authority does not include the exclusive authority of the Congregations for the Doctrine of the Faith and for the Causes of Saints, of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, including what pertains to dispensations from a marriage ratum sed non consummatum ('"ratified but not consummated"). In matters which affect the Eastern as well as the Latin churches, the congregation operates, if the matter is important enough, in consultation with the dicastery that has authority in the matter for the Latin Church. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem is exempt from the authority of the congregation, being directly subject to the Holy See. The congregation pays special attention to communities of Eastern Catholic faithful who live in the territory of the Latin Church and attends to their spiritual needs by providing visitors and even their own hierarchs, so far as possible and where numbers and circumstances require, in consultation with the