Slovak Greek Catholics descend from the Union of Uzhhorod (1646). Pope Pius VII erected the Eparchy of Prešov for them in 1818. In 1950 the communist regime abolished the Church by decree, imprisoned Blessed Bishop Pavel Peter Gojdič — who died in prison in 1960 — and forced its parishes into the Orthodox Church; it was legalised again in 1968. In 2008 Pope Benedict XVI raised it to a metropolitan Church sui iuris, with the Archeparchy of Prešov and the Eparchies of Košice and Bratislava.

The Church is headed by the metropolitan archbishop of Prešov and celebrates the Divine Liturgy in Church Slavonic and Slovak. It maintains a theological faculty at Prešov and a strong parish life in eastern Slovakia and among Slovaks abroad.

A Byzantine-rite metropolitan Church sui iuris in Slovakia, centred on Prešov, suppressed under communism and raised to metropolitan status in 2008.

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Slovakia, with its metropolitan see at Prešov

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Around two hundred thousand faithful