Latin Catholic Diocese of Acre

The Apostle Paul, returning from his trip to Macedonia, in Achaea and Asia, landed at Tyre, and from there traveled to Ptolemais, where he stayed some days with the local Christian community (acts 21.7).

But we must go to the fourth century to find the next bishop, Aeneas, who took part at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and at the Synod held in Antioch in 341.

Following the crusades in the 12th century, the city, called St-Jean d'Acre, became part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and was a diocese of the Latin Church, headquartered at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

Against the eastern practice and ecclesiastical tradition, the Crusaders detached the diocese, along with the rest of southern Phoenicia, from the Patriarchate of Antioch, and made it a suffragan of Jerusalem.

St-Jean d'Acre had its own bishop until 1263, when the patriarchs of Jerusalem administered it until the fall of the city into the hands of the Muslims in 1291.