In 1839 Saint
Giustino de Jacobis, an Italian
Vincentian priest, arrived in the area that is now Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. He chose to use the local liturgy in
Ge'ez, rather than the
Roman Rite in
Latin. Attracted by his learning and sanctity, many local clergy and laity entered into communion with the
Catholic Church. They established an Ethiopic-Rite Catholic community under the care of the
Apostolic Vicariate of Abyssinia (now
Ethiopic Metropolitanate sui juris of Addis Abeba), which had its headquarters at
Keren and was under the care of the Vincentian Fathers. After Italy took possession of Eritrea and declared it an Italian colony, the
Holy See, in view of the changed situation, set up on 19 September 1894 a separate
Apostolic Prefecture of Eritrea, which was entrusted to Italian
Capuchins. In the following year, the governor of the colony expelled the remaining Vincentian priests, who were French, on the unfounded suspicion of having encouraged armed resistance. In 1911 the Apostolic Prefecture was promoted to the rank of
Apostolic Vicariate, headed therefore by a
titular bishop, and the headquarters were moved from Keren to Asmara. With the arrival of Italian immigrants, the Capuchins promoted the Roman Rite. Unrest among the Eritrean clergy led to the sending in 1927 of the future cardinal
Alexis Lépicier as Apostolic Visitor to Eritrea. As a result of his report, Father Kidanè-Maryam Cassà was appointed at first Pro-Apostolic Vicar for the Ethiopic-Rite Catholics and then, on 4 July 1930, bishop in charge of an independent
Ordinariate of Eritrea. His official title was Ordinary for Ethiopic-Rite indigenous Catholics of Eritrea ().
Pope Pius XII elevated this ordinariate as the
Apostolic Exarchate of Asmara on 31 October 1951. On 20 February 1961,
Pope John XXIII elevated it to an
eparchy. Although officially described in Latin as
Asmaren(sis), the eparchy at first appeared in the
Annuario Pontificio under the heading "Asmara of the Ethiopians", at a time when the entry for the
Apostolic Vicariate for the
Latins in Eritrea, officially described in Latin as
Asmaren(sis) Latinorum, appeared under the simple name of "Asmara". From the year 1976 onward, the eparchy appeared in that annual publication under the simple heading "Asmara", like the
Apostolic Vicariate of Asmara. The eparchy lost territory on 21 December 1995, when the Eparchies of
Barentu and
Keren were established, and again in 2012, when the
Eparchy of Segheneyti was established. In January 2015,
Pope Francis erected the Metropolitan
sui iuris Eritrean Catholic Church, elevating the Eparchy of Asmara to Metropolitan Archeparchy and making the three daughter eparchies its
suffragans. ==Episcopal ordinaries==