Christianity in the Middle East
, which originated in the Middle East during the 1st century AD, is a significant minority religion within the region, characterized by the diversity of its beliefs and traditions, compared to Christianity in other parts of the Old World. Today, Christians make up approximately 5% of the Middle Eastern population, down from 13-20% in the early 20th century. Cyprus is the only Christian majority country in the Middle East, with Christians forming between 76% and 78% of the country's total population, most of them adhering to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Lebanon has the second highest proportion of Christians in the Middle East, around 40%, predominantly Maronites. After Lebanon, Egypt has the next largest proportion of Christians, at around 10% of its total population. Copts of Egypt, numbering around 10 million, constitute the single largest Christian community in the entire Middle East.
The Eastern Aramaic speaking Assyrians of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and parts of Iran have suffered due to ethnic cleansing, religious discrimination, and persecution for many centuries. During the 20th century, the percentage of Christians in the Middle East fell mainly as a result of the late Ottoman genocides: the Armenian genocide, Greek genocide, and Assyrian genocide committed against them by the Ottoman Turks and their allies, leading many to flee and congregate in areas in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, North America, and Western Europe. The great majority of Aramaic speaking Christians are followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Assyrian Evangelical Church. In Iraq, the numbers of Christians has declined to between 300,000 and 500,000. Assyrian Christians were between 800,000 and 1.2 million before 2003. In 2014, the population of the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq was scattered to Dohuk, Erbil and Jordan due to ISIS forcing the Assyrian community out of their historical homeland, but since the defeat of the Islamic State in 2017, Christians have slowly began returning.
The next largest Christian group in the Middle East are the once Aramaic speaking and now Arabic-speaking Maronites who are Eastern-Rite Catholics and number some 1.1–1.2 million across the Middle East, mainly concentrated within Lebanon. In Israel, Maronites together with smaller Aramaic-speaking Christian populations of Syriac Orthodox and Greek Catholic adherence, are legally and ethnically classified as either Arameans or Arabs, per their choice. Arab Christians are descended from Arab Christian tribes, Arabized Greeks or recent converts to Protestantism. Most Arab Christians are adherents of the Melkite Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church. They numbered over 1 million before the Syrian Civil War: some 700,000 in Syria, 400,000 in Lebanon, 200,000 in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, with small numbers in Iraq and Egypt. Most Melkite Catholics are of Levantine descent, with the majority identifying as Arab.
Armenians are present in the Middle East, and their largest community, estimated to have 200,000 members, is located in Iran. The number of Armenians in Turkey is disputed and a wide range of estimates is given as a result. More Armenian communities reside in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Israel, and formerly also Syria until the Syrian Civil War. The Armenian genocide, which was perpetrated by the Ottoman government and Turkish Muslims both during and after World War I, drastically reduced the once sizeable Armenian population in the Middle East.
The Greeks, who had once inhabited large parts of the western Middle East and Asia Minor, declined in number due to the Arab–Byzantine wars, then suffered another decline after the Ottoman invasion of Anatolia, and all but vanished from Turkey as a result of the Greek genocide, which was perpetrated by the Ottoman government and Turkish Muslims both during and after World War I, and the expulsions that followed the war. Today, the largest Middle Eastern Greek community resides in Cyprus and numbers around 810,000 Cypriot Greeks constitute the only Christian majority state in the Middle East, although Lebanon was founded with a Christian majority in the first half of the 20th century. Smaller Christian groups in the Middle East include Georgians, Ossetians, and Russians. There are also several million foreign Christian workers in the Gulf states, mostly from the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia: Bahrain has 1,000 Christian citizens, and Kuwait has 400 native Christian citizens, in addition to 450,000 Christian foreign residents in Kuwait. Although the vast majority of Middle Eastern populations descend from Pre-Arab and Non-Arab peoples extant long before the 7th century AD Arab Islamic conquest, a 2015 study estimates there are also 483,500 Christian believers from a previously Muslim background in the Middle East, most of them being adherents of various Protestant churches. Converts to Christianity from other religions such as Islam, Yezidism, Mandeanism, Yarsan, Zoroastrianism, Baháʼísm, Druze, and Judaism exist in relatively small numbers amongst the Kurdish, Turks, Turcoman, Iranian, Azeri, Circassian, Israelis, Kawliya, Yezidis, Mandeans, and Shabaks.
Christians are persecuted widely across the Arab and Muslim world and the ongoing situation has been compared to a genocide. According to a 2018 report commissioned by the British government, Christians are “on the verge of extinction in the Middle East”, explaining that “Evidence shows not only the geographic spread of anti-Christian persecution, but also its increasing severity. In some regions, the level and nature of persecution is arguably coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to that adopted by the UN.” In 2024, the International Christian Concern again raised warnings about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.
Christian communities have played a vital role in the Middle East. Middle Eastern Christians are relatively wealthy, well educated, and politically moderate, as they have today an active role in social, economic, sporting and political spheres in their societies in the Middle East. Scholars and intellectuals agree that Christians in the Middle East have made significant contributions to both Arab and Islamic civilizations since the introduction of Islam, and they have had a significant impact by contributing to the culture of Iran, the Mashriq, and Turkey.
History
Evangelization and early history
spread rapidly from Jerusalem along major trade routes to major settlements, finding its strongest growth among Hellenized Jews in places like Antioch and Alexandria. The Greek-speaking Mediterranean region was a powerhouse for the Early Church, producing many revered Church Fathers as well as those who became labelled as heresiarchs, such as Nestorius.From Antioch, where Christians were first so called, came Ignatius, Diodore of Tarsus, John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Nestorius, Theodoret, John of Antioch, Severus of Antioch and Peter the Fuller, many of whom are associated with the School of Antioch. In like manner, Alexandria boasted many prominent theologians, including Athenagoras, Pantaenus, Clement, Origen, Dionysius, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Arius, Athanasius, Didymus the Blind, Cyril and Dioscorus, associated with School of Alexandria. The two schools dominated the theological controversies of the first centuries of Christian theology. Whereas Antioch traditionally focused on the grammatical and historical interpretation of Scripture and developed a dyophysite christology, Alexandria was much influenced by neoplatonism, using an allegorical interpretation and developing miaphysitism. Other prominent centres of Christian learning developed in Asia Minor and the Levantine coast.
The kingdom of Osroene which was ruled by the Arab Abgarid dynasty was celebrated as the first kingdom to adopt Christianity as its official religion and there is an apocryphal legend, the Doctrine of Addai, and an anonymous history, the Chronicle of Edessa, claiming that Osroene was the first state to have accepted Christianity as state religion, but some scholars believe there is not enough evidence to support that claim.
Politically, the Middle East of the first four Christian centuries was divided between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire. Christians experienced sporadic persecutions in both political spheres. Within the Parthian Empire, most Christians lived in the region of Mesopotamia/Asuristan and were ethnic Assyrian Mesopotamians who spoke eastern Aramaic dialects loosely related to those Western Aramaic dialects spoken by their co-religionists just across the Roman border, but with Akkadian influences.
Legendary accounts are of the evangelization of the East by Thomas, Addai/Thaddaeus and Mari. Syriac emerged as the standard Aramaic dialect of the three Assyrian border cities of Edessa, Nisibis and Arbela. Translation of the scriptures into Syriac began early in this region, with a Jewish group producing a translation of the Hebrew Bible becoming the basis of the Church of the Easts Christian Peshitta. Syriac Christianity is most famous for its poet-theologians, Aphrahat, Ephrem, Narsai and Jacob of Serugh.
Eusebius credits Mark the Evangelist as the bringer of Christianity to Egypt, and manuscript evidence shows that the faith was firmly established there by the middle of the 2nd century. Although the Greek-speaking community of Alexandria dominated the Egyptian church, speakers of native Coptic and many bilingual Christians were the majority. From the early 4th century, at the latest, the monastic movement emerged in the Egyptian desert, led by Anthony and Pachomius.
Eusebius also mentions the appointment of a bishop and the holding of a synod in Bostra around 240, which is the earliest reference to church organisation in an Arabic-speaking area. Later that decade, Eusebius describes another synod in Arabia Petraea. Some scholars have followed hints in Eusebius and Jerome that Philip the Arab, the son of an Arab sheikh, may have been the first Christian Roman Emperor. However, evidence to support this theory is thin. The Ghassanid tribe were important Christian foederati of Rome, while the Lakhmids were an Arab Christian tribe that fought for the Persians. Although the Hejaz was never a stronghold of Arab Christianity, there are reports of Christians around Mecca and Yathrib before the advent of Islam.
Christianity came to Armenia both from the south, Mesopotamia/Assyria, and the west, Asia Minor, as demonstrated by the Greek and Assyrian-Syriac origin of Christian terms in early Armenian texts. Eusebius mentions Meruzanes as the bishop of the Armenians around 260. Following the conversion of King Trdat III to Christianity, Gregory the Illuminator was consecrated Bishop of Armenia in 314. Armenians continue to celebrate their church as the oldest national church. Gregory was consecrated at Caesarea in Cappadocia.
The Georgian kingdom of Iberia was probably evangelized first in the 2nd or 3rd century. However, the church was only established there in 330s. A number of sources, both in Georgian and other languages, associate Nino of Cappadocia with bringing Christianity to the Georgians and converting King Mirian III of Iberia. Georgian Christian literature emphasizes her connection with Jerusalem and the role played by the Georgian Jewish community in the growth of Christianity. Certainly, early Georgian liturgy does share a number of conspicuous features with that of Jerusalem. The Black Sea coastal kingdom of Lazica had closer ties to Constantinople, and its bishops were by imperial appointment. Although the Lazican church originated around the same time as its Iberian neighbour, it was not until 523 when its king, Tzath, accepted the faith. The Iberian church was under the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch, until the reforming king Vakhtang Gorgasali set up an independent catholicos in 467.
In 314, the Edict of Milan proclaimed religious toleration in the Roman Empire, and Christianity rapidly rose to prominence. The church's dioceses and bishoprics came to be modelled on state administration: partly the motive for the Council of Nicaea in 325. However, Christians in the Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire are often found distancing themselves politically from their Roman co-religionists to appease the shah. Thus, around 387, when the Armenian Highland came under Sasanian control, a separate leadership from that in Caesarea developed and eventually settled in Echmiadzin, a division that still, to some extent, exists to this day. Likewise, in the 4th century, the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Sasanian capital, was recognised as leader of the Syriac and Greek-speaking Christians in the Persian empire, assuming the title catholicos, later patriarch.
Christianity in Ethiopia and Nubia is traditionally linked to the biblical tale of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch in the Acts of the Apostles. The Kebra Nagast also connects the Yemenite Queen of Sheba with the royal line of Axum. Evidence from coinage and other historical references point to the early 4th-century conversion of King Ezana of Axum as the establishment of Christianity, whence Nubia and other surrounding areas were evangelized, all under the oversight of the Patriarch of Alexandria. In the 6th century, Ethiopian military might conquered a large portion of Yemen, strengthening Christian concentration in southern Arabia.