Christians in the Middle East

Christianity, 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. Christians now make up approximately 5% of the Middle Eastern population, down from 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. Egypt has the next largest proportion of Christians (predominantly Copts), at around 10% of its total population. Copts, numbering around 10 million, constitute the single largest Christian community in the Middle East.

The Eastern Aramaic speaking Assyrians of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and parts of Iran have suffered both ethnic and religious persecution for many centuries, such as the 1915 Genocide that was committed against them by the Ottoman Turks and their allies, leading many to flee and congregate in areas in the north of Iraq and northeast of Syria. 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 (from 0.8 to 1.4 million before 2003 US invasion). Assyrian Christians were between 800,000 and 1.2 million before 2003. In 2014, the Chaldean and Syriac population of the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq was scattered to Dohuk, Erbil and Jordan due to ISIS forcing the Assyrian and Syriac Christian community out of their historical homeland, but since the defeat of the Islamic State in 2017, Christians have began to slowly return.

The next largest Christian group in the Middle East are the once Aramaic speaking and now Arabic-speaking Maronites who are 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 Arab Catholic Christians are originally ''non-Arab'', with Melkites and Rum Christians who are descended from Arabized Greek-speaking Byzantine populations. They are members of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church. They number over 1 million in the Middle East. They came into existence as a result of a schism within the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch due to the election of a Patriarch in 1724.

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 Lebanon, Jordan and to a lesser degree in other Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, Israel, Egypt and formerly also Syria (until Syrian Civil War). The Armenian genocide which was committed by the Ottoman government both during and after World War I, drastically reduced the once sizeable Armenian population.

Greeks, who had once inhabited large parts of the western Middle East and Asia Minor, declined in number after the Arab conquests, then suffered another decline after the Turkish conquests, and all but vanished from Turkey as a result of the Greek genocide and the expulsions which followed World War I. Today, the largest Middle Eastern Greek community resides in Cyprus and numbers around 793,000. 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 Islamic world. 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 Christians in the Middle East have made significant contributions to Arab and Islamic civilization since the introduction of Islam, and they have had a significant impact contributing the culture of the Mashriq, Turkey, and Iran.

History

Evangelization and early history

Christianity 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 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 (most remarkably among the Cappadocian Fathers) and the Levantine coast ( Gaza, Caesarea and Beirut).

Politically, the Middle East of the first four Christian centuries was divided between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire (later Sasanian Persia). Christians experienced sporadic persecutions in both political spheres. Within the Parthian Empire, most Christians lived in the region of Mesopotamia/Asuristan (Assyria) 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 ( Mar Toma), Addai/ Thaddaeus and Mari. Syriac (''Syrian//Syriac'' are etymologically derived from ''Assyrian'') 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 (probably non-rabbinic) producing a translation of the Hebrew Bible

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