Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

has a long history in the region that is now Sudan and

South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the ...

. Ancient

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...

was reached by Coptic Christianity by the 2nd century. The Coptic Church was later influenced by

Greek Christianity The term Greek Orthodox Church (Greek: Ἑλληνορθόδοξη Ἐκκλησία, ''Ellinorthódoxi Ekklisía'', ) has two meanings. The broader meaning designates "the entire body of Orthodox (Chalcedonian) Christianity, sometimes also call ...

, particularly during the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

era. From the 7th century, the Christian Nubian kingdoms were threatened by the Islamic expansion, but the southernmost of these kingdoms,

Alodia Alodia, also known as Alwa ( grc-gre, Aρουα, ''Aroua''; ar, علوة, ''ʿAlwa''), was a medieval kingdom in what is now central and southern Sudan. Its capital was the city of Soba, located near modern-day Khartoum at the confluence of t ...

, survived until 1504. Southern Sudan (including what is now

) remained long dominated by traditional (tribal) religions of the Nilotic peoples, with significant conversion to

during the 20th and 21st centuries.

History

Coptic Christianity

Sudan Farras fresco of cathedral 22dez2005

Christianity reached the area of present-day northern Sudan, then called

, by about the end of the first century after Christ. It greatly developed under the influence of the

Eastern Roman Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

. Indeed, Byzantine architecture influenced most of the Christian churches in

lower Nubia Lower Nubia is the northernmost part of Nubia, roughly contiguous with the modern Lake Nasser, which submerged the historical region in the 1960s with the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Many ancient Lower Nubian monuments, and all its modern p ...

. The Byzantine Emperor

Justinian I Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renova ...

(reigned 527 to 565) made Nubia a stronghold of Christianity during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

. By 580 AD Christianity had become the official religion of the northern Sudan, centered around the

Faras Faras (formerly grc, Παχώρας, ''Pakhôras''; la, Pachoras; Old Nubian: Ⲡⲁⲭⲱⲣⲁⲥ, ''Pakhoras'') was a major city in Lower Nubia. The site of the city, on the border between modern Egypt and Sudan at Wadi Halfa Salient, was fl ...

cathedral.

Modern missionary activity

During the 19th century, British missionaries re-introduced the Christian faith into

. British imperial authorities somewhat arbitrarily limited missionary activity to the multi-ethnic southern region. The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

and other parts of the

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...

continued to send missionaries and other assistance after the country became independent in 1956, although that also precipitated decades of civil war and persecutions as discussed below. At the 2011 division which split off

, over 97% of the population in Sudan in the north, adheres to Islam. Religions followed by the South Sudanese include traditional indigenous religions,

and Islam. The last

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

to mention the religion of southerners dates back to 1956 where a majority were classified as following traditional beliefs or were Christian while 18% were Muslim. Scholarly and some U.S. Department of State sources state that a majority of southern Sudanese maintain traditional indigenous animist beliefs. Christianity is a minority in Sudan (albeit an influential one), which would make South Sudan one of the very few countries in the world where most people follow a traditional indigenous religion. However, according to the U.S. State Department's

International Religious Freedom Report The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (Public Law 105–292, as amended by Public Law 106–55, Public Law 106–113, Public Law 107–228, Public Law 108–332, and Public Law 108–458) was passed to promote religious freedom as a forei ...

of 2012, the majority of the population adhere to Christianity, while reliable statistics on animist and Muslim belief are not available. The majority of Christians in Sudan adhere either to the

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

church or to the Anglican churches (represented by the

Episcopal Church of the Sudan The Province of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, formerly known as Episcopal Church of Sudan, is a province of the Anglican Communion located in South Sudan. The province consists of eight Internal Provinces (each led by an archbishop) and 61 d ...

), but there are several other small denominations represented there including: * Africa Inland Church * Apostolic Church * Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria * Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church * Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church * Greek Orthodox Church * International church of the Nazarene * Jehovah's Witnesses * New Apostolic * Presbyterian Church of the Sudan * Seventh Day Adventist Church * Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church * Sudan Pentecostal Church * Sudan Interior Church * Sudan Church of Christ Roman Catholic missionaries began work in Sudan in 1842; both Anglicans and American Presbyterians began in Sudan in 1899. The Anglicans through the Church Missionary Society had their base in Omdurman, while the Presbyterians began in

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum ( ; ar, الخرطوم, Al-Khurṭūm, din, Kaartuɔ̈m) is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing n ...

but developed ministry both in the north and in the south. The Sudan Interior Mission began working in the country in 1937. The Africa Inland Mission launched the Africa Inland Church in 1949. In 1964 all foreign missionaries were made to leave southern Sudan because of the civil war. A few groups maintained missionaries in the north. The Sudan

Pentecostal Church Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement

, which has grown significantly in the south, was started later by the Swedish. , prior to the independence of

, about 2,009,374 Sudanese practiced Roman Catholicism, mainly in the south (5% of the population were devout Roman Catholics). Nine catholic dioceses include two archdioceses in modern Sudan, with five Cathedrals. The patron saint of the Sudan is the former slave Saint Josephine Bakhita,

canonized Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of s ...

in 2000. About 100,000 people or 0.25% of the population belong to various Protestant denominations in northern Sudan.

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

is practised by some thousand followers north of Sudan's capital. A 2015 study estimates some 30,000 Muslim converted to Christianity in Sudan, most of them belonging to some form of Protestantism. In 2019, the civilian cabinet of Sudan marked

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

as an official public holiday for the first time in 10 years since the secession of

from northern Sudan under president Omar al-Bashir.

Persecution

Sudan's Christians have been persecuted under various military regimes. Sudan's civil wars temporarily ended in 1972, but resumed in 1983, as famine hit the region. Four million people were displaced and two million people died in the two-decade long conflict, before a temporary six-year ceasefire was signed in January 2005. In May 1983, Sudan's Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy signed a declaration that they would not abandon God, as God had revealed himself to them under threat of

Shariah Law Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and th ...

. Anti-Christian persecutions grew particularly after 1985, including murders of pastors and church leaders, destruction of Christian villages, as well as churches, hospitals, schools and mission bases, and bombing of Sunday church services. Lands laid waste and where all buildings were demolished included an area the size of Alaska. Despite the persecutions, Sudanese Christians increased in number from 1.6 million in 1980 to 11 million in 2010. This was despite 22 of the 24 Anglican dioceses operating in exile in Kenya and Uganda, and clergy being unpaid. Four million people remain internally displaced, and another million are in the Sudanese diaspora abroad (of which 400,000 - 600,000 are of the South Sudanese diaspora). In 2011, South Sudan voted to secede from the north, effective 9 July. Persecution of Christians there had resumed by then. The Naivasha Agreement technically protects non-Muslims in the north. Some interpretations of Muslim law in Sudan refuse to recognize

conversions out of Islam Apostasy in Islam ( ar, ردة, or , ) is commonly defined as the abandonment of Islam by a Muslim, in thought, word, or through deed. An apostate from Islam is referred to by using the Arabic and Islamic term ''murtād'' (). It includes no ...

, considering apostacy a crime, and refuse to recognize marriages to non-Muslims. Sudan is one of the nations where being a Christian is hardest in the world. Freedom of religion and belief are systematically violated. In 2014, there was controversy over the planned execution of Maryam Yaḥyā Ibrahīm Isḥaq for apostasy. She was later released and after further delays left Sudan.

References

Bibliography