Who are the Christians of the East?
Lebanon.The first Christians lived in the caves of the Kaddish valley, centuries later, monks here imposed fetters on their spiritual ailments, seeking God's healing. Today Arab Maronite Christians come here to fan the coals of faith.
Hermit Fr. Johanna Kavan opens doors to visitors for some part of the year. Hours of communication complicate his busy daily routine, which includes the translation of ancient Aramaic hymns into modern Arabic.
Despite the fact that Fr. Johanna left his duties as an Old Testament teacher at the University of the Holy Spirit in the Lebanese city of Kaslik, yet he still performs several services a day, offers ten thousand prayers and sleeps only a few hours at night among his books. “People keep bringing me material to work with,” he sighs. "It seems to them that the hermits have nothing special to do!"
Syria.Singing popular songs in a pious manner, Christian scouts parade through the village of Saidnaya on Palm Sunday, climbing up to the ancient church of Our Lady of Saidnaya, which is also revered by Muslims.
Syria.Muslim worship at the tomb of John the Baptist in Damascus. In Syria, the interaction of religions began in the 7th century, when the Muslim Arabs conquered the lands of the Christian Byzantine Empire... Some Church Fathers even accepted early Islam as a form of Christianity.
Easter Sunday is the peak of the spring calendar for young people who like to dress fashionably in the Syrian village of Saidnaya, where the Church of Our Lady is the center of fellowship for Christians.
Jerusalem.Having put on the cross, Arab Christians, residents of Jerusalem, join the crowds of foreigners on Good Friday (both Catholic and Orthodox calendar), following the path of Jesus through Old city... Once the majority, Arab Christians now constitute a numerically smaller proportion of the population, and they are often disregarded.
Grieving for the crucified Christ, in anticipation of the miracle of the Resurrection, Catholic parishioners attend Saturday services in Jerusalem's Old City.
Jerusalem.Inspired Orthodox Arabs stir up the Christian quarter for Easter.
At-Tayyiba- the only fully Orthodox Christian community on the West Bank of the Jordan River, numbering 1,300 people, who are cared for in three parishes. Ruins of El Hadera, a cruciform temple built between the 4th and 7th centuries. and restored by the Crusaders, are still preserved on the outskirts of the settlement. For about a thousand years after the coming of Christ, such Christian settlements prevailed in the rocky heights of Palestine. After his conversion to Christianity in 312, the Emperor Constantine proclaimed this territory the Holy Land.
Syria.In the desert to the north of Damascus is the Deir Mar Musa monastery, the foundation of which dates back to the 6th century. At the time, hundreds of temples and monasteries dotted the area. Today monks say that they are "witnesses of the world", a kind of guardians of the dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
Lebanon. East Beirut.Milad Assaf is proud to be a member of the Lebanese Forces, a Christian Maronite political party that relies on heavily armed volunteers.
Maronite guards accompany Lebanese Christian politicians and their supporters during the parade in East Beirut in honor of the fallen heroes civil war in Lebanon.
“Save and save my father,” prays four-year-old boy Frank Yalda, who is affectionately named Nunu. His father, an Iraqi Christian, was kidnapped in April 2006. There has been no news of him since. When his uncle was kidnapped, the family fled to Damascus, the capital of Syria, and the UN pays for their living in a modest apartment. Of the 1.4 million Iraqi refugees currently living in Syria, about 200,000 are Christians.
Lebanon.Fight or Flight? For many Iraqi Christians (most of them belong to the Eastern Catholic Churches and are in communion with the Vatican), emigration to Syria or Lebanon became the only salvation. Faraj Hermez from Kirkuk took refuge here for his wife and ten children.
Christian Lama Salfiti, 19, dresses modestly at the Public College of Applied Science and Technology in Gaza. The college is part of the Islamic University of Gaza, where the dress code requires women to wear a veil and an abaya, a long, traditional Arabic dress with sleeves. From the total students - 20,600 people - Christians make up only a small part. In December, Israel bombed this Hamas-affiliated university.
West Bank.The lonely shepherd of the dwindling flock, Fr. Artemy conducts a funeral service for a 95-year-old parishioner in the church of St. Porphyria. This temple of Jerusalem Orthodox Church known since 443 In the Christian community of the Gaza Strip, once very prominent, there are about two and a half thousand people, many of whom are of advanced age.
Dome of a temple in Lebanon
Pilgrim from Nigeria in Jerusalem walks on the Way of the Cross of the Savior
Pilgrim from Ethiopia
Baptism in Jordan
In Catholic service
Photo from open sources and reportageNational Geographic
Arab Christians.
It is customary to call the natives of Arab countries, Christian Arabs, who profess Christianity, regardless of their ethnic origin.
These are the descendants of peoples who lived in the Middle East before the conquest of this region by the Arabs and retained their religious affiliation.
An exception to this rule is the Christian Arab residing in Israel (including Judea and Samaria) and in Gaza.
They are descendants of the population of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, created by the Crusaders.
Christian Arabs have largely lost their original national identity (with the exception of Copts) and consider themselves Arabs.
All Christian Arabs have also lost their languages and speak various dialects of the Arabic language. However, the Copts in this case are also to some extent an exception, since their divine services are conducted in the Coptic language.
28 Christian denominations and represent the interests of about 15 million Christians in the Middle East and North Africa.
However, these data are outdated, at present the number of Christian Arabs living in Arab countries is constantly decreasing, and their number in the USA, Canada, Australia and Western Europe (France, Great Britain) is growing rapidly.
In particular, about 4 million people from Arab countries live in the United States, and the overwhelming majority of them are Christian Arabs.
There are also large Christian Arab communities in countries Latin America... First of all, this is Argentina, where, according to various estimates, up to 1 million Christian Arabs live.
There are also communities of Arab Christians in Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela and in some African countries (in particular in Nigeria).
The largest community of Arab Christians are those living in Egypt Copts (5-6 million people). Back in the 70s of the XX century. Christian Arabs (we are talking about the Maronites) made up the majority of the population of Lebanon.
Currently, their number does not exceed 1 million people.
A significant community of Arab Christians lives in Syria, they are in Israel and in Jordan.
In Iraq, as of 1990, there were 1 million Christians. In 2005 - just over half a million.
There are two reasons for the rapid decline in the proportion of the Christian population in Arab countries.
The first is the significantly lower birth rate among Europeanized Christian Arabs compared to their Muslim compatriots.
In particular, there has never been any noticeable emigration of Christian Arabs from Israel, but, nevertheless, their share in the country's Arab population is rapidly declining.
At the time of the emergence of the State of Israel, the proportion of Christians and Muslims among the Arab population of this country was one to four.
Currently, Christian Arabs make up about 13% of the Arab population of Israel - about 120 thousand people.
If we turn our attention to Judea, Samaria and Gaza, where the massive emigration of Christian Arabs joins the difference in the birth rate, then the numbers will be even more impressive.
In the Gaza Strip and West Bank
In 1999, prior to the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the US Consulate in East Jerusalem issued 668 immigration visas, in 2000 - almost twice as many - 1,089.
Christians in North America are often confused about the relationship between the religion of Islam and the ethnic identity of Muslims. This confusion takes two forms. The first concerns the relationship between religious Muslim and Arab ethnicity. The second concerns the depth to which religious Muslim self-awareness has penetrated the ethnic identities of all Muslim groups of people.
If Christians want to understand their Muslim neighbors (locally and globally), love them as Christ commanded, and effectively spread the Gospel among them, then we need to understand how they understand themselves.
"Arab" and "Muslim"
Arab and Muslim are not synonymous. Muslims are followers of the religion of Islam. Arabs are an ethnic-linguistic group of people, most of whom are Muslims, in religious terms, but there are also many who do not profess Islam. Their roots are in the territory of the Arabian Peninsula, but in the 7-8 centuries they burst into the world around them with impressive conquests that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD. Over the course of 100 years, they traveled westward through North Africa and Spain, and reached the south of France. To the east, the Arabs conquered the Persian Empire and infiltrated what is now Pakistan and Central Asia. They did it as followers of Islam, but also ethnically, linguistically and culturally - like the Arabs. From the beginning, these Muslim Arabs lived as a ruling minority over much of their empire. Most of the people they conquered spoke other languages (such as Aramaic, Coptic, Berber, and Persian) and practiced other religions (Christianity in the west and Zoroastrianism in the east).
After some time, however, dual processes of Islamization and Arabization began, which proceeded in different regions differently, unevenly. Egypt, North Africa and the Aramaic-speaking Middle East have become virtually completely Arabized in terms of language and Muslims in religious terms. In places like Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Egypt, substantial minorities have held onto their historic Christian identities. Thus, today in each of these countries there are communities of people who are regarded ethnically and linguistically as Arabs, but are adherents of ancient Christian communities: the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, the Maronite Catholic Church in Lebanon, the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches in Palestine. , The Eastern and Syrian Orthodox Churches in Syria, and the Chaldean Catholic and Assyrian Orthodox Churches in Iraq. These groups found themselves caught between two fires in the clashes that filled these countries in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Chaoyue PAN - Coptic Good Friday Mass
The historic Christian population in the Middle East has declined sharply in the past few decades as Christians have been killed or forced to flee. For example, a significant proportion of the Palestinian population was historically Christian in the early 20th century, but Israel does not separate them from Palestinian Muslims, and many have left their homelands. Likewise, the Assyrian and Chaldean believers in Iraq fled en masse from the regime of Saddam Hussein. But since the regime was ousted, they have again become a target now for various Islamic groups, and many had to flee. A significant percentage of the Arab population in the United States belongs to one of the ancient Eastern churches (therefore, they are not Muslims), and the patriarch of the Assyrian Orthodox Church currently lives in Chicago.
On the other hand, many other peoples under Islamic rule became Muslims but never became Arabs. In the Middle East itself, Persians (Iranians), Kurds and Turks are mostly Muslims. But they do not regard themselves as Arabs and do not speak Arabic. Moreover, most of the world's Muslim population lives in countries where no Arabic is spoken: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, along with a few others.
Most of the world's Muslims are linguistically and ethnically non-Arabs.
Arab Center
And yet, the influence of the Arabs on these non-Arab Muslims is enormous. The Qur'an was written in Arabic and by true Muslims only the Qur'an in the original language is regarded by true Muslims. The prayers that Muslims recite five times a day are recited in Arabic, and it doesn't matter if the prayer understands the language or not. The hadiths and all the authoritative documents of Islamic law were written in Arabic. Muslims in Southeast Asia, who do not know the Arabic language, still give their children Arabic names. It is true that most communities living in the neighborhood of the Arab world (Turks, Persians, Kurds and Berbers) experience a kind of mixed love / hate feeling towards Arabs, often expressing superiority or dislike towards them. Until now, this influence is very strong, and the Muslim world is unbreakably connected with the Arab world.
And here the second, widespread, but erroneous idea plays its role. People in North America tend to view religious identity as private and personal. It is true that we still think in stereotypes: Poles and Italians are typical Catholics, residents of the southern states of the United States are Protestants. Jewish families will sometimes abandon children who convert to Christianity. However, in general, religion is viewed as a right to choose, and this issue is kept away from public opinion. The person may not have any religious identity and be American. In most of the Muslim world, however, the opposite opinion is believed to be correct. Islam is part of their ethnic self-determination. To be Turkish, Persian or Malaysian or from another Muslim group of people is to be a Muslim. You can try to stop being a Turkish or Persian, but not a former Muslim from an Islamic perspective. As a Muslim, you are not even obliged to follow exactly all the precepts of your religion, but you cannot leave Islam.
Joining another religion means committing ethnic and cultural treason, it means cutting yourself off from the ties to your family and society that are the foundation of your identity. This is one of the greatest challenges faced by Christians in proclaiming the gospel to Muslims. Islam does not divide religion, culture and politics into different areas but considers them as an indivisible whole. For this reason, evangelism and service to Muslims are regarded as a political and cultural provocation, as well as a religious threat.
Our answer
What should Christians do with this knowledge?
(1) Don't mistake every Arab you meet for a Muslim. They can be, but they can also be members of one of the ancient Near Eastern Christian churches.
(2) Don't mistake every Muslim you meet for an Arab. Most Muslims are not Arabs and will appreciate what you know and understand the difference.
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(3) Understand that for many Muslims, Islam is a religion in which they practice using a language they do not know. And their commitment to it is based more on ethnic identity, cultural practice, and family ties than on theological understanding.
(4) Realize the price Muslims have to pay to follow Jesus. They not only face a high likelihood of external persecution, they also face feelings of family, cultural and ethnic betrayal from those closest to them, making a dramatic revolution in their understanding of their own identity. Jesus must be exalted as something of the utmost value, at a price worth paying for it.
Christians, in this article, are natives of Arab countries, regardless of their ethnicity, who profess Christianity. Most of them are descendants of peoples who lived in the Middle East before the conquest of this region by the Arabs and have retained their religious affiliation. The exception is the Christian Arabs living in Israel and the Palestinian territories, who are descendants of the population of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, created by the crusaders. Christian Arabs have largely lost their original national identity and consider themselves Arabs.
Most of them have lost their languages and speak various dialects of the Arabic language. Christianity is also professed by representatives of non-Arab ethnic groups- Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, etc. At present, a significant number of Christians in the countries of the Arab East are represented by foreigners, mainly citizens of European states. (According to the Institute for Israel and the Middle East Studies)
The number of Christians in Arab countries before the events associated with the "Arab Spring" was about 15 million people. They belong to 28 Christian denominations, which can be conventionally grouped into three groups: Eastern Christian, Uniate (Eastern Catholic) and Western Christian.
Eastern Christian churches are local organizations that maintain their autonomy. These include: the Coptic Church, the Antiochian Orthodox Church, the Jerusalem Orthodox Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church (Syro-Orthodox or Syro-Jacobite), the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church, Nestorians, etc. The adherents of the Eastern churches live mainly in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
Uniate (Eastern Catholic) Churches are religious organizations whose adherents have separated from the Eastern Christian churches at different times and are in alliance with the Roman Catholic Church. These include: the Maronite Church, Greek Catholics, Chaldeans, Syrian Catholics, Armenian Catholics, etc. The largest Uniate communities are in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.
Western Christian churches are represented by Christian churches and religious organizations of Western European and North American origin in two directions - Roman Catholic and Protestant. There are large communities of these branches of Christianity in Lebanon and Kuwait.
Egypt, Syria and Lebanon are home to about three quarters of the Arab Christian population. In other Arab states, the number of Christians rarely exceeds 1 percent of their inhabitants. In a predominantly Muslim environment, the Arab followers of Jesus live mainly in compact villages, in cities - in neighborhoods. There are large communities of Arab Christians in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe (mainly in France and Great Britain), as well as in Latin America, primarily in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela. There are also Arab Christian communities in African countries, in particular in Nigeria.
There is a steady trend downsizing the Christian population in the Arab countries, which has significantly increased during the period of political changes currently taking place in the region. Experts note that "all the revolutions in the Arab world led to waves of violence against Christians and their forced emigration", and "the changes that took place in the Middle East brought only repression against the followers of Christ," who, after the fall of the dictators, lost their rights. Christians, as practice shows, can become a bargaining chip in relations between secular regimes and Islamists. It is noted that, paradoxically, but "under dictatorships, the rights of Christians were better protected than now." At the same time, “the continuing exodus of Christians from the Middle East, attacks on churches and monasteries, the killing of priests and the seizure of Christian hostages are the best gift obvious and secret enemies of Islam and one of the reasons for the growing Islamophobia all over the world ”.
The largest Christian Arab group in the Middle East and North Africa is Copts Egypt (up to 9 million people). The situation with the position of the Copts in Egypt is becoming more and more alarming. Copts fear that the coming to power in the country of Islamists, the growing influence of conservative followers of Islam will lead to a further deterioration in their position. The Islamists regularly attack Coptic churches and monasteries, and they kill slfdki. " And there are good reasons for this.
Attacks on churches and parishioners, assassinations, robberies and looting by Islamist militants and their supporters have become commonplace in the civil war in Syria. An estimated 10 to 20 percent of local Christians have been forced out of the country since the outbreak of conflict in 2011. At the same time, a significant proportion of Christians are ready to support the "wind of democratic change" and Syria's transition to a democratic, pluralistic state. Certain Christian elements are also present in the ranks of the irreconcilable opposition. As for the highest authorities of the church, they officially support the regime of President B. Assad. In general, the Syrian adherents of Jesus advocate an early end to the bloodshed and "the beginning of a peaceful process of social reforms."
Until 2003, a large Christian community (about 1 million people) lived in Iraq. Moreover, under S. Hussein, the authorities treated them more loyal than the Shiites. After the Americans overthrew the Saddam regime as a result of the terror unleashed against Christians, the latter began to leave the country in droves, and now there are from 300 to 500 thousand people left. Only in 2003-2008. more than 40 Christian churches were destroyed in Iraq. It is noteworthy that all this happened before the eyes of the Americans.
About 56 thousand Christians live in the Palestinian territories, including 43 thousand in the West Bank, 1.8 thousand in the Gaza Strip and 11 thousand in East Jerusalem. There is a massive emigration of Christian Arabs from the region. Their number in the Palestinian territories has decreased over 50 years from 22 percent of the total number of Palestinians to 2 percent. Christians are discriminated against, there are cases of their forcible conversion to Islam. At the same time, the rights of the Christian population are formally enshrined in the Palestinian constitution.
There are 160,000-180,000 Christians in Jordan. They are full members of society and are represented in government bodies. King Abdullah II said that Muslims and Christians in the country "constitute one family working for the good of society."
Lebanon is home to up to 1.7 million Christians (about 34 percent of the population, mostly Maronites). The community continues to decline, with many Lebanese Christians emigrating to other countries. Before the civil war 1975-1990 the Christian community occupied a dominant position in the state and society. At present, their influence in the country has decreased, but still remains significant.
There are relatively large Christian communities in Kuwait, UAE and Bahrain. They are mainly represented by foreigners living in these countries. There are a small number of Christians (foreigners) in Qatar and Oman. The Saudi Arabian government allows people of other faiths to enter the country, but they are prohibited from worshiping.
According to the international charitable Christian organization "Open Doors" for 2012, Saudi Arabia ranks third (after North Korea and Afghanistan) in the list of states where the rights of Christians are most often oppressed. Christians are also severely persecuted in Yemen (6th place). In the countries of the Arab Maghreb, the largest Christian communities live in Tunisia and Libya. The number of Christians in Sudan is constantly decreasing, where the authorities are forcing them to move to the Republic of South Sudan.
Editorial opinion may not reflect the views of the author
And a number of other coastal states. There is also a small Arab population in Israel. The Arab world has nearly 130 million people, of which 116 million are Arabs.
Many peoples have been Arabized through the perception of the Arabic language and Arabic culture. For almost all of them, Arabization went through Islam, the main religion of the Arab world.
Arabs are divided into three main groups: Bedouin pastoralists who breed sheep, goats or camels, peasant farmers and urban dwellers.
The Arab world also includes a number of non-Arab minorities such as Berbers and Tuaregs, Kurds in Iraq, Jews, Armenians and some peoples of the geographical region of Sudan. Copts are Christians of Egypt, also speak Arabic, but consider themselves to be primordially pre-Arab Egyptians.
Major populations
Most of the Bedouins live in Arabia and in the neighboring desert regions of Jordan, Syria and Iraq, some of the Bedouins live in Egypt and northern Sahara. Their number ranges from 4 to 5 million. Bedouins lead a strictly tribal and nomadic lifestyle. The tribe and each of its parts are headed by a sheikh, who is considered the eldest in wisdom and experience. Bedouins are mainly involved in camel breeding and sheep and goat breeding.
There are both Christians and Shia Muslims among the Bedouins, but the majority are nominally either Wahhabite or Sunni Muslims. Bedouins are not as religious as Muslims in villages and cities, but at the same time they regularly perform the five prescribed by Islam. daily prayers... Since most Bedouins are illiterate, they cannot read the Qur'an themselves and have to rely on the oral transmission of religious ideas. Together with many residents of villages and cities, they share a belief in the evil eye and evil spirits as the cause of illness and misfortune, as well as in the healing and protective powers of the tombs of various Muslim saints.
About 70% of Arabs live in villages and are peasants. Most Arab peasants have a deeply developed sense of belonging to their village, whose residents usually help each other in the event of an external threat. They are also rallied Religious holidays or a funeral. But most of the time, the villagers find themselves divided into separate groups.
Arab cities are commercial, industrial, administrative and religious centers. Some of them are a lot like European metropolitan areas with large buildings, wide streets and heavy traffic. The traditional Arab city and those old districts of modern cities that still exist are characterized by narrow streets and cramped buildings, often with shops and workshops on the ground floors.
History
Historical evidence from Mesopotamia began to separate the Arabs from their other Semitic neighbors no earlier than the 1st millennium BC. At that time, the Arabs of southern Arabia had already established prosperous cities and kingdoms such as Saba on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Western Arabia in the era of Christianity was inhabited by townspeople and nomads who spoke Arabic and believed their origins to go back to the biblical patriarchs (usually to Ismail, see also the Hagarians), and in the city of Mecca, idols were worshiped in a temple first built, presumably by Abraham. ...
A hundred years after the death of Muhammad, the territory of the spread of Islam stretched from Spain through North Africa and southwestern Asia to the borders of India. The spread of Islam provided the Arabs with a network of useful contacts for them, and together with dependent peoples - Christians, Jews, Persians, etc. - they built one of the greatest civilizations.
Who are the Christians of the East?
Lebanon. The first Christians lived in the caves of the Kaddish valley, centuries later, monks here imposed fetters on their spiritual ailments, seeking God's healing. Today Arab Maronite Christians come here to fan the coals of faith.
Hermit Fr. Johanna Kavan opens doors to visitors for some part of the year. Hours of communication complicate his busy daily routine, which includes the translation of ancient Aramaic hymns into modern Arabic.
Despite the fact that Fr. Johanna left his duties as an Old Testament teacher at the University of the Holy Spirit in the Lebanese city of Kaslik, yet he still performs several services a day, offers ten thousand prayers and sleeps only a few hours at night among his books. “People keep bringing me material to work with,” he sighs. "It seems to them that the hermits have nothing special to do!"
Syria. Singing popular songs in a pious manner, Christian scouts parade through the village of Saidnaya on Palm Sunday, climbing up to the ancient church of Our Lady of Saidnaya, which is also revered by Muslims.
Syria. Muslim worship at the tomb of John the Baptist in Damascus. In Syria, the interaction of religions began in the 7th century, when the Muslim Arabs conquered the lands of the Christian Byzantine Empire. Some Church Fathers even accepted early Islam as a form of Christianity.
Easter Sunday is the peak of the spring calendar for young people who like to dress fashionably in the Syrian village of Saidnaya, where the Church of Our Lady is the center of fellowship for Christians.
Jerusalem. Having put on the cross, Arab Christians, residents of Jerusalem, join the crowds of foreigners on Good Friday (both in the Catholic and Orthodox calendars), following the path of Jesus through the Old City. Once the majority, Arab Christians now constitute a numerically smaller proportion of the population, and they are often disregarded.
Grieving for the crucified Christ, in anticipation of the miracle of the Resurrection, Catholic parishioners attend Saturday services in Jerusalem's Old City. 
Jerusalem. Inspired Orthodox Arabs stir up the Christian quarter for Easter.
At-Tayyiba- the only fully Orthodox Christian community on the West Bank of the Jordan River, numbering 1,300 people, who are cared for in three parishes. Ruins of El Hadera, a cruciform temple built between the 4th and 7th centuries. and restored by the Crusaders, are still preserved on the outskirts of the settlement. For about a thousand years after the coming of Christ, such Christian settlements prevailed in the rocky heights of Palestine. After his conversion to Christianity in 312, the Emperor Constantine proclaimed this territory the Holy Land. 
Syria. In the desert to the north of Damascus is the Deir Mar Musa monastery, the foundation of which dates back to the 6th century. At the time, hundreds of temples and monasteries dotted the area. Today monks say that they are "witnesses of the world", a kind of guardians of the dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
Lebanon. East Beirut. Milad Assaf is proud to be a member of the Lebanese Forces, a Christian Maronite political party that relies on heavily armed volunteers.
Maronite guards accompany Lebanese Christian politicians and their supporters during a parade in east Beirut in honor of the fallen heroes of the Lebanese civil war.
“Save and save my father,” prays four-year-old boy Frank Yalda, who is affectionately named Nunu. His father, an Iraqi Christian, was kidnapped in April 2006. There has been no news of him since. When his uncle was kidnapped, the family fled to Damascus, the capital of Syria, and the UN pays for their living in a modest apartment. Of the 1.4 million Iraqi refugees currently living in Syria, about 200,000 are Christians.
Lebanon. Fight or Flight? For many Iraqi Christians (most of them belong to the Eastern Catholic Churches and are in communion with the Vatican), emigration to Syria or Lebanon became the only salvation. Faraj Hermez from Kirkuk took refuge here for his wife and ten children.
Christian Lama Salfiti, 19, dresses modestly at the Public College of Applied Science and Technology in Gaza. The college is part of the Islamic University of Gaza, where the dress code requires women to wear a veil and an abaya, a long, traditional Arabic dress with sleeves. Of the total number of students - 20,600 people - Christians make up only a small part. In December, Israel bombed this Hamas-affiliated university.
West Bank. The lonely shepherd of the dwindling flock, Fr. Artemy conducts a funeral service for a 95-year-old parishioner in the church of St. Porphyria. This temple of the Jerusalem Orthodox Church has been known since 443. In the Christian community of the Gaza Strip, which was once very prominent, there are about two and a half thousand people, many of whom are of advanced age.
Dome of a temple in Lebanon
Pilgrim from Nigeria in Jerusalem walks on the Way of the Cross of the Savior
Pilgrim from Ethiopia
Baptism in Jordan
In Catholic service
Read like this
Arab Christian
It is customary to call the natives of Arab countries, Christian Arabs, who profess Christianity, regardless of their ethnic origin.
These are the descendants of peoples who lived in the Middle East before the conquest of this region by the Arabs and retained their religious affiliation.
The exceptions to this rule are Christian Arabs living in Israel (including Judea and Samaria) and Gaza.
They are descendants of the population of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, created by the Crusaders.
Christian Arabs have largely lost their original national identity (with the exception of Copts) and consider themselves Arabs.
All Christian Arabs have also lost their languages and speak various dialects of the Arabic language. However, the Copts in this case are also to some extent an exception, since their divine services are conducted in the Coptic language.
28 Christian denominations and represent the interests of about 15 million Christians in the Middle East and North Africa.
However, these data are outdated, at present the number of Christian Arabs living in Arab countries is constantly decreasing, and their number in the USA, Canada, Australia and Western Europe (France, Great Britain) is growing rapidly.
In particular, about 4 million people from Arab countries live in the United States, and the overwhelming majority of them are Christian Arabs.
There are also large communities of Arab Christians in Latin America. First of all, this is Argentina, where, according to various estimates, up to 1 million Christian Arabs live.
There are also communities of Arab Christians in Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela and in some African countries (in particular in Nigeria).
The largest community of Arab Christians is the Copts living in Egypt (5-6 million people). Back in the 70s of the XX century. Christian Arabs (we are talking about the Maronites) made up the majority of the population of Lebanon.
Currently, their number does not exceed 1 million people.
A significant community of Arab Christians lives in Syria, they are in Israel and in Jordan.
In Iraq, as of 1990, there were 1 million Christians. In 2005 - just over half a million.
There are two reasons for the rapid decline in the proportion of the Christian population in Arab countries.
The first is the significantly lower birth rate among Europeanized Christian Arabs compared to their Muslim compatriots.
In particular, there has never been any noticeable emigration of Christian Arabs from Israel, but, nevertheless, their share in the country's Arab population is rapidly declining.
At the time of the emergence of the State of Israel, the proportion of Christians and Muslims among the Arab population of this country was one to four.
Currently, Christian Arabs make up about 13% of the Arab population of Israel - about 120 thousand people.
If we turn our attention to Judea, Samaria and Gaza, where the massive emigration of Christian Arabs joins the difference in the birth rate, then the numbers will be even more impressive.
In the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the number of Christians has decreased in 50 years from 22% of general population Palestinians up to 2% and continues to melt.
If before the peace agreements of 1993, which transferred Bethlehem under the authority of the Palestinian Authority, Christian Arabs constituted the majority in Bethlehem, today they are less than a third of the population.
In 1999, before the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the US Consulate in East Jerusalem issued 668 immigrant visas, in 2000 - almost twice as many - 1,089.
