Search results
Christians now make up approximately 5% of the Middle Eastern population, down from 13% 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. Lebanon is the only Middle Eastern country where Christians were once dominant and retain considerable political power. The country fought a civil war from 1975-1989 largely along religious lines, and relations between the patchwork of Lebanon's religious communities remain delicate.
- ISRAEL. About 20.5% of the country's population are Israeli-Arab - and about 9% of those are Christian. As such the Christians are a minority within a minority, practising their religion and trying to maintain their identity as part of an overwhelmingly Muslim population group.
- WEST BANK AND GAZA. Christian communities in the West Bank and Gaza have been declining for several decades because of conflict, economic decline and low birth rates.
- EGYPT. Most Christians in Egypt are Copts - Christians descended from the ancient Egyptians. Their Church split from the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches in 451AD because of a theological dispute over the nature of Christ, but is now, on most issues, doctrinally similar to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Dec 22, 2021 · By examining Christianity in and from the Middle East, we gain a window into contemporary and historical World Christianity within the broader religious history of the region. Yet, many Christians today outside the region remain unfamiliar with Middle Eastern Christianity.
Christianity has been, historically, a Middle Eastern religion with its origin in Judaism. Eastern Christianity refers collectively to the Christian traditions and churches which developed in the Middle East, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Far East, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Northeastern Africa and southern India over several centuries of religious ...
May 17, 2012 · Eastern Christians want to distance themselves from everything Islamic, and their central concern is the freedom and integrity of Christian existence in the Middle East. Their primary posture is oriented towards the West and they emphasize their distinctiveness from Arab and Islamic identity.
Middle Eastern religion, any of the religious beliefs, attitudes, and practices developed in the ancient Middle East (extending geographically from Iran to Egypt and from Anatolia and the Aegean Sea to the Arabian Peninsula and temporally from about 3000 to 330 bc, when Alexander the Great conquered much of the area).
- Cyrus H. Gordon
Oct 19, 2021 · Faith and resilience in Middle East’s imperiled Christian communities | YaleNews. Di Giovanni’s new book examines the plight and potential disappearance of Christian communities across Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine. By Mike Cummings. October 19, 2021. Janine di Giovanni and her new book "The Vanishing."
