11 Running Head: CHRISTIANITY IN THE MDDLE EAST Christianity in the Middle East Elizabeth Weeden Ottawa University CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST Abstract A brief survey of events and occurrences from the first century to the present day. This survey outlines the background for understanding the complex questions in relation to the presence of Christians and their relationship with the other religions in the Middle East at the present time. Christianity in the Middle East Background Christianity has been a considerably dominant religious force over the past centuries. A lot of theories have been surrounded with a lot of myths in the society with various other religious societies such as the Hindu community having various ways of thinking and regards towards Christians. Expansion of Christianity into communities of other beliefs has been eminent even with the fact that it has been compounded with several issues. In the Middle East for example, questions have been raised about Christians and their religion. Being a Muslim dominated region it is hard for Christians considering the various radical beliefs entailed in Muslim culture (Chapman, 2012). The situation for Christians in these regions is a complex one and it is hard for students to make it in these regions. Various irritating questions have been asked of Christians and in this case the questions are normally very complex in nature in such a manner that some are forced to keep to themselves or reduce their exposure to the people of the other religious beliefs. With a total of around 15 million Christians in the Middle East –Arab Christians. These arab Christians claim to be in the bible in the sense that they are mentioned as “ God fearing Jews from every nation under Heaven “ regarded to have been present in Jerusalem on the historic day in relation to the bible mentioning. These kind of people are known to be happy and confident about their long presence within the region for over 2000 years. History The Christians in Iraq look back at the golden age of considered for the Eastern churches around the 5th and the 12th century where the gospel was focused and spread to India and Chinese countries, the Christians then made enormous contributions to the Islamic civilization (Chapman, 2012).With the Christians based in Lebanon considering themselves to be the descendants to Phoenicians and their continued confidence that they have been based in the region from the early Christian times. The Christians in current Egypt in a similar manner, also consider themselves to be the descendants of the ancient Egypt and therefore consider the Arab Muslims who overcame them around the 7th century as the foreign invaders. Christians in the current state in the Middle East can only look back at the comfortable life of the Christians in the region before (Iwuchukwu, Mariners, Siltner, 2013). At the moment, the situation is far m ...

1. 11
Running Head: CHRISTIANITY IN THE MDDLE EAST
Christianity in the Middle East
Elizabeth Weeden
Ottawa University
CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE
EAST
Abstract
A brief survey of events and occurrences from the first century
to the present day. This survey outlines the background for
understanding the complex questions in relation to the presence
of Christians and their relationship with the other religions in

2. the Middle East at the present time.
Christianity in the Middle East
Background
Christianity has been a considerably dominant religious force
over the past centuries. A lot of theories have been surrounded
with a lot of myths in the society with various other religious
societies such as the Hindu community having various ways of
thinking and regards towards Christians. Expansion of
Christianity into communities of other beliefs has been eminent
even with the fact that it has been compounded with several
issues.
In the Middle East for example, questions have been raised
about Christians and their religion. Being a Muslim dominated
region it is hard for Christians considering the various radical
beliefs entailed in Muslim culture (Chapman, 2012). The
situation for Christians in these regions is a complex one and it
is hard for students to make it in these regions. Various
irritating questions have been asked of Christians and in this
case the questions are normally very complex in nature in such
a manner that some are forced to keep to themselves or reduce

3. their exposure to the people of the other religious beliefs.
With a total of around 15 million Christians in the Middle East
–Arab Christians. These arab Christians claim to be in the bible
in the sense that they are mentioned as “ God fearing Jews from
every nation under Heaven “ regarded to have been present in
Jerusalem on the historic day in relation to the bible
mentioning. These kind of people are known to be happy and
confident about their long presence within the region for over
2000 years.
History
The Christians in Iraq look back at the golden age of considered
for the Eastern churches around the 5th and the 12th century
where the gospel was focused and spread to India and Chinese
countries, the Christians then made enormous contributions to
the Islamic civilization (Chapman, 2012).With the Christians
based in Lebanon considering themselves to be the descendants
to Phoenicians and their continued confidence that they have
been based in the region from the early Christian times. The
Christians in current Egypt in a similar manner, also consider
themselves to be the descendants of the ancient Egypt and
therefore consider the Arab Muslims who overcame them
around the 7th century as the foreign invaders.
Christians in the current state in the Middle East can only look
back at the comfortable life of the Christians in the region
before (Iwuchukwu, Mariners, Siltner, 2013). At the moment,
the situation is far much from stable as these Christians face
several kinds of tribulation in the region. There are a lot of
cases of unfolding drama in the cases of the Christian-Muslim
relationship within the Middle East.
Christians in the middle east today try and overcome the various
challenges while also trying to get a hand on the importance of
the events that have lead to the changes in rulers in countries
such as Tunisia and Egypt (Chapman, 2012).They in this case
are obligated to reconciling to the fact that the islamists may
end up having a much upper hand in power compared to what
they have until this moment.

4. To get better insight regarding the current state of relations
between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East, it’s
necessary to delve a little deeper into the history, (Griffis,
Sydney 2007). 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. It is from these places that the first prominent
theologians first arose. The first major disagreement that led to
fracturing of the church was between Antiochians and
Alexandrians. This was called the Nestorian schism.
This argument revolved around claims by Alexandrians over
alleged theological extremism by Antiochians, and its
battleground was the Roman capital, Constantinople, originating
from its bishop's, Nestorius's, teaching on the nature of Christ.
He was condemned for splitting Christ's person into separate
divine and human natures, the extremes of this view, however,
were not preached by Nestorius. Cyril of Alexandria succeeded
in the deposition of Nestorius at the First Council of Ephesus in
431. The result led to a crisis among the Antiochians, some of
whom, including Nestorius himself, found protection in Persia,
which continued to espouse traditional Antiochian theology.
The schism led to the total isolation of the Persian-sphere
Church of the East, and the adoption of much Alexandrian
theology in the Antiochian sphere of influence.
Some of the Alexandrian victors at Ephesus, however, began to
push their anti-Nestorian agenda too far, of whom Eutyches was
the most prominent, (Griffis, Sydney, 2007). Much back and
forth led to the Council of Chalcedon of 451, which found a
compromise that returned to a theology closer to that of
Antioch, refereed by Rome, and condemned the Monophysite
theology of Eutyches. However, the outcome was rejected by
many Christians in the Middle East, especially by non-Greek-
speaking Christians on the fringe of the Roman Empire – Copts,
Syriacs, Assyrians and Armenians. In 482, Emperor Zeno
attempted to reconcile his church with his Henotikon.
However, reunion was never achieved, and the non-

5. Chalcedonians adopted miaphysitism based on traditional
Alexandrian doctrine, in revolt against the Byzantine Church.
These so-called Oriental Orthodox Churches include the
majority of Egyptian Christians – the Coptic Orthodox Church
of Alexandria – majority of Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians –
the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churchs – many
Syriacs – the Syriac Orthodox Church – and the majority of
Armenians – the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The name Melkite (meaning 'of the king' in Aramaic), originally
intended as a slur, came to be applied to those who adhered to
Chalcedon (it is no longer used to describe them), who
continued to be organised into the historic and autocephalous
patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and
Jerusalem. Collectively they form the traditional basis for the
Greek Orthodox Church, known as Rūm Orthodox in Arabic,
which is their language of worship throughout Lebanon, Egypt,
the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Jordan, Syria and Christian
diaspora. The Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church held to
a moderate Antiochian doctrine through these schisms and
began aligning itself with Byzantium from the early 7th century,
and finally broke off ties with their Armenian non-Chalcedonian
neighbours in the 720s.
The Ottoman Turks carried out a series of violent massacres of
ethnic Assyrian and Armenian Christians in the 1870s, these
killings, which resulted in over ten thousand deaths, were
known as the Hamidian massacre.
The Ottoman Turks conducted a large-scale genocide and ethnic
cleansing of the ancient and indigenous, Greek, Armenian,
Assyrian and Maronite Christian inhabitants of Anatolia, north
western Iran, the fringes of northern Iraq and northern Syria and
Mount Lebanon during and immediately after World War I,
resulting in well over 3 million deaths and large-scale
deportations in the Armenian Genocide, Assyrian Genocide,
Greek Genocide and Great famine of Mount Lebanon.
The fall of the Ottoman Empire and World War I ushered in the
greatest period of violence against Christians in the region,

6. (Griffis, Sydney, 2007). Subsequently, hatred against Christians
was fueled by the suspicion of the West prevalent in much of
the Middle East because of its support to Israel, and the ravages
attributed to Western colonialism; as it happens, Christians are
perceived by some in the region as sharing the same religious
beliefs with the Western former colonialists. Derogatory words
and insults are often used on these pre-Arab and pre-Islamic
Christian communities, describing them as "illegitimate children
of the crusaders" or as "slaves of western colonialists"
In spite of the fact that every country in the Middle East has at
least a small number of believers in Christ from a Muslim
background, and in spite of the fact that all native Christians are
Arabic speakers themselves, Christians in the Middle East face
persecution –in various grades, depending on the residence
country– and are often isolated, (Thomas, David, 2013).
The fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the Syrian Civil
War and the concomitant rise of ISIS have recently greatly
increased violence against Christians in those countries. Some,
including Hillary Clinton, referred to the ISIS campaign against
Christians and other religious minorities in the region as a
genocide. Later on, in March 2016 the United States officially
joined this view, with U.S. Secretary of StateJohn Kerry
declaring during a news conference at the State Department that
ISIS "is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under
its control including Yazidis, Assyrian Christians, Armenians
and Shia Muslims"; it was the first time since Darfur (2004)
that the United States declared a genocide.
Kurdish tribes have in Turkey, Syria and Iran have conducted
regular raids against their Christian neighbors and even
paramilitary assaults during World War I. Kurds were
responsible for most of the atrocities committed against the
Assyrian Christians due also to a long tradition of perceived
Kurdish rights to pillage Christians. A Kurdish chieftain
assassinated the patriarch of the church of the Aast at the
negotiation dinner in 1918, and the aftermath led to further
decimation of the Christian population.

7. Throughout the nearly fifteen centuries of Muslim-Christian
encounter, individual adherents of both religions often have
lived peacefully with each other, (Sharp, Andrew 2012). At the
same time Muslin expansion into Christian lands and Christian
imperialism in Muslim lands have fostered ill will and fear
among both sides.
In the Middle East, Christian-Muslim relations have been
affected historically by territorial ambitions, competition for
particular sites important to both faiths, and the constantly
changing developments in the region’s politics. After the
Second World War, Israel was formed, further complicating
things the As implied earlier, Christians, being minorities in
Muslim majority states, Christians are focused on trying to live
as full and equal citizens. In some cases such as Syria and
Egypt, Christians are struggling for their very existence. Often
they look back at periods in history where coexistence and
tolerance marked relations.
Despite everything that has happened what should be done to go
back to the way things were in the good old days? Can both
Christians and Muslims in the Middle East put their differences
aside and share the historically important sites to both
religions? I believe these things are possible through constant
dialogue.
Eastern Christians in the Middle East have always wanted to
distance themselves from everything Islamic, (Smith 2015).
Their main concern is the freedom and integrity of Christian
existence in the Middle East. Even with these there are still
some similarities between Christianity and Islam. Their primary
focus is aimed towards the West and they emphasize their
differences from Arab and Islamic identity. They see the main
threat to Christians as not the West, or Israel, but Islam.
Evidently interreligious conflict has been noted to have
negative implication to the economy of the countries in the
middles east. Among the sectors greatly affected is tourism.
This is due deteroriating security, in such countries as result of
religious conflicts. Tourism growth over the past few decades

8. can mainly be attributed to curiosity by people of one religion,
to explore another religion, (Stefan Constantin 2016).
Presence of a God is a common belief amongst the two
religions, (Sharp, Andrew 2012). Christians and Muslims have
always believed in the existence of an almighty God –Allah for
Muslims and Jehovah for the Christians. The differential case
here is the name given to the God but the belief of the existence
of a common God is held by both parties in the case.
Implications
Over the recent years, relations between Muslims and
Christians around the middle east have become increasingly
differentiated, waved by anti-Islamic rhetoric and fear
mongering,( Smith 2015). Christians have always viewed the
Qur’an as fraudulent and Muhammad as an imposter .For the
case of Muslims, a good number of verses in the Qur’an call for
treating Christians and Jews with respect as recipients of God’s
divine message. However, many Muslims have found it difficult
not to view Christians as polytheists because of their doctrine of
the Trinity.
There has however been complications in the relationship
between the Christians and Muslims around countries in the
Middle East, (Smith 2015). At the moment, Christian-Muslim
relations are deemed to be at a low point that had not been
witnessed since the crusading days. Christians are being killed
in Lebanon as a direct result of the Syrian war, with bishops
being kidnapped, churches burnt down and priests tortured.
There have been fears that native Christian communities
countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria will one day
be forced out of their native homes in the Middle East with no
signs of returning.
Efforts are however being made in the Middle East to enhance
better understanding between the two long-standing neighboring
communities, (Smith 2015). Both Christians and Muslims
worked to improve relations and to encourage by motivation of
peaceful coexistence around the 20th century. Through the

9. structured struggles of organizations, such as the World Council
of Churches, and many more informal setups, dialogue has been
conducted in an effort to solve the various questions
surrounding the fighting amongst the two religions.
Conclusion
The Orthodox Church, as an example of Christian community
has resolved and started to reexamine the sources of the
individual faiths and, on a theological level, try to understand
how God works through the various other religions such as
Islam (Sharp, Andrew, 2012). Efforts are also being put with an
aim of disconnecting itself from the concept of nationalism
embraced by the Western world and put more emphasis on the
common links -historical and linguistic, that were shared by the
Christians and Muslims, aiming at a more positive
representations in the coming days.
Reference
Colin Chapman, 2012.Christians in the Middle East – Past,
Present and Future.
Griffis, Sydney H. The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque:
Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2007.Iwuchukwu, Marinus C., and
Brian Siltner. Can Muslims and Christians Resolve Their
Religious and Social Conflicts? Cases from Africa and the
United States. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2013.
Jane Smith 2015. Christianity, Islamic Studies, Religion and
Politics.
Sharp, Andrew M. Orthodox Christians and Islam in the
Postmodern Age. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2012.
Stefen, Constantin, The Bucharest University of Economic
Study, Romania: The Middle East: Measuring the Relationship
between Conflict and Tourism .Bucharest University of
Economic Study,Romania, 2016
Thomas, David, Ed. The History of Christian-Muslim Relations.

10. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013.
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Reference List