Christianity in Iraq

Christianity in Iraq has its roots in the conception of the Church of the East in the 5th century AD, predating the existence of Islam in the region of Iraq. Iraqi Christians are predominantly native Assyrians belonging to the Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Church of the East, Assyrian Pentecostal Church, Assyrian Evangelical Church, Mar Thoma Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church and Syriac Orthodox Church. In Iraq, there is also a significant population of Armenian Christians whose ancestors had fled from Turkey during the Armenian genocide. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, violence against Christians increased, with reports of abduction, torture, bombings, and killings. Early Church Christianity was brought to Iraq in the 1st century by Thomas the Apostle and Mar Addai (Addai of Edessa) and his pupils Aggai and Mari. Thomas was one of the Twelve Apostles while, according to tradition, Addai was one of the first 70 disciples. Later, the Seljuks invaded Mesopotamia with the support of Kurdish chieftains and tribes. They "destroyed whatever they encountered" and captured and enslaved women. The historian Ibn Khaldun wrote that the Kurds "spoiled and spread horror everywhere". The Assyrian Church of the East has its origin in what is now southeastern Turkey and Asoristan (Sasanian Assyria). By the end of the 13th century, there were twelve Nestorian dioceses in a strip from Beijing to Samarkand. Northern Iraq remained predominantly Assyrian, Eastern Aramaic-speaking and Christian until the destructions of the 14th-century Muslim warlord of Turco-Mongol descent, Timur (Tamerlane), who conquered Persia, Mesopotamia and Syria. The civilian population was decimated, and the ancient city of Assur was finally abandoned by the Assyrians after a 4000-year history. Timur had 70,000 Christian Assyrians beheaded in Tikrit and 90,000 more in Baghdad. Timur rewarded the Kurds for their support by "settling them in the devastated regions, which until then had been inhabited by the followers of the Church of the East." Ottoman rule In the 16th century, the Ottomans reinforced their eastern frontier with what they considered loyal Sunni Kurd tribes. They settled Kurdish tribes in these regions and in 1583, Sultan Murad III "gave huge provinces to the Kurdish tribe of Mokri". According to Aboona, "many regions with numerous Assyrian and Armenian monuments and monasteries became completely populated by the Kurds after Chaldiran," and Kurdish historians wrote that "the land was cleared at this time, its indigenous inhabitants driven out by force". The Kurdish historian Ali al Qurani affirmed that Sarsing had "been an Assyrian town and that the Kurds who settled there were immigrants from Persian Azerbaijan." Phebe Marr noted that "in the north too, many of the Kurdish tribes of Persia migrated to Iraq". British traveler James Rich observed in northern Iraq the "rapid influx of Kurds from Persia... and that their advance never ceased". He noted that "some ten thousand families, comprising seventy thousand souls, were constantly moving across the border". Southgate also observed the "rapid advance and settlement of the Kurds from Persia into northern Iraq" around that time. Dr. Grant shared an eyewitness account, stating: "Beth Garrnae (the region of Arbil-Kirkuk) once contained a large population of Nestorian Christians, they are now reduced to a few scattered villages... Within the last six years the Koords of Ravandoos and Amadia have successively swept over it.." In the 17th century, a new epoch began when Emir Afrasiyab of Basra allowed the Portuguese to build a church outside of the city of Basra. During World War I, the Assyrians of northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran suffered the Assyrian genocide, which accounted for the deaths of up to 65% of the entire Assyrian population. Just before the Simele massacre of August 11, 1933, Kurds began a campaign of looting against Assyrian settlements. Many Christians moved to the southwards after 1933. Saddam made one of them, Tariq Aziz, his deputy and foreign minister. Some of those refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) were Christians. A 25 May 2007 article noted that in the previous seven months only 69 people from Iraq had been granted refugee status in the United States. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, violence against Christians rose, with reports of abduction, torture, bombings, and killings. In August 2004, International Christian Concern protested an attack by Islamists on Iraqi Christian churches that killed 11 people. Ganni was driving with his three deacons when they were stopped and were ordered to convert to Islam; when they refused, they were shot. In 2010, reports emerged in Mosul of people being stopped in the streets, asked for their identity cards, and shot if they had a first or last name indicating Assyrian or Christian origin. Many of them took refuge in nearby Kurdish-controlled regions of Iraq and the Shi'a holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Christian homes were painted with the Arabic letter ن (nūn) for Nassarah (an Arabic word that means "Christian" or literally "Nazarene") as well as a declaration that they were property of the Islamic State. On 18 July, jihadists reversed course and announced that all Christians would need to leave or be killed. Most Christians who fled had their valuable possessions stolen. According to Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako, there were no Christians remaining in Mosul in 2015, for the first time in the nation's history. But after Mosul's liberation in 2017, Christian families began to return. Current situation After the invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and its allies in 2003, Christians were targeted by Islamist extremists. Christians who were too poor or unwilling to leave their ancient homeland fled mainly to Erbil's Christian suburb of Ankawa. The war has caused the majority of Christians to leave Iraq. Today, an estimated 150,000 to 400,000 Christians remain in Iraq, down from 1.1 million in 2003. Many Christians have returned to their historic homeland, while few families have returned to Mosul. In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, in 2014, ten years after the invasion of Mosul by ISIS, Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda, of Erbil, said that of the 13,200 families that had fled Mosul and Nineveh to Iraqi Kurdistan, around 9000 had returned, but that the Christian community still required international aid to avoid a new exodus. As per the constitution, Christians are one of the recognized religious groups in Iraq. The constitution recognizes Aramaic as an official language in the Christian region. Christians participate in the political life of Iraq, although their political influence is limited due to their reduced population. They can take government jobs, access education, and use other facilities, all while facing no political discrimination. In Basra, Christians hold a quota seat on the provincial council, the highest local legislative and oversight authority. He met with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and delivered a message of coexistence between Christians and Muslims in Iraq. In an online conference hosted by pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need, in 2024, Nizar Semaan, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Adiabene, in Northern Iraq, said that there is still danger of social fragmentation. "The problem with Iraq is that we are trying to create isolated islands for each community, with no common life. This is dangerous. You can live wherever you want, you can be proud of your identity, but don’t close your island to other people." He further stated that Christians would remain in the region, because "the people here are like olive trees. You can cut them, burn them, but after 10 or 20 years they will continue to give fruit. They tried everything, but we remain, and as a Church we do everything to give a sign of hope”. Although Christians are divided into many different groups and confessions, intermarriage is common and these differences are often neglected at a grassroots level. At an institutional level, ecumenical relations have improved since the persecutions carried out by the Islamic State, with a high point being the yearly joint celebration of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in September. Speaking to International Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Bashar Warda explained that "young people from all Churches planned the festival together – organising prayers, sports, marathons, concerts, children’s games, and cultural events. Their collaboration became a visible sign of a new future. Older generations watched with admiration as the youth discovered that what unites them – their faith in Christ – is far greater than what divides them. In their hands, the dream of Christian unity in Iraq is already becoming a lived reality." == Relations with non-Christians ==

From the late 13th century through to the present time, Christian Assyrians have suffered both religious and ethnic persecution, including a number of massacres and genocides. Persecutions in Basra, 2014 Iraqi Christians have been victim of executions, forced displacement campaigns, torture, and violence, especially at the hands of Sunni fundamentalist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS. Since the 2003 Iraq War, Iraqi Christians have fled from the country and their population has collapsed under the democratic government. The majority of Christians have either fled to Iraqi Kurdistan or abroad. A population project by the Shlama Foundation has estimated that, as of July 2020, 150,000 Christian Assyrians remain in Iraq, down from approximately 1.5 million in 2003. In 2003, Iraqi Christians were the primary target of extremist Sunni Islamists. Many kidnapped Christians were forced to forsake Christianity or be tortured. On 1 August, 2004, a series of car bomb attacks took place during the Sunday evening Mass in churches of two Iraqi cities, Baghdad and Mosul, killing and wounding numerous Christians. Jordanian-Iraqi Sunni Arab Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was blamed for the attacks. In 2006, an Orthodox priest, Boulos Iskander, was snatched off the streets of the Sunni city of Mosul by a Sunni group that demanded a ransom. His corpse was later found with its arms and legs cut off. In 2007, reports emerged regarding an operation to drive Christians out of the historically Christian suburb of Dora in southern Baghdad, with some Muslim Arabs accusing the Christians of being allies of the Americans. Between 2007 and 2009, 239 similar cases were registered by police. In 2008, a priest named Ragheed Ganni, was shot dead in his church along with three of his companions. That same year, reports came out that many Christian students were harassed. In 2008, the charity Barnabas Aid conducted research into 250 Iraqi Christian IDPs who had fled to Iraqi Kurdistan to seek refugee status and found nearly half had witnessed attacks on churches or Christians or had been personally targeted by violence. In 2009, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) reported that more than 40,000 Christians had moved from Baghdad, Basra and Mosul into Iraqi Kurdistan's cities. Reports state that the number of Christian families moving to Iraqi Kurdistan is increasing. 11,000 of those families were reportedly given financial assistance and support, often in the form of employment, by the KRG. On 31 October 2010, Sunni Islamist groups attacked a Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad during Sunday evening Mass, killing more than 60 Iraqi Christians and wounding another 78. In 2011, Sunni extremists assassinated a Christian randomly using sniper rifles. Two months before the incident, two other Christians had been shot by a Sunni jihadist in Mosul, while another two were shot for unknown reasons in Baghdad. On 30 May 2011, a Christian man was beheaded by a Sunni man in Mosul. On 2 August 2011, a Catholic church was bombed by Sunni extremists in the Turkmen area of Kirkuk, wounding more than 23 Christians. On 15 August 2011, a church was bombed by al-Qaeda in Kirkuk center. On 24 November 2013, a Christian journalist was gunned down in a targeted attack in Mosul. On 25 December 2013, in Baghdad, Sunni extremists detonated two bombs targeting Christians observing Christmas in the Al-Dora area of the Al-Rashid district of Baghdad. First, a bomb was detonated in the mainly Christian Athorien (Hay Al-Athoriyeen) neighborhood market, killing at least eleven and injuring 40. Then, a bomb was detonated outside St. John's Roman Catholic Church targeting Christmas service worshippers, killing 27 and injuring 56. In 2014, during the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive, ISIS ordered all Christians in the area of its control, where the Iraqi Army collapsed, to pay a special tax of approximately $470 per family, convert to Sunni Islam, or die. Many of them took refuge in nearby Kurdish and Shia-majority areas of Iraq. On 1 April 2025, an axe-wielding attacker struck a procession of Assyrian Christians celebrating their new year in Dohuk, Iraq, wounding three people. The assailant, who shouted Islamic slogans and identified with the Islamic State, injured a 17-year-old boy, a 75-year-old woman, and a local security officer. The attack occurred during the annual Akitu festival, which draws Assyrians from Iraq and the diaspora. Despite the violence, the Assyrian community continued the celebrations, displaying resilience. Local leaders condemned the attack and called for a review of educational curricula to address extremism. Kurdification , located atop Mount Alfaf in northern Iraq, is recognized as one of the oldest Christian monasteries in existence and is famous for its magnificent library and considerable collection of Syriac Christian manuscripts. Many Assyrians activists claim they have suffered not only from Arabization, but also Kurdification in Iraqi Kurdistan, mainly in KDP-controlled areas. Assyrian activists have claimed that the number of Christians live in Iraqi Kurdistan has declined. Iraqi Kurdistan accepted more than 200,000 Christians refugees and IDPs who had fled from other areas of Iraq between 2012 and 2016. Many Assyrian organizations have also claimed that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has hindered international aid from reaching Christian Assyrians and at times attempted to prevent Assyrian Aramaic schools. However, the KRG's annual report stated that the government rebuilt and renovated over 20 Christian churches in the region and reconstructed more than 105 Christian villages. Assyrians who have arrived as IDPs to Iraqi Kurdistan have demanded more rights from the KRG which has led to serious disputes. In 2014, Assyrian International News Agency stated: : Institutions and government agencies in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region use both languages. The Constitution also stipulates that Turkmen and Syriac are official languages in the administrative units where native speakers of these languages comprise a significant proportion of the population (a law has also included the Armenian language alongside Turkmen and Syriac). The Constitution notes that any region or province can adopt an additional language as a "local official language" if the majority of the region or province's residents agree to this in a general referendum. Some have also complained that adults have to join the KDP in the KDP-majority areas of Iraqi Kurdistan in order to be granted employment and that KDP representatives are allowed to settle in Assyrian villages. Some cases of illegal land and property seizures of Christian Assyrian lands by KDP members were also claimed. In 1992, Assyrians who supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein published a communiqué, which warned against the continuous process of Kurdification in northern Iraq, stating: "The Kurdish leadership, and in a well-planned program, had begun to settle Kurds and in large numbers around Assyrian regions like Sarsank, Barwari Bala and others. They claimed that Kurdish housing project was natural to change the demographic, economic, and civic structure of the Christian regions in only few short years; a process that forced the Christians to emigrate as the vacant homes were overtaken by 'the Kurds'." Francis Yusuf Shabo was a Christian Assyrian politician who dealt with complaints by Christian Assyrians regarding their forced eviction from their villages during the Arabization and those same villages' later resettlement by Arabs and Kurds. During the 2011 Dohuk riots, a group of Kurdish radical Islamists attacked properties of Christian Assyrians, Yazidis and non-Muslim Kurds. Attackers were instigated by Friday prayer sermons of radical clerics who had come from other parts of Iraq. According to Youash Michael, Peshmerga forces oversaw security in the Nineveh Plains in 2008, allowing the KDP to deny the minorities of the Nineveh Plains a chance to express their will electorally. He also claimed that Kurds had seized the lands of two refugees and the KRG would not enforce any decree requiring the return of land to "original Assyrian inhabitants". In the same year, it was ranked as the 18th worst place in the world to be a Christian. == Demographics ==

In 2022, Christian leaders report that the number of Christians has dropped from a pre-2003 estimate of fewer than 1.5 million to 150,000. However, due to a lack of an official census, the number is difficult to estimate. According to the Directorate of Christian Affairs in the Ministry of Endowments, around 350,000–400,000 Christians live in Iraq. 80% of Iraqi Christians belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church which, despite the name "Chaldean", consists mostly of ethnic Assyrians just as the Assyrian and Syriac churches do. The Chaldean Catholic Church is a 17th-century offshoot of the Assyrian Church of the East, which maintains some followers to this day. Before the advent of Islam, most people living in what is now Iraq followed Syriac Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Judaism, or ancient Mesopotamian religions. There are about 60,000 Iraqi Armenians who follow either the Armenian Apostolic Church or the Armenian Catholic Church. Several thousand Arab Christians who are either Greek Orthodox or Melkite Catholic are largely concentrated in Baghdad. Other Christians live primarily in Basra, Mosul, Erbil, and Kirkuk, as well as in the Assyrian homeland regions of Nineveh Plains, Duhok, and Zakho in the north. == Christian communities ==

founded in 595 AD south of Mosul by the Christian monk Mar Elia in Iraq, 1920, attended by Assyrians and Armenians in Erbil === Churches of the Syriac Rite === The majority of Iraqi Christians belong to branches of Syriac Christianity, whose followers are mostly ethnic Assyrians adhering to both the East Syriac Rite and West Syriac Rite: • Chaldean Catholic Church • Syriac Catholic Church • Syriac Orthodox Church • Assyrian Church of the East • Ancient Church of the East • Assyrian Evangelical Church • Assyrian Pentecostal Church === Churches of the Armenian rite === Followers of these churches are almost exclusively ethnic Armenians, using the Armenian Rite: • Armenian Catholic Church • Armenian Apostolic Church === Churches of the Byzantine rite === Followers of these churches are an ethnic mix known as Melkites: • Melkite Catholic Church under the Patriarchal Exarchate of Iraq • Melkite Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Baghdad Other churches and communities • Latin Church (Roman Rite) • Protestant churches == Notable people ==

Politics • Thabit AbdulNour (1890–1957), director of oil department and representative of Christians • Yusuf Salman Yusuf, also referred to as "Comrade Fahd", Iraqi Assyrian, one of the founders and most influential figures of the Iraqi Communist Party • Tariq Aziz (1936–2015), Chaldean Catholic, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister under Saddam Hussein • Basim Bello (1963–2024), longest serving mayor of the Tel Keppe District. • Bahnam Zaya Bulos, former Minister of Transport Priests • Father Anastase-Marie al-Karmali Intellectuals • Youssef Rizq Allah Ghanima Sports • Ammo Baba, Iraqi Assyrian footballer and coach • Ayoub Odisho, Iraqi Assyrian footballer and coach • Justin Meram, Iraqi Assyrian footballer Artists • Seta Hagopian, renowned Armenian singer, referred to as "Warm Voice of Iraq" and the "Fairouz of Iraq" • Afifa Iskandar • Munir Bashir • Linda George, Iraqi Assyrian singer • Simor Jalal, Iraqi Assyrian singer • Beatrice Ohanessian, Iraqi Armenian pianist • Haitham Yousif, Assyrian singer referred to as "Prince of Love" in the Arab world == See also ==