The Christian Exodus from the Middle East

By Jonathon Adelman & Agota Kuperman, The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

In another decade or so, given present trends, there will be few if any Christians living in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. The same is true of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, and even of Jerusalem, where nearly 600 historic churches still stand.

Christians in the Palestinian territories have dropped from 15 percent of the Arab population in 1950 to just 2 percent today. Both Bethlehem and Nazareth, which had been overwhelmingly Christian towns, now have strong Muslim majorities. Today three-fourths of all Bethlehem Christians live abroad, and more Jerusalem Christians live in Sydney, Australia than in the place of their birth. Indeed, Christians now comprise just 2.5 percent of Jerusalem, although those remaining still include a few born in the Old City when Christians there still constituted a majority.

And it is not only the Holy Land from which many native Christians have fled. Throughout the entire Middle East, once significant Christian communities have shrunk to miniscule portion of their former robust selves. In 50 years they may well be extinct.

What happened? Why has there been a great – and little reported- Christian exodus from the Middle East, with some 2 million in the past 20 years alone? Why have perhaps a large number of  Iraqi Christians clandestinely emigrated in the last 10 years? Why have hundred of thousands of Egyptian Copts left their homeland, with the famous Antioch community collapsing from 15,000 Christians a couple of decades ago to a mere handful today?

Wars, economic, political, and religious intolerance are the main causes of this emigration.

For beleaguered Christians, however, the effect is often the same.