The phenomenon of large-scalemigration ofChristians is the main reason why Christians'share of the population has been declining in many countries. ManyMuslim countries have witnessed disproportionately highemigration rates among their Christian minorities for several generations.[1][2][3] Today, mostMiddle Eastern people in the United States are Christians,[4] and the majority ofArabs living outside the Arab World areArab Christians.
Push factors motivating Christians to emigrate includereligious discrimination,persecution, andcleansing. Pull factors includeprospects of upward mobility as well asjoining relatives abroad.
Millions of people descend from Arab Christians and live in theArab diaspora, outside the Middle East, they mainly reside in theAmericas, but there are many people of Arab Christian descent inEurope,Africa andOceania. The majority ofArabs living outside the Arab World areArab Christians. Christians have emigrated from the Middle East, a phenomenon that has been attributed to various causes included economic factors, political and military conflict, and feelings of insecurity or isolation among minority Christian populations.[5][6][7] The higher rate of emigration among Christians, compared to other religious groups, has also been attributed to their having stronger support networks available abroad, in the form of existing emigrant communities.
Christians had a significant impact contributing the culture of theArab world,Turkey, andIran.[8][9] Today Christians still play important roles in theArab world, and Christians are relatively wealthy, well educated, and politically moderate.[10]
Historical events that caused large Christian emigration from the Middle East include:1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus,Armenian genocide,Greek genocide,Assyrian genocide,1915–1918 Great Famine of Mount Lebanon,1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey,1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight,1956–57 exodus and expulsions from Egypt,Lebanese civil war, and theIraq war.[11][12][13]
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As with mostdiaspora Arabs, a substantial proportion of theEgyptian diaspora consists ofChristians. TheCopts have been emigrating from Egypt both to improve their economic situation and to escapesystematic harassment and persecution in their homeland.[14][15]
The Coptic diaspora began primarily in the 1950s as result ofdiscrimination,persecution of Copts and low income in Egypt.[16][15][17][14] AfterGamal Abdel Nasser rose to power, economic and social conditions deteriorated and many wealthier Egyptians, especially Copts, emigrated to United States, Canada and Australia.[14][15]1956–1957 exodus and expulsions from Egypt was the exodus and expulsion of Egypt'sMutamassirun, which included the British and French colonial powers as well as ChristianGreeks,Italians,Syro-Lebanese,Armenians.[18] Emigration increased following the1967 Arab-Israeli war, and the emigration of poorer and less-educated Copts increased after 1972, when theWorld Council of Churches and other religious groups began assisting Coptic immigration.[14] Emigration of Egyptian Copts increased underAnwar al-Sadat (with many taking advantage of Sadat's "open door" policy to leave the country) and underHosni Mubarak.[15] Many Copts are university graduates in the professions, such as medicine and engineering.[15] The new post-2011 migrants to the United States included both educated middle-class Copts and poorer, more rural Copt.[19]
The number of Copts outsideEgypt has sharply increased since the 1960s. The largest Coptic diaspora populations arein the United States,in Canada andin Australia, but Copts have a presence in many other countries.
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Christians and otherreligious minorities make up a disproportionately high share of theIranian diaspora. Many Christians have left Iran since theIslamic Revolution of 1979.[20][21]
The Assyrians residing inCalifornia and Russia tend to be fromIran.[22] TheIranian revolution of 1979 greatly contributed to the influx of Middle Eastern Armenians to the US.[23] The Armenian community in Iran was well established and integrated, but not assimilated, into local populations. Many lived in luxury in their former country, and more easily handled multilingualism, while retaining aspects of traditionalArmenian culture.[24]
The city ofGlendale in theLos Angeles metropolitan area is widely thought to be the center ofArmenian American life (although many Armenians live in the aptly named "Little Armenia" neighborhood of Los Angeles), there are also a great number of Armenian immigrants from Iran inGlendale who, due to the religious restrictions and lifestyle limitations of theIslamic government, immigrated to the US, many to Glendale since it was where their relatives resided.[25]
Following theIraq War, the Christian population of Iraq has collapsed. Of the nearly 1 million Assyro-Chaldean Christians,[28][29] most have emigrated to the United States, Canada, Australia and within some of the countries in Europe, and most of the rest concentrated within the northern Kurdish enclave ofIraqi Kurdistan.[30] With continuing insurgency, Iraqi Christians are under constant threat of radical Islamic violence.
Since theUnited States-ledinvasion of Iraq in 2003 and the resulting breakdown of law and order in that country, manySyriac speakingAssyrians and other Christians have fled the country, taking refuge inSyria,Jordan and further afield.[31][32] Their percentage of the population has declined from 12% in 1948 (4.8 million population), to 7% in 1987 (20 million) and 6% in 2003 (27 million). Despite Assyrians making up only 3% of Iraq's population, in October 2005, theUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported of the 700,000 Iraqis who took refuge in Syria between October 2003 and March 2005, 36% were "Iraqi Christians."[citation needed]
Lebanon has experienced a large migration of Lebanese Christians for many generations. Currently, the number ofLebanese people who liveoutside Lebanon (8.6[34]-14[35] million), is higher than the number of Lebanese people who live within Lebanon (4.3 million). Most of the members of the diaspora population areLebanese Christians, but some of them are Muslims, Druze and Jews. They trace their origins to several waves of Christian emigration, starting with the exodus that followed the1860 Lebanon conflict inOttoman Syria.[36]
Under the currentLebanese nationality law, diaspora Lebanese do not have an automaticright of return to Lebanon. Due to varying degrees ofassimilation and a high number of interethnic marriages, most diaspora Lebanesehave not taught their children to speak theArabic language, but they still retain their Lebaneseethnic identity.
TheLebanese Civil War has further fed the higher Christian emigration rate. Higher Muslim birthrates, thepresence of Palestinians in Lebanon and the presence ofSyrian migrant workers have all contributed to the reduction of the Christian proportion of the Lebanese population. Lebanese Christians are still culturally and politically prominent, forming 35-40% of the population. Since the end of the Lebanese Civil War,Muslim emigrants have outnumbered Christians, but the latter remain somewhat over-represented compared to their proportion of the population.[37]
The immigration of Palestinian Christians started in the 19th century as a result of the Ottoman discrimination against Christians.[38][39][40][41][42] 1948 and 1967 occupations and wars made many Christians flee or lose their homes.[43] There has been considerable emigration of Palestinians and Palestinian Christians are disproportionately represented within the Palestinian diaspora.[44] Most Gazan Christians have fled theGaza Strip following theHamas takeover in 2007, largely relocating to the West Bank.
There are also many Palestinian Christians who are descendants of Palestinian refugees from the post-1948 era who fled to Christian-majority countries and formed large diaspora Christian communities.[41][42] Worldwide, there are around one to four million Palestinian Christians in these territories as well as in thePalestinian diaspora, comprising around 6–30% of the world's total Palestinian population.[45] Palestinian Christians live primarily in Arab states surrounding historic Palestine and in the diaspora, particularly in Europe and theAmericas.
Today,Chile houses the largest Palestinian Christian community in the world outside of the Levant. Over 450,000 Palestinian Christians reside in Chile, most of whom came fromBeit Jala, Bethlehem, andBeit Sahur.[46] Also,El Salvador,Honduras,Brazil,Colombia,Argentina,Venezuela, and other Latin American countries have significant Palestinian Christian communities, some of whom immigrated almost a century ago during the time ofOttoman Palestine.[47]
There are almost as manySyrian people living outside of Syria (15[49] million), as within (18 million). Most of the diaspora population isSyrian Christians.[citation needed] They trace their origin to several waves of Christian emigration, starting with the exodus duringOttoman Syria. Syrian Christians tend to be relatively wealthy and highlyeducated.[50]
Under the currentnationality law, diaspora Syrians do not have an automaticright of return to Syria.[citation needed] Varying degrees ofassimilation and the high degree of interethnic marriages caused most diaspora Syrianshave not passed onArabic to their children, but they still maintain a Syrianethnic identity.
The eruption of theSyrian Civil War in 2011 caused Christians to be targeted bymilitant Islamists and so they have become a major component ofSyrian refugees.
In FY 2016, when the US dramatically increased the number of refugees admitted from Syria, the US let in 12,587 refugees from Syria, with 99% being Muslims (few Shia Muslims were admitted). Less than 1% were Christian, according to the Pew Research Center analysis of the State Department Refugee Processing Center data.[51]
The religious affiliation of Syria's 17.2 million people in 2016 was approximately 74% Sunni Islam, 13% Alawi, Ismaili and Shia Islam, 10% Christian and 3% Druze.[52] The population has declined by more than 6 million because of the civil war.
Originally, most emigrants from what is now Turkey wereChristian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, includingGreek refugees.[53] Today,emigration from Turkey consists primarily ofMuslims.
The percentage ofChristians in Turkey fell from 19% (possibly 24% because of Ottoman underestimates) in 1914 to 2.5% in 1927,[55] due to events which significantly impacted the country's demographic structure, such as theArmenian genocide, themassacre of 500,000 Greeks, themassacre of 375,000 Assyrian Christians, thepopulation exchange between Greece and Turkey,[56] and the emigration of Christians (such asLevantines,Greeks,Armenians etc.) to foreign countries (mostly inEurope,the Americas,Lebanon andSyria) that actually began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century, especially duringWorld War I and after theTurkish War of Independence.[57] Ottoman censuses underestimated the number of Christians, which was really close to 24.5% of the entire population, 4.3 million, not 3 million, as was reported.[58] The decline is mainly due to theArmenian genocide, theGreek genocide, theAssyrian genocide, thepopulation exchange between Greece and Turkey and the emigration of Christians that began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century.[59][13]
Emigration continued to occur in the 1980s, as Assyrian communities fled from the violence which was engulfingTur Abdin during theKurdish–Turkish conflict.[60] Today, more than 160,000 people of differentChristian denominations represent less than 0.2% ofTurkey's population,[61] Today, more than 200,000-320,000 people who are members of differentChristian denominations live in Turkey, they make up roughly 0.3-0.4 percent of Turkey's population.[61]
Prior to independence,Algeria was home to 1.4 millionpieds-noirs (ethnic French who were mostly Catholic),[62][63] Morocco was home to half a million ChristianEuropeans (mostly of Spanish and French ancestry),[63][64][65]Tunisia was home to 255,000 ChristianEuropeans (mostly of Italian and Maltese ancestry),[63][66] andLibya was home to 145,000 ChristianEuropeans (mostly of Italian and Maltese ancestry).[63] There are also Christian communities ofBerber or Arab descent inGreater Maghreb, made up of persons who converted mostly during the modern era, or under and afterFrench colonialism.[63][67] Due to the exodus of thepieds-noirs and other Christian communities in the 1960s, more North African Christians ofBerber or Arab descent now live inFrance than in GreaterMaghreb.[65]
Christians have also migrated from India but for their own reasons and in small few numbers, as India has been considered as one of the safest places for them in South Asia.
For instance in India, Christians comprise 2.2% of the population of India. In 2011,Christians represented 16% of the total people ofIndian origin in Canada.[68] According to the 2011 Census,Christians represented 10% of the total people ofIndian origin in the United Kingdom.[69] According to 2014Pew Research Center research, 18% ofIndian Americans consider themselves Christian (Protestant 11%, Catholic 5%, other Christian 3%).[70]
Christians have also fledPakistan, especially in response to theapplication of Islamic blasphemy laws.
Christians have also fledChina, especially in response to waves ofreligious persecution has been a contributory factors in emigration from China since it's a self-proclaimedcommunist state, and its declaredstate atheism.
There is a significantly higher percentage of Chinese Christians in the United States than there is in China, as a large amount of Chinese Christians fled and are still fleeing to the United States under Communist persecution.[72][73] According to thePew Research Center's 2012 Asian-American Survey, 30% ofChinese Americans aged 15 and over identified as Christians (8% were Catholic and 22% belonged to aProtestant denomination).[74]
Christians have also fled fromNorth Korea, especially in response to waves ofreligious persecution. Thepersecution of Christians in North Korea has contributed to their emigration becauseNorth Korea's government is a self-proclaimedcommunist state, and one of the guiding principles of its official ideology ofJuche isstate atheism.
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)The total number of Christians who fled to Greece was probably in the region of I.2 million with the main wave occurring in 1922 before the signing of the convention. According to the official records of the Mixed Commission which was set up in order to monitor the movements, the "Greeks' who were transferred after 1923 numbered 189,916 and the number of Muslims who were expelled to Turkey was 355,635.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Unaffiliated 52%, Protestant 22%, Buddhist 15%, Catholic 8%