Christian Communities in Middle East Shrinking as Families Emigrate, Church Leaders Warn

Thousands of worshipers gathered in Assisi, Italy, to mark the 40th anniversary of the World Day of Prayer for Peace, which Pope John Paul II launched in that city in 1986. Mae Elise Cannon, executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace, wrote that she had visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem only days earlier and found it almost empty, although on previous visits she had seen many Christian and international pilgrims there. She described the emptiness as a sign that wars, conflict and repression were limiting Christian tourism and endangering Christian communities in Palestine and the wider Middle East.

Cannon reported that Palestinian Christians from the West Bank are often denied permits by the Israeli government to travel and worship. She wrote that these denials frequently keep them from Jerusalem and other holy sites, citing thin and arbitrary security pretexts, and that this has happened even during Holy Week. She also wrote that daily life under violence, oppression and the Israeli government’s occupation has become so difficult that hundreds of Palestinian Christian families have left East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. According to one pastor in the West Bank, more than 200 Christian families have emigrated from that area since October 2023.

Over nearly five weeks of travel in the Middle East, including the occupied Palestinian territories, Cannon said she heard a similar account from Palestinian Christian leaders, families and communities. In her words, virtually every Christian family had either experienced the emigration of a relative, knew someone who had left, or was seriously considering leaving. She described the Christian community in Gaza as having dwindled to approximately 500 people among more than two million Palestinians. In historic Christian towns such as Taybeh in the West Bank, she wrote, families face growing uncertainty about whether they can remain on their land. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other parts of the region are also experiencing Christian displacement and emigration.

During the Assisi gathering, more than 200 bishops and executive leaders from a range of denominations, representing more than 25 countries, issued a new Global Christian Declaration on the future of Christianity in the Middle East. Cannon said the declaration was organized by Churches for Middle East Peace. Its signers include the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C.; a cardinal and numerous Catholic bishops; an Anglican archbishop; an Armenian Orthodox archbishop; and the general secretary of the Mennonite World Conference, among many others. The declaration warns that ancient churches that have witnessed to Christ for nearly two thousand years are shrinking as families emigrate, and that Christians may all but disappear from the region if current trends continue.

Cannon cited figures showing historic lows in Christian population across the region. When Israel first occupied the West Bank in 1967, she wrote, Christians made up about 6 percent of the population there; today that number is roughly 1 percent. She also reported that thousands of Christians in Southern Lebanon are among the nearly one million Lebanese displaced by Israeli bombing and clashes between Israel and Hezbollah. She attributed the decline to political instability, economic hardship, religious discrimination and generations of war.

Cannon wrote that these trends have accelerated since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. She said the subsequent military campaigns and regional confrontations have caused immense suffering, with the wider conflict involving Iran, Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia, the Houthis, Hezbollah and others, and threatening communities across the Gulf, Yemen, Iraq and the broader region. She argued that military strength has not delivered lasting security and has instead produced further displacement, destruction and instability. Cannon also wrote that Western governments, churches and citizens bear responsibility for conditions that have helped sustain this suffering, pointing to decisions on weapons exports, military assistance and foreign policy, and to some church theologies, including “Christian Zionism,” which she said can justify inequality, occupation or the suffering of neighbors. Seeking to counter this, Cannon noted that declaration signers insist that the current trajectory cannot continue, that they are not seeking special privileges for Christians, and that they see the survival of Christian communities as inseparable from equal rights, human dignity, religious freedom and security for Muslim, Jewish, Druze, Yazidi and other neighbors. Cannon said that serving this goal means working for peace for all of the region’s people (Matthew 5:9).

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