Christianity in Syria
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
1,800,000 (before civil war) |
|
| Religions | |
| Christianity (denominations like Eastern Orthodoxy; Eastern Catholicism; Oriental Orthodoxy like Syriac Orthodox Church and Armenian Apostolic Church; Church of the East; Roman Catholicism; Protestantism) | |
| Scriptures | |
| Bible (all denominations), Orthodox Fathers (Orthodox denominations) |
1,800,000 (before civil war)
Christians in Syria make up about 10% of the population. The country's largest Christian denomination is the Orthodox Church of Antioch (known as the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East), closely followed by the Melkite Catholic Church, one of the Eastern Catholic Churches, which has a common root with the Orthodox Church of Antioch, and then by an Oriental Orthodoxy churches like Syriac Orthodox Church and Armenian Apostolic Church. There are also a minority of Protestants and members of the Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church. The city of Aleppo is believed to have the largest number of Christians in Syria. In the late Ottoman rule, most Syrian Christians have emigrated, especially after the bloody chain of events that targeted Christians in particular in 1840, 1845, the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war and the Assyrian genocide, according to historian Philip Hitti, approximately 900,000 "Syrians" arrived in the United States between 1899 and 1919 (more than 90% of them were Christians).
The Christian communities of Syria, which comprise about 10 percent of the population, spring from two great traditions. On the one hand, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism were introduced by missionaries and a small number of Syrians are members of Western denominations. The vast majority, on the other hand, belong to the Eastern communions, which have existed in Syria since the earliest days of Christianity. The main Eastern groups are:
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