# Christianity in Azerbaijan

Christianity in Azerbaijan is a minority religion. Christians, estimated between 280,000 and 450,000 (3.1%–4.8%), are mostly Russian and Georgian Orthodox. There is also a small Protestant Christian community which mostly came from Muslim backgrounds. Due to the very hostile relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Armenian Christians have practically entirely fled the country, and so the Christians in Azerbaijan are members of various other groups, mostly Russians.

## History

Christianity spread to territory of present-day Azerbaijan in the first years of the new era. The first stage of this period is called the period of Apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus (same ones who Christianized Armenia), who spread the new religion by the benediction of the first patriarch of Jerusalem Yegub.

## Eastern Orthodoxy

Adherents of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Azerbaijan are mainly ethnic Russians and Georgians. Russian Orthodox communities belong to the Russian Orthodox Church in Azerbaijan. Entire territory of Azerbaijan is under ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Eparchy of Baku and Azerbaijan, centered in the Holy Myrrhbearers Cathedral in Baku.

## Oriental Orthodoxy

Adherents of Oriental Orthodox Christianity in Azerbaijan were mainly ethnic Armenians. The Armenian Apostolic Church had no community besides the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic until the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Before the outbreak of the war, Armenians formed the largest Christian population in the country. Today, Armenian churches in Azerbaijan remain closed, because of the massacres of Armenians in the 1990s and generally being banned from entering Azerbaijan. During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, despite the constitutional guarantees against religious discrimination, numerous acts of vandalism against the Armenian Apostolic Church were reported throughout Azerbaijan. At the height of the Baku pogrom in 1990, the Armenian Church of St. Gregory Illuminator was set on fire, but was restored in 2004 and is currently used as library.

## Other denominations

There is only one congregation in the Catholic Church in Azerbaijan: a church in Baku was opened in 2007.
There are eleven Molokan communities. The Molokans are a Protestant minority which, much like other Protestants, center their beliefs on the Bible and reject church hierarchy. There is also a German Lutheran community, likely to number less than 7,000 Protestants. According to Rev. Elnur Jabiyev, the former general secretary of the Baptist Union in Azerbaijan, up to 2010, there were eight or nine evangelical churches in Baku but these have now been prevented from openly meeting together by the authorities.
About 2.5% of the population belong to the Russian Orthodox Church (1998). The Russian Orthodox Church in Azerbaijan has the Eparchy of Baku and the Caspian region with a seat in Azerbaijan. Among the famous landmark Russian churches are Church of Michael Archangel and the Holy Myrrhbearers Cathedral; the once grand Alexander Nevsky Cathedral has been destroyed by the communists in 1937.
The Albanian-Udi Church, established in 2003, is of the Udi people minority in Azerbaijan.