# Kurdish Christians

Kurdish Christians refers to Kurds who follow Christianity. Some Kurds had historically followed Christianity and remained Christian when most Kurds were converted to Islam, however, the majority of modern Kurdish Christians are converts. Historically, Kurdish converts to Christianity came from diverse backgrounds, including Ancient Iranian religion, Zoroastrianism, Islam, and Yazidism. Evangelical churches have been established in recent times in Erbil, Selimani, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan, and in Hassakeh, Qamishli, Kobani, Amouda, and Afrin (until 2018) in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

## History

In the 10th century AD, the Kurdish prince Ibn ad-Dahhak, who possessed the fortress of al-Jafary, converted from Islam to Orthodox Christianity and in return the Byzantines gave him land and a fortress. In 927 AD, he and his family were executed during a raid by Thamal al-Dulafi, the Muslim Arab governor of Tarsus.
In the late 11th and the early 12th century AD, Kurdish Christians made up a minority of the army of the fortress city of Shayzar.
The Zakarids–Mkhargrdzeli, an Armenian–Georgian dynasty of Kurdish origin, ruled parts of northern Armenia in the 13th century AD and tried to reinvigorate intellectual activities by founding new monasteries. At the peak of Kingdom of Georgia, the family led the unified Armeno-Georgian army. Two brothers of this family, Zakare and Ivane Mkhargrdzeli led the army to victory in Ani in 1199.
Marco Polo, in his book, stated that some of the Kurds who inhabited the mountainous part of Mosul were Christians, while others were Muslims.
Kurdish Christian converts usually were a part of the Church of the East. In 1884, researchers of the Royal Geographical Society reported about a Kurdish tribe in Sivas which retained certain Christian observances and sometimes identified as Christian.
A significant part of Kurdish Christian converts were actually of Yazidi background. In the 17th century, Carmelite, Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries flocked to Yazidi regions, mainly in Sinjar and Syria. Some Ottoman Yazidis converted to Christianity due to social issues regarding Yazidism. In the 19th century, both Protestant and Catholic missionaries developed an interest for Yazidis. In the Ottoman Empire, leaving Islam was a crime, however, since Yazidis were not Muslim, it was not a crime for them to convert nor was it a crime to convert them. Christian missionary activity flourished in Yazidi communities. In the 1880s, the Ottoman government began Islamic missionary for Yazidis, claiming that since Yazidi communities were open for Christian missionaries, they might as well be open for Islamic missionaries. Christian missionaries later brought global attention on Yazidis, who were a fairly isolated community. Yazidis who left Yazidism generally preferred Christianity over Islam.
One of the most prominent Kurdish leaders in Iraqi Kurdistan, Ahmed Barzani, had created a heterodox religion incorporating many beliefd and claimed to be a divine being. In 1931, upon seeing the Christian influence on his religion, Western sources reported that Ahmed Barzani had converted to Christianity, although he did not identify as a Christian and would convert back to Islam by 1958.

## Contemporary Kurdish Christians

Part of the English-language New Testament was first available in the Kurdish language in 1856.
The Kurdzman Church of Christ (Kurdophone Church of Christ) was established in Hewlêr (Erbil) by the end of 2000, and has branches in the Silêmanî, Duhok governorates. This is the first evangelical Kurdish church in Iraq. Its logo is formed of a yellow sun and a cross rising up behind a mountain range. According to one Kurdish convert, an estimated 500 Kurdish Muslim youths have converted to Christianity since 2006 throughout Kurdistan. A Kurdish convert from the Iraqi military who claims to have transported weapons of mass destruction also stated that a wave of Kurds converting to Christianity was taking place in northern Iraq.
There was a wave of Kurdish conversion to Christianity after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In the Post-Soviet states, most Kurdish converts to Christianity were from a Yazidi background. In Armenia, around 3,600 Yazidis converted to Christianity by 2019. Yazidi converts to Christianity were disowned and mistreated by the Yazidi community. In 2023, an Evangelical missionary group sparked controversy after praying at a Yazidi temple for the destruction of Yazidism. After the Yazidi genocide, there was a wave of Yazidi conversion to Christianity, mostly through missionaries. Vian Dakhil urged the Kurdistan Region to take action against Christian missionary activity, and Walid Shoebat replied that Vian Dakhil preferred to "worship Lucifer instead of Jesus. Yazidis are known for their hatred to Christianity, especially missionaries." Yazidi figure Harman Mirza Bak claimed that it was "like another genocide. It’s like IS but actually its worse than IS. There’s no difference between someone who forces you to convert at gunpoint like IS and someone who uses your bad circumstances to pressurise you into converting."
Madai Maamdi, a Georgian Yazidi convert to the Georgian Orthodox Church, was ordained a priest in February 2023 by the North American Diocese of the Georgian Orthodox Church, becoming the first ethnic Kurd to be ordained as an Orthodox Christian priest.
Some Hidden Armenians who were Kurdified and Islamized had converted to Christianity in their attempts to return to their Armenian roots. Many Kurdish Christians were not ethnic Kurds, but ethnic Armenians and Assyrians who lived in Kurdistan and were considered Kurdish Christians. In 2019, some 80-100 Kurds converted to Christianity in the city of Kobanî. An Evangelical pastor from Aleppo claimed that Kurdish converts to Christianity were often disgruntled with Islam because of the Anti-Kurdish policies of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who promoted Islamism and Turkish nationalism, as well as the atrocities committed against Kurds in Syria by Turkish-backed Islamists during the Syrian civil war.