Christianity in Syria

Christianity in Syria (Arabic: المسيحية في سوريا) has among the oldest Christian communities on Earth, dating back to the first century AD, and has been described as a "cradle of Christianity". With its roots in the traditions of St. Paul the Apostle and St. Peter the Apostle, Syria quickly became a major center of early Christianity and produced many significant theologians and church leaders. Of the 325 bishops who took part in the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, twenty were from Syria. Over the centuries, Syrian Christians have played a vital role in shaping Christian thought and practice, contributing to the development of various liturgical traditions, monastic movements, and theological schools. St. Paul the Apostle famously converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus, and Syria has produced three Popes: Pope Anicetus (157–168 AD), Pope Sergius I (687-701), and Pope Gregory III (731–741 AD). Their legacy includes the establishment of some of the most ancient churches, monasteries, and pilgrimage sites, such as the 5th century remains of the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites, Our Lady of Saidnaya Monastery, and the Cathedral of Constantine and Helen.
However, in recent times, the Syrian Christian community has faced numerous challenges, including ongoing and severe persecution, displacement, and emigration. Christians in Syria made up about 10% of the pre-war Syrian population but now make up less than 2%, falling from 1.5 million in 2011 to just 300,000 in 2022 due to the impact of the Syrian Civil War. Christians in Syria have also been subjected to violence and discrimination by Islamic State fighters during their control of large areas of the country. Their churches have been converted into military headquarters, and their property confiscated. Persecution of Christians in Syria has further intensified since. In Aleppo, the country's second largest city, the proportion of Christian residents fell from 12% pre-war to 1.4% in 2023 with more than 20 churches damaged during the war. The city of Idlib has been almost entirely depopulated of its Christian population under Islamist rule. Some governments and organisations including the United States have claimed that the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, especially in Syria and Iraq, constitute an act of genocide.
The country's largest Christian denomination is the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, closely followed by the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church. There is a small minority of Protestants in the country.
In the late Ottoman rule, a large percentage of Syrian Christians emigrated from Syria, especially after the bloody chain of events that targeted Christians in particular in 1840, the 1860 massacre, and the Assyrian genocide. According to historian Philip Hitti, approximately 90,000 Syrians arrived in the United States between 1899 and 1919 (more than 90% of them Christians). The Syrians referred include historical Syria or the Levant encompassing Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. Syrian Christians tend to be relatively wealthy and highly educated.
According to the Catholic charity group Aid to the Church (ACN), number of Christians residing in Syria is estimated to have reduced from 2.1 million (10% of population) in 2011 to around 300,000 (less than 2%) in 2022. The decrease is due to large-scale emigration of Christians to Europe triggered by deteriorating living conditions caused by the civil war. US State Department estimates that Syrian Christians comprise 2.5-3% of the total population inside Syria, as of 2022.
The Christian population of Syria comprised 10% of the Syrian population before 2011. Estimates of the number of Christians in Syria in 2022 range from less than 2% to around 2.5% of the total Syrian population.
Most Syrians are members of either the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch (700,000), or the Syriac Orthodox Church. The vast majority of Catholics belong to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. Other Eastern Catholic churches include the Maronite Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Armenian Catholic Church, Chaldean Catholic Church; there is also a small number of Latin Church Catholics. The rest belong to the Eastern communions, which have existed in Syria since the earliest days of Christianity when all Christians were part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The main Eastern groups are:
Even though each group forms a separate community, Christians nevertheless cooperate increasingly. Roman Rite, Western Latin Church Catholicism and Protestantism were introduced by missionaries but only a small number of Syrians are members of Western rites.
The schisms that brought about the many sects resulted from political and doctrinal disagreements. The doctrine most commonly at issue was the nature of Christ. In 431, the Nestorians were separated from the main body of the Church because of their belief in the dual character of Christ, i.e., that he had two distinct but inseparable "qnoma" (ܩܢܘܡܐ, close in meaning to, but not exactly the same as, hypostasis), the human Jesus and the divine Logos. Therefore, according to Nestorian belief, Mary was not the mother of God but only of the man Jesus. The Council of Chalcedon, representing the mainstream of Christianity, in 451 confirmed the dual nature of Christ in one person; Mary was therefore the mother of a single person, mystically and simultaneously both human and divine. The Miaphysites taught that the Logos took on an instance of humanity as His own in one nature. They were the precursors of the present-day Syrian and Armenian Orthodox churches.
By the thirteenth century, breaks had developed between Eastern or Greek Christianity and Western or Latin Christianity. In the following centuries, however, especially during the Crusades, some of the Eastern churches professed the authority of the pope in Rome and entered into or re-affirmed communion with the Catholic Church. Today called the Eastern Catholic churches, they retain a distinctive language, canon law and liturgy.
The largest Christian denomination in Syria is the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch (officially named the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East), also known as the Melkite church after the 5th and 6th century Christian schisms, in which its clergy remained loyal to the Eastern Roman Emperor ("melek") of Constantinople.
Adherents of that denomination generally call themselves "Rūm" which means "Eastern Romans" or "Asian Greeks" in Arabic. In that particular context, the term "Rūm" is used in preference to "Yūnāniyyūn" which means "European Greeks" or Ionians in Classical Arabic. The appellation "Greek" refers to the Koine Greek liturgy used in their traditional prayers and priestly rites.
Members of the community sometimes also call themselves "Melkites", which literally means "supporters of the emperor" in Semitic languages – a reference to their past allegiance to Roman and Byzantine imperial rule. But, in the modern era, this designation tends to be more commonly used by followers of the local Melkite Catholic Church.
Syrians from the Greek Orthodox Community are also present in the Hatay Province of Southern Turkey (bordering Northern Syria), and have been well represented within the Syrian diasporas of Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, the United States, Canada and Australia.
Traditional Christianity in Syria is also represented by Oriental Orthodox communities, that primarily belong to the ancient Syriac Orthodox Church, and also to the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The Syriac Orthodox Church is the largest Oriental Orthodox Christian group in Syria. The Syriac Orthodox or Jacobite Church, whose liturgy is in Syriac, was severed from the favored church of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Orthodoxy), over the Chalcedonian controversy.
The Armenian Apostolic Church is the second largest Oriental Orthodox Christian group in Syria. It uses an Armenian liturgy and its doctrine is Miaphysite (not monophysite, which is a mistaken term used or was used by the Chalcedonian Catholics and Chalcedonian Orthodox).
Of the Eastern Catholic Churches the oldest is the Maronite, with ties to Rome dating at least from the twelfth century. Their status before then is unclear, some claiming it originally held to the Monothelite heresy up until 1215, while the Maronite Church claims it has always been in union with Rome. The liturgy is in Aramaic (Syriac). The Patriarchate of Antioch never recognized the mutual excommunications of Rome and Constantinople of 1054, so it was canonically still in union with both. After a disputed patriarchal election in 1724, it divided into two groups, one in union with Rome and the other with Constantinople. The term "Melkite" is in use mostly in reference to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. Like its sister-church the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch ('Eastern Orthodox'), the Melkite Catholics both Greek and Arabic in its form of the liturgy. Most of the 375,000 Catholics in Syria belong to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the rest are members of the Latin Church, Maronites (52,000), Armenian or Syriac Rites.
Seven popes from Syria ascended the papal throne. Many of them lived in Italy. Pope Gregory III, was the last pope born outside Europe before Francis (elected in 2013).
In Syria, there is also a minority of Protestants. Protestantism was introduced by European missionaries and a small number of Syrians are members of Protestant denominations. The Gustav-Adolf-Werk (GAW) as the Protestant Church in Germany Diaspora agency actively supports persecuted Protestant Christians in Syria with aid projects. A 2015 study estimates some 2,000 Muslim converted to Christianity in Syria, most of them belonging to some form of Protestantism.
By one estimate made by Elisabe Granli from University of Oslo, around 1,920 Syrian Druze converted to Christianity, according to the same study Christian of Druze background (Druze converts to Christianity) still regard themselves as Druze, and they claim that there is no contradiction between being Druze and being Christian.
The number of Christians in Syria has been disputed for many decades. There has been no official census on religion in Syria since the 1960s.
Damascus was one of the first regions to receive Christianity during the ministry of St Peter. There were more Christians in Damascus than anywhere else. With the military expansion of the Islamic Umayyad empire into Syria and Anatolia, non-Muslims who retained their native faiths were required to pay a tax (jizya) equivalent to the Islamic Zakat, and were permitted to own land; they were, however, not eligible for Islamic social welfare as Muslims were.
Damascus still contains a sizeable proportion of Christians, with some churches all over the city, but particularly in the district of Bab Touma (The Gate of Thomas in Aramaic and Arabic). Masses are held every Sunday and civil servants are given Sunday mornings off to allow them to attend church, even though Sunday is a working day in Syria. Schools in Christian-dominated districts have Saturday and Sunday as the weekend, while the official Syrian weekend falls on Friday and Saturday.
Christians engage in every aspect of Syrian life and Syrian Christians are relatively wealthy and more highly educated than other Syrian religious groups. Following in the traditions of Paul, who practiced his preaching and ministry in the marketplace, Syrian Christians are participants in the economy, the academic, scientific, engineering, arts, and intellectual life, entertainment, and the Politics of Syria. Many Syrian Christians are public sector and private sector managers and directors, while some are local administrators, members of Parliament, and ministers in the government. A number of Syrian Christians are also officers in the armed forces of Syria. They have preferred to mix in with Muslims rather than form all-Christian units and brigades, and fought alongside their Muslim compatriots against Israeli forces in the various Arab–Israeli conflicts of the 20th century. In addition to their daily work, Syrian Christians also participate in volunteer activities in the less developed areas of Syria. As a result, Syrian Christians are generally viewed by other Syrians as an asset to the larger community. In September 2017, the deputy Hammouda Sabbagh, a Syriac Orthodox Christian and member of the Ba'ath Party, was elected speaker of parliament with 193 votes out of 252.
Syrian Christians are more urbanized than Muslims; many live either in or around Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, or Latakia. In the 18th century, Christians were relatively wealthier than Muslims in Aleppo. Syrian Christians have their own courts that deal with civil cases like marriage, divorce and inheritance based on Bible teachings.
The Constitution of Syria states that the President of Syria has to be a Muslim; this was as a result of popular demand at the time the constitution was written. However, Syria does not profess a state religion.
On 31 January 1973, Hafez al-Assad implemented the new constitution (after reaching power through a military coup in 1970), which led to a national crisis. Unlike previous constitutions, this one did not require that the president of Syria to be of the Islamic faith, leading to fierce demonstrations in Hama, Homs and Aleppo organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and the ulama. They labeled Assad as the "enemy of Allah" and called for a jihad against his rule. Robert D. Kaplan has compared Assad's coming to power to "a Jew becoming tsar in Russia – an unprecedented development shocking to the Sunni majority population which had monopolized power for so many centuries."
The government survived a series of armed revolts by Islamists, mainly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from 1976 until 1982.
In 2023, the country was scored 2 out of 4 for religious freedom, with the government controlling the appointment of Muslim religious leaders, restricted proselytizing, a ban on conversion of Muslims and active terror threats.
In the same year, the country was ranked as the 12th most difficult place in the world to be a Christian.
Following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, the Syrian Transitional Government, despite being composed of Islamists, vowed to respect the Christians and other religious denominations in Syria. However, in the weeks following HTS taking power, numerous reports emerged of Christians, among other minorities, being persecuted in Syria. An unknown number of non-Alawite religious minorities, including Christians, were also targeted and killed in massacres of Syrian Alawites during clashes in western Syria in March 2025, with many fleeing their villages to the mountains.
Christians spread throughout Syria and have sizable populations in some cities/areas; important cities/areas are:
Syrian Christians, in line with their fellow citizens, have been badly affected by the Syrian Civil War. According to Syrian law, all Syrian men of adult age with brothers are eligible for military conscription, including Christians.
Christian population in Syria has significantly diminished due to the departure of many Christians from the country amidst the Syrian civil war. In the first five years after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, at least half of Syria's Christians had left the country, but as the situation began to stabilize in 2017 following recent army gains, return of electricity and water to many areas and stability returning to many government controlled regions, some Christians began returning to Syria, most notably in the city of Homs. Assyrian Democratic Organization (ADO), an Assyrian opposition group affiliated with the Syrian National Revolutionary Coalition (SNRC), estimated that approximately two-thirds of Syrian Christians had left the country by 2021. The estimate was also verified by other Christian organizations in Syria.
During the Syrian civil war, several attacks by ISIS have targeted Syrian Christians, including the 2015 al-Qamishli bombings and the July 2016 Qamishli bombings. In January 2016, YPG militias conducted a surprise attack on Assyrian checkpoints in Qamishli, in a predominantly Assyrian area, killing one Assyrian and wounding three others. More than 120 churches and Christian places of worship have been destroyed since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. In November 2021, the Armenian Catholic Church of the Martyrs in Raqqa's city center was rebuilt by the aid group called the Free Burma Rangers.
Following a visit to Syria, to participante in a conference that brought together representatives of the Syrian churches and NGOs working with them in the country, Regina Lynch, project director for Aid to the Church in Need, described the difficult situation the local communities endure, but added that "for many Christians, the war has had a positive effect on the faith, and, in spite of everything, it has been an opportunity for the Church to put its teaching on charity and forgiveness into action".
Prominent Christian figures have been involved in revolutionary activities of the Syrian opposition; through peaceful demonstrations as well as armed resistance. After the deadly clampdown launched by Assad regime deteriorated into a civil war, many Christians volunteered in various humanitarian organizations like the Syrian Civil Defence. As of 2019, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, around 61% of churches damaged in the Syrian civil war has been targeted by pro-Ba'athist forces. Also according to the SNHR, out of 124 documented incidents of violence against Christian religious centres between 2011 and 2019; 75 attacks were perpetrated by militant forces loyal to the Assad regime and 33 by various factions of the opposition.
The US department of state and “various humans rights organizations” have criticized the regime for deliberately launching large-scale attacks on Christian churches and arresting Christian citizens. In April 2013, Gregorios Ibrahim, the Archbishop of Syrian Orthodox Church in Aleppo, lamenting the vast exodus of a third of Syria's Christians from Syria, as well as indiscriminate attacks on Syrian cities and civilian areas since the civil war began. A week after issuing the statement, the Archbishop was abducted and has remained missing ever since; allegedly by Al-Nusra Front before being handed over to ISIS. Ba'athist regime has also passed a discriminatory military conscription law which enables government authorities to seize properties of Syrians and their families accused of draft evasion. The law disproportionately targets Sunni and Christian families across Syria, who constitute the vast majority of the Syrian refugee population.
According to various reports, the total population of Syrian Christians residing in Syria has been reduced from 1.5 million before 2011 to around 300,000 as of 2022 (less than 2% of population). Rather than the persecution by IS during 2014-17, the decline has been mainly due to large-scale emigration of native Christians due to subsequent deterioration of living conditions in the war-torn country. Many rural and young Christians view emigration to Europe as a way to advance career opportunities in education and employment, in addition to providing better prospects for their families.