page_title: Christianity in the Middle East
section_title: Emigration
hierarchical_section_title: Christianity in the Middle East / Emigration
caption_attribution_description: English: Religious affiliations of Arab Americans, based on the Zogby International Institute Survey 2002 [1]
context_page_description: Christianity, which originated in the Middle East in the 1st century AD, is a significant minority religion within the region. Christianity in the Middle East is characterized by the diversity of its beliefs and traditions, compared to Christianity in other parts of the Old World. Christians now make up approximately 5% of the total Middle Eastern population, down from 20% in the early 20th century. Cyprus is the only Christian majority country in the Middle East, with Christians forming between 76% and 78% of the country's total population, and most of them adhere to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Lebanon has the second highest proportion of Christians in the Middle East, ranging between 39% and 41% and predominantly consisting of Maronite Christians. Egypt has the next largest proportion of Christians, at around 10% of its total population. Copts, numbering around 10 million, constitute the single largest Christian community in the Middle East.
context_section_description: Many millions of Middle Eastern Christians currently live in the diaspora, elsewhere in the world. These include such countries as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the United States and Venezuela among them. There are also many Middle Eastern Christians in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom, France (due to its historical connections with Lebanon, Egypt, Syria), and to a lesser extent, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, and the Netherlands.
  The largest number of Middle Eastern Christians residing in the diaspora is that of Lebanese Christians, who have migrated out of Lebanon for security and economic reasons since WWI. Many fled Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War. The countries with significant Lebanese Christians include such countries as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Germany, Greece, France, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States and Venezuela among them.
  Assyrian Christians currently reside in diaspora with large communities in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe, reaching more than a million outside of the Middle East. Much of these is attributed to the massive Assyrian Christian exodus from northern Iraq following the 2003 invasion and the consequent Iraq War, and from north-eastern Syria following the 2011 Arab Spring and the consequent Syrian Civil War.
  Among the Arab Christians, about a million Palestinian Christians reside in the diaspora, largely in the Americas, where their communities have been established since the late 19th century and peaked following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. More emigrated from Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War.
  The majority of self-identifying Arab Americans are Eastern Rite Catholic or Orthodox Christian, according to the Arab American Institute. On the other hand, most American Muslims are black (African Americans or Sub-Saharan Africans) or of South Asian (Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi) origin.
caption: Most Arab Americans are Christian.
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