page_title: Christianity in Iraq
section_title: Christian communities
hierarchical_section_title: Christianity in Iraq / Christian communities
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of the Celebration of the Christian Catholic feast of Corpus Christi in Baghdad in the 1920's. The Patriarch, Bishops, and Priests of the Chaldeans (the most numerous of Iraq's Catholics), the Syrian (Syriac) Catholic and Armenian Catholic Bishops are seen with their priests, deacons and students marching through the streets of Baghdad close to the old Christian Quarter of Aqd al-Nasara.
context_page_description: The Christians of Iraq are considered to be one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world. The vast majority of Iraqi Christians are indigenous Eastern Aramaic-speaking ethnic Assyrians. Non-Syriac Iraqi Christians are largely Arab Christians and Armenians, and a very small minority of Kurdish and Iraqi Turkmen Christians. Most present-day Christians are ethnically different from Kurds and they identify themselves as being separate peoples, of different origins and with distinct histories of their own. Syriac Christianity was first established in Mesopotamia, and the Church of the East and its successor churches were established in central-southern Iraq. Syriac Christianity and would eventually spread to becoming one of the most popular Christian churches in the Middle East and Fertile Crescent Region, and would spread as far as India and China. Iraq plays a rich and vital contribution to Christian history, and after Israel, Iraq has the most biblical history than any other country in the world. The patriarch Abraham was from Uruk, in southern Iraq, modern day Nasiriya, and Rebecca was from northwest Iraq. Additionally, Daniel lived in Iraq most of his life.
caption: Celebration of Corpus Christi in Iraq, 1920, attended by Assyrians and Armenians.
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