The Rise and Fall of Iraqi Christianity

One of the unfortunate consequences of the Iraq War is the destruction of Iraqi Christianity. Ever since the Americans first rolled into the country, some 300,000 have fled the violence in their homeland due to gangs of Muslims killing them, their priests and torching their churches. What caused the population of Iraq to go from mostly Christian to today's mostly Shia Muslim?

Iraq has been Christian for almost 2000 years. After the Roman Empire was declared Christian in the year 392 AD, Mesopotamians embraced Christianity whole-heartedly with some helpings of Zoroastrianism due to Persian influence and attacks. Then came Islam, and that changed everything.

When Arabian tribes invaded Mesopotamia they didn't force everyone to convert to Islam under the threat of death. No, it was much more complicated than that. In the 7th and 8th centuries populations in Egypt, Persia and Mesopotamia converted to Islam rather slowly. Being a Muslim was a priviliege in those times. For Muslims, did not have to pay a special tax for not being Muslim. Being a member of the People of the Book was expensive. As the ruling Umayyad Dynasty became more and more luxurious the People of the Book felt the need to convert. So, the Caliphate's tax base shrunk and that led to the end of them and the rise of the Abbasids. Large Christian populations managed to survive on the power of their clerics in mostly the Levant, Egypt and Iraq. Iraqi Christianity morphed into Assyrian, Syriac,Nestorian and other forms of Orthodox Christianity.

For hundreds of years, these branches of Christianity kept the faith. The Nestorians did extremely well as they spread their faith from Mesopotamia to the western deserts and plains of modern day China. This sort of networking gained them alliances with these Central Asian peoples and soon to be the top dog of Eurasia, the Mongols. Yes, there was some truth to the legend of Prester John from the Middle Ages. The Nestorian church made many converts in Mongolia where many Khans had names like Mark and George. Genghis Khan's daughter-in-law

Sorghaq-Tani was a Christian. How fortunate for the Crusader States in the Levant when the Khan of the time Mongka was familiar with Christianity. Western ambassadors begged the Khan for help and he did by sending his brother Hulagu to destroy Islam. He nearly did too.

The Mongol army destroyed the Assassin cult, killed the last Caliph of Islam and throughly destroyed Iraqi irrigation and the city of Baghdad. However, when the Crusaders saw their Asiatic saviours they weren't too thrilled. Perhaps Attila the Hun was still fresh in the European memory. Still, Christianity in the Middle East was saved by Buddhist horsemen. Sadly, they fell to an Egyptian Mameluke army.

From this high point, Iraqi Christianity was going to face some very bad lows coming in the form of Timur the Lame or Tamerlane. Another Central Asian but he was Muslim this time and he killed hundreds of thousands of Christians in Northern Iraq by piling their heads in mounds to prove it. The chess playing warlord depopulated northern Assyrian Iraq and created the spiral Iraqi Christianity finds itself in today. Like in the wake of World War I, Iraqi Christians were attacked and massacred for supporting the British Mandate over their country.

In the height of Saddam's reign, there was more than 1 million Iraqi Christians. Now, there's less than 700,000 in the country. Thousands of fled to the Kurdish/Christian North or to Syria and to European countries like Sweden. Half the country's Christians have fled making most of the Iraqi refugees. Hard to believe that secular Ba'athist Iraq was a better place for Christians than today's new democractic Iraq.

I forsee the decline of Iraqi Christianity to the point where derelict Churches and octogenarian priests will have to attend to an aging and depressed flock. Far too bombed, threatened and torture to thrive but far too stubborn to leave. After all, Iraq is home.