Attacks Against Christians Have a Disproportionate Impact

An Iraqi church leader, Noel Farman, said other Iraqis have also become victims of the escalating violence and militant clashes with U.S. and Iraqi forces. But because Christians are much fewer in number, he argued, attacks against them have a disproportionate impact.

"Christians in Iraq are becoming more and more of a minority, and they are being sacrificed for the sake of the war against terrorism taking place on the battlefield of Iraq," he said. "We feel depressed, because we are considered like a 'playing card' that outside forces can manipulate for their own aims.

"We Iraqis of various religious and ethnic backgrounds are used to living together and enjoying good relationships, but now these relations are being exploited," Farman explained, shaking his head.

The number of Christians in Iraq is expected to drop as long as hostilities continue in the country, in line with their already steady decline over the past 15 years. Before the 2003 war, Christians represented one million out of Iraq's 25 million inhabitants, while a 1987 census recorded their number as 1.4 million.

A Syrian Orthodox bishop, preferring not to be named, said he feared Iraq's Christian population could totally disappear within a decade if emigration continues at its current rate. But Farman was more hopeful. He said the Iraqi church was resilient and would move underground if the circumstances worsened.

Some Stalwart Christians Choose Not to Leave

Yet even in these troubled times, there are stalwart Christians who are choosing not to leave their homeland. A small group of Pentecostal Christians who visited Amman recently from Baghdad reported that their church is growing, despite some outward pressure. In another instance, a family returned to the Iraqi capital in order to start a Bible study with women from one of the Catholic churches targeted in the August blasts.

Without a strong Christian presence in Iraq, or candidates in the upcoming elections who insist on a separation between religion and the state, the country could move precariously toward becoming a theocracy dominated by Islamic parties and clerics. Iraqi Christians said they do not want to leave their country, but without the needed recognition and support of their rights, staying there is becoming a more difficult proposition.

© 2004 Compass Direct