Source: Interfax-Religion
Moscow, November 25, 2016
Photo: http://aktualnoe.net/
Millions of Christians emigrated from the Middle Eastern countries over the past 100 years.
"The number of Christian emigrants comprised six million people in the past 100 years," Suheil Farah, Lebanese university professor and a member of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS), was quoted by the IOPS press service as saying.
According to his information, the number of Christians on the territory of the Arab world ranges between 12 million and 15 million. Most of them live in Egypt, Sudan and Lebanon (9-12 million). There are 900,000 Christians in Syria, 350,000 in Iraq, between 140,000 and 165,000 in Jordan, 50,000 in Palestine and 120,000 in Israel.
"Christians now account for 3.4% of the population of the Arab world. These indicators are not the same for different Arab countries. In Lebanon, they account for 41-42% of the population, against 8-9% in Syria and 6-7% in Egypt," the professor said.
The professor also gave statistics for Turkey, where the number of Christians reached some 2 million in 1920, while today there are no more than 55,000 left.
The scientist said 10,000-12,000 Christians live in Jerusalem (2% of the city's population), but their number there is decreasing continually, "which may result in their disappearance from the demographic and geographical map of the Holy Land in the next 50 years."
