Kurdish Christians
Kurds who follow Christianity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kurdish Christians[a] refers to Kurds who follow Christianity.[4][5][6] Some Kurds had historically followed Christianity and remained Christian when most Kurds were converted to Islam, however, the majority of modern Kurdish Christians are converts.[7] Historically, Kurdish converts to Christianity came from diverse backgrounds, including Ancient Iranian religion, Zoroastrianism, Islam, and Yazidism.
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Kurdistan and Kurdish diaspora | |
| Religions | |
| Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism[1] Historically: Church of the East,[2] Syriac Orthodox Church[3] | |
| Scriptures | |
| Bible | |
| Languages | |
History
The westernmost Kurds in Anatolia converted to Christianity before the 7th century, which contributed to their gradual Hellenization by the 12th century. In contrast, the Kurds of eastern Anatolia largely resisted conversion and faced punitive measures from the Byzantines. At the advent of Islam in the 7th century, most of southern Kurdistan was predominantly Christian.[8]
Nasr, later known as Theophobos and suggested to be of Kurdish origin, converted to Christianity after entering Byzantine service under Emperor Theophilus (829–842) and became a close friend and trusted military commander.[9]
In the 10th century AD, the Kurdish prince Ibn ad-Dahhak, who possessed the fortress of al-Jafary, converted from Islam to Orthodox Christianity and in return the Byzantines gave him land and a fortress.[10] In 927 AD, he and his family were executed during a raid by Thamal al-Dulafi, the governor of Tarsus.[11]
In the late 11th and the early 12th century AD, Kurdish Christians made up a minority of the army of the fortress city of Shayzar, near Hama, Syria.[12]
The Zakarids–Mkhargrdzeli, an Armenian[13]–Georgian dynasty of Kurdish[14][15][16][17][18] origin, ruled parts of northern Armenia in the 13th century AD and tried to reinvigorate intellectual activities by founding new monasteries.[19]
Marco Polo, in his book, stated that a minority of the Kurds who inhabited the mountainous part of Mosul were Christians, while the rest were Muslims.[20]
Kurdish Christian converts usually were a part of the Church of the East.[21] In 1884, researchers of the Royal Geographical Society reported in Sivas about a local Kurdish tribe, likely of Armenian origin, which retained some Christian observances and sometimes identified as Christian.[22]
Contemporary Kurdish Christians
Part of the New Testament was first available in the Kurdish language in 1856.[23]
The Kurdzman Church of Christ (Kurdophone Church of Christ) was established in Hewlêr (Erbil) by the end of 2000, and has branches in the Silêmanî, Duhok governorates. This is the first evangelical Kurdish church in Iraq.[24] Its logo is formed of a yellow sun and a cross rising up behind a mountain range. According to one Kurdish convert, an estimated 500 Kurdish Muslim youths have converted to Christianity since 2006 throughout Kurdistan.[25] A Kurdish convert from the Iraqi military who claims to have transported weapons of mass destruction also stated that a wave of Kurds converting to Christianity was taking place in northern Iraq.[26]
There was a wave of Kurdish conversion to Christianity after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In the Post-Soviet states, most Kurdish converts to Christianity were from a Yazidi background.[27] In Armenia, around 3,600 Yazidis converted to Christianity by 2019.[28] In 2023, an Evangelical missionary group sparked controversy after praying at a Yazidi temple for the destruction of Yazidism. Vian Dakhil urged the Kurdistan Region to ban Christian missionaries, although the KRG refused, and its "Office of Christian Affairs" claimed that the missionaries acted ethical. Christian missionaries saw the influx of Yazidi refugees to the Kurdistan Region as a "golden opportunity" for conversion, as the Yazidis were historically so isolated that even native Iraqi missionaries could not convert them. By late 2015, around 800 Yazidis converted to Christianity, and over 70% of Christian converts in refugee camps were Yazidi. Walid Shoebat criticized Vian Dakhil and her attempts to ban Christian proselytization, claiming that she preferred to "worship Lucifer instead of Jesus. Yazidis are known for their hatred to Christianity, especially missionaries."[29]
Madai Maamdi, a Georgian Yazidi convert to the Georgian Orthodox Church, was ordained a priest in February 2023 by the North American Diocese of the Georgian Orthodox Church, becoming the first ethnic Kurd to be ordained as an Orthodox Christian priest.[30]
Some Hidden Armenians who were Kurdified and Islamized had converted to Christianity in their attempts to return to their Armenian roots.[31] Many Kurdish Christians were not ethnic Kurds, but ethnic Armenians and Assyrians who lived in Kurdistan and spoke Kurdish and were considered Kurdish Christians.[32][33] In 2019, some 80–100 Kurds converted to Christianity in the city of Kobanî.[34][35][36] An Evangelical pastor from Aleppo claimed that Kurdish converts to Christianity were often disgruntled with Islam because of the Anti-Kurdish policies of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who promoted Islamism and Turkish nationalism, as well as the atrocities committed against Kurds in Syria by Turkish-backed Islamists during the Syrian civil war.[37]