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Christianity in Israel

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Through Christianity, Islam and Arab citizens of Israel

Ten Christian churches are formally recognized under Israel's confessional system, for the self-regulation and state recognition of status issues, such as marriage and divorce: the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Latin Catholic Church, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Maronite Church, and the Syriac Orthodox Church. However, the practice of religion is free, with no restrictions on the practice of other denominations. Approximately 300 Christians have converted from Islam according to one 2014 estimate, and most of them are part of the Catholic Church. About 20,000 Israelis practice Messianic Judaism, usually considered a syncretist form of Christianity.

Arab Christians are mostly adherents of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church (60% of Arab Christians in Israel). Some 40% of all Israeli Christians are affiliated with the Melkite Greek Church, and some 30% with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Smaller numbers are split between the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, with 13% of Christians, as well as an unknown number of Russian Orthodox Christians, about 13,000 Maronites and other Syriac Christians, 3,000 to 5,000 adherents of Armenian churches, a community of around 1,000 Coptic Christians, and small branches of Protestants.

Christians in Israel are historically connected with neighbouring Lebanese, Syrian, and Jordanian Christians. A number of Arab Christians in Israel identify as Palestinian Christians, reflecting shared heritage and ties with Christian communities in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. They also maintain connections with Palestinian diaspora and refugee communities, many of whom trace their origins to similar towns and villages in historic Palestine. The cities and communities where most Christians in Israel reside are Haifa, Nazareth, Shefa-Amr, Jish, Mi'ilya, Fassuta and Kafr Yasif. The Christian communities in Israel run numerous schools, colleges, hospitals, clinics, orphanages, homes for the elderly, dormitories, family and youth centers, hotels, and guesthouses. The Christian community in Israel is one of the few growing Christian populations in the Middle East. Israeli Arab Christians generally have higher educational achievements and enjoy higher incomes than their Druze and Muslim counterparts. Although Arab Christians in Israel often report higher educational attainment and household income compared with other Arab groups, they also face social and economic challenges including employment discrimination, harassment of Christian institutions, significantly lower fertility rates, and concern about emigration among younger members.

History

Early Christians and the Roman period

Early Christianity is generally reckoned by Church historians to begin with the ministry of Jesus (c. 27–30) and end with the First Council of Nicaea (325). It is typically divided into two periods: the Apostolic Age (c. 30–100, when the first apostles were still alive) and the Ante-Nicene Period (c. 100–325). Driven by a universalist logic, Christianity has been, from its beginnings, a missionary faith with global aspirations. It first spread through the Jewish diaspora along the trade and travel routes followed by merchants, soldiers, and migrating tribes. It achieved critical mass in the years between 150 and 250 when it moved from fewer than 50,000 adherents to over a million. This provided enough adopters for its growth rate to be self-sustaining.

Jewish–Hellenistic background

Christianity originated in 1st-century Judea from a sect of apocalyptic Jewish Christians within the realm of Second Temple Judaism. The basic tenets of the Jewish religion during this era were ethical monotheism and the Torah, or the Mosaic Law. In this period, the Second Temple of Jerusalem was still central to Judaism, but synagogues were also established as institutions for prayer and the reading of Jewish sacred texts. The Hebrew Bible developed during the Second Temple Period, as the Jews decided which religious texts were of divine origin; the Masoretic Text, compiled by the Jewish scribes and scholars of the Early Middle Ages, comprises the Hebrew and Aramaic 24 books that they considered authoritative.

The Hellenized Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria produced a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called "the Septuagint", that included books later identified as the Apocrypha, while the Samaritans produced their own edition of the Torah, the Samaritan Pentateuch; according to the Dutch–Israeli biblical scholar and linguist Emanuel Tov, professor of Bible Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, both of these ancient editions of the Hebrew Bible differ significantly from the medieval Masoretic Text. Currently, all the main non-Protestant (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox) Christian denominations accept as canonical the Deuterocanonical books, which were excluded from the modern Hebrew Bible and the Protestant Bible. The Septuagint was influential on early Christianity as it was the Hellenistic Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible primarily used by the 1st-century Christian authors.

The religious, social, and political climate of 1st-century Roman Judea and its neighbouring provinces was extremely diverse and constantly characterized by socio-political turmoil, with numerous Judaic movements that were both religious and political. The ancient Roman–Jewish historian Flavius Josephus described the four most prominent sects within Second Temple Judaism: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and an unnamed "fourth philosophy", which modern historians recognize to be the Zealots and Sicarii. The 1st century BC and 1st century AD had numerous charismatic religious leaders contributing to what would become the Mishnah of Rabbinic Judaism, including the Jewish sages Yohanan ben Zakkai and Hanina ben Dosa. Jewish messianism, and the Jewish Messiah concept, has its roots in the apocalyptic literature produced between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century BC, promising a future "anointed" leader (messiah or king) from the Davidic line to resurrect the Israelite Kingdom of God, in place of the foreign rulers of the time.

Ministry of Jesus

The main sources of information regarding Jesus' life and teachings are the four canonical gospels, and to a lesser extent the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles. According to the Gospels, Jesus is the Son of God, who was crucified c. AD 30–33 in Jerusalem. His followers believed that he was raised from the dead and exalted by God, heralding the coming Kingdom of God.

Apostolic Age

The Apostolic Age is named after the Apostles and their missionary activities. It holds special significance in Christian tradition as the age of the direct apostles of Jesus. A primary source for the Apostolic Age is the Acts of the Apostles, but its historical accuracy has been debated and its coverage is partial, focusing especially from Acts 15 onwards on the ministry of Paul, and ending around 62 AD with Paul preaching in Rome under house arrest.

The earliest followers of Jesus were a sect of apocalyptic Jewish Christians within the realm of Second Temple Judaism. The early Christian groups were strictly Jewish, such as the Ebionites, and the early Christian community in Jerusalem, led by James the Just, brother of Jesus. According to Acts 9, they described themselves as "disciples of the Lord" and [followers] "of the Way", and according to Acts 11, a settled community of disciples at Antioch were the first to be called "Christians". Some of the early Christian communities attracted God-fearers, i.e. Greco-Roman sympathizers which made an allegiance to Judaism but refused to convert and therefore retained their Gentile (non-Jewish) status, who already visited Jewish synagogues. The inclusion of Gentiles posed a problem, as they could not fully observe the Halakha. Saul of Tarsus, commonly known as Paul the Apostle, persecuted the early Jewish Christians, then converted and started his mission among the Gentiles. The main concern of Paul's letters is the inclusion of Gentiles into God's New Covenant, sending the message that faith in Christ is sufficient for salvation. Because of this inclusion of Gentiles, early Christianity changed its character and gradually grew apart from Judaism during the first two centuries of the Christian Era. The fourth-century church fathers Eusebius and Epiphanius of Salamis cite a tradition that before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 the Jerusalem Christians had been warned to flee to Pella in the region of the Decapolis across the Jordan River.

Late antiquity

In contrast to other groups of Christians in the Near East such as the largely Assyrian Nestorians, the vast majority of Christians in Judea (later renamed Syria Palaestina) were under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the emperors of the Roman Empire and later Eastern Roman Empire, as well as the Ecumenical Patriarchate after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD (which would be part of the Eastern Orthodox Church after the Great Schism), and were known by other Syrian Christians as Melkites (followers of the king). Helena, mother of Constantine I was responsible for the beautification or construction of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and the Church of Eleona on the Mount of Olives; sites of Christ's birth and ascension, respectively. The Melkites, during the late Roman period and under the Byzantine Empire were Hellenized, and abandoned Western Aramaic languages in favor of Greek. By the 7th century, Jerusalem and the Byzantine province of Syria Palaestina had become major centers of Greek and Christian culture in the Orient.

Early Middle Ages

Due to the Arab Muslim invasions of the Middle East (7th–11th centuries), Christians living in the region underwent a gradual process of Arabization in which they abandoned Aramaic and Greek in favor of Arabic. The Melkites began abandoning Greek for Arabic, a process which made them the most Arabicized Christians in the Levant. Most Arab Ghassanids remained Christian and joined Melkite and Syriac communities within what is now Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon.

The 11th-century Melkite bishop of Gaza Sulayman al-Ghazzi holds a unique place in the history of Arab Christian literature as author of the first diwan of Christian religious poetry in Arabic. His poems give insights into the life of Palestinian Christians and the religious persecution they suffered under the rule of Fatimid caliph al-Hakim (r. 996–1021).

During the Early Middle Ages, the Holy Land was the scene of several military conflicts between Christians and Muslims. In 1081, following the Byzantines' confrontation with the Seljuk Turks and the fear of Turkish expansion in Asia Minor, the Byzantine Emperor sought aid from Western Christendom. The emperor Alexios I Komnenos asked Pope Urban II for help; the latter proposed a holy war, the First Crusade in 1096. The call for a crusade gained momentum, promising indulgences for sins. Despite conflicts with the Byzantine leadership, they captured Antioch (1098) and eventually Jerusalem (1099). The conquests were marked by brutality and savagery against Muslims and Jews.

The Second Crusade (1147–1148) followed a generation later and aimed to recover lost territories. It faced internal strife and external betrayals, and resulted in failure. The Third Crusade (1189–1193) was in response to Saladin's recapture of Jerusalem. Notable European leaders like Richard the Lion-heart fought in the Crusader, however they failed to recapture Jerusalem. The Fourth Crusade (1201–1204), initiated by Pope Innocent III, it faced financial and organizational challenges. Deviating from their intended path, the Crusaders sacked Zara and Constantinople, causing lasting damage to the Byzantine Empire. The Crusaders' actions accelerated the decline of the Byzantine Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Ottoman rule

Since they are considered "People of the Book" in the Islamic religion, Christians under Muslim rule were subjected to the status of dhimmi (along with Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics, Mandeans, and Zoroastrians), which was inferior to the status of Muslims. Christians and other religious minorities thus faced religious discrimination and persecution in that they were banned from proselytising (for Christians, it was forbidden to evangelize or spread Christianity) in the Muslim lands, they were banned from bearing arms, undertaking elite professions, and were obligated to dress differently in order to distinguish themselves from Arabs. Under the Islamic law (sharīʿa), Non-Muslims were obligated to pay the jizya (usually much less than wealth tax of zakat and the exemption of some people, like women and children etc.) and kharaj taxes like Muslims together with periodic ransom levied upon Christian communities by Muslim rulers in order to fund the wars happening, all of which contributed a significant proportion of income to the Muslim states under the ottoman rule sometimes chirstians would send their children to join the janissary corp in return for tax exemption, if a dhimmi joined the army they don't have to pay tax

Under the Ottoman Empire, Christians and Jews were treated as dhimmi, i.e. Non-Muslim subjects. They were granted the freedom to practice their religion under certain conditions, and were given a level of communal autonomy as outlined in the Millet system. Religious communities falling under the dhimmi category were required to pay the jizya and kharaj taxes to the Islamic state Furthermore, dhimmi were bound by specific rules that didn't apply to Muslim citizens, including the prohibition from attempting to convert Muslims to their religious faith.

Modern period

The territory of present-day Israel came under control of the United Kingdom following the defeat and collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. The British established an administration in the region called Mandatory Palestine. Following the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the visit of the Zionist Commission to Mandatory Palestine (1918), local Christians participated in forming groups which opposed Zionism, called "Muslim-Christian Associations".

During the 1948 Palestine war, Palestinian Christians they were directly affected by the war and the creation of the state of Israel with what is called the "nakba" or disaster for the Palestinians. Generally, most Christians were expelled like Muslims from the territory that is now Israel, especially in the main cities and West Jerusalem, but some were allowed to remain in their homes, especially in the lower, central and Upper Galilee, because the Galilee region was conquered at the end of the war, the area was less strategic, Israel needed Arab human resources in the Galilee, and the international pressure that was visible at that time there. Four Christian villages were depopulated, razed, and had their residents expelled, such as Al-Bassa, Iqrit, Al-Mansura and Kafr Bir'im. Massacres of Christians were conducted at the villages of Eilabun and Al-Bassa. Nazareth, at that time a town with a Christian majority, was spared devastation after agreeing to halt resistance and surrender, and because Israel did not want to visibly provoke an outcry in the Christian world.

According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since the reunification of Jerusalem after the Six-Day War (1967), the Christian as well as Jewish and Islamic holy sites were opened for multinational pilgrims by the Israeli authorities for the first time since 1948, when the Kingdom of Jordan took over the eastern half of the city.

The Christian population in Israel has increased with the immigration of many mixed families from the former Soviet Union (1989 to late 1990s), and through the influx of approximately 7,000 Christian Maronites from Lebanon in 2000. Recently, a further increase in Christianity came with arrival of many foreign workers and asylum seekers, some of Christian background (for instance from the Philippines, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and South Sudan). As a result, numerous churches have opened in Tel Aviv. As of 2013, the Government - Christians Forum was formed in Jerusalem by Mordechai Zaken, head of the Minorities Affairs Desk at the Ministry of Public Security, to address the concerns of Christians as a minority group. Since many of these Christians are Catholic, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem created a vicariate to serve their particular needs, and has lobbied on their behalf. Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need, Sister Gabriele Penka, administrator of the vicariate summed up the complexity of their situation. "Israel tells them that they have to work and show a payslip to obtain a visa, but at the same time, Israel will not officially declare that they have the right to work. They are told they need a payslip, but it is almost impossible to get one with no documents. We went to all the ministries related to this, and no one was able to give us a straight answer about what the legal status of these people is."

A 2021 survey by CBS found that 84% of Christians were satisfied with life in Israel. The survey also found Arab Christian women were the most educated demographic in Israel. Concern was expressed by the patriarchs, however, over extremist groups in Israeli society. In 2023, the Latin Patriarch—the head of the Latin Church in the Holy Land—alleged that a shift toward far-right politics under the premiership of Benjamin Netanyahu led to greater attacks on Christians. The President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, and the Israeli chief of police condemned the violence against Christians. The Israeli police chief stated the police conducted operations to "eradicate" the phenomena. However, Christians have said they do not necessarily feel protected by authorities and a study by the Jerusalem-based Rossing Center, published in 2025, found that attacks had increased.

In March 2023, Knesset legislators Moshe Gafni and Yaakov Asher submitted a bill that would have banned the proselytizing of Christianity in Israel. Due to an uproar from Evangelical Christians in America, who generally support Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that the bill would not move forward.

The issue of taxation remains a complex and controversial topic in Israel. Occasionally municipal authorities send churches bills for unpaid taxes and threaten legal action, while Churches continue to claim that they should be exempt. Attempts to solve the issue politically remain stalled.

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