Iraq’s Vanishing Christians
Sean Nelson January/February 2026The Christian population in Iraq grew steadily throughout the twentieth century, increasing from some 78,000 in 1920 to a little more than a million in 2003. But during the Iraq War the decline began. By 2014 only 700,000 Christians remained, and when ISIS attacked in June that year, hundreds of thousands more fled.
Today there are perhaps 250,000 Christians remaining in Iraq, with most of them living in the Kurdistan region, a semiautonomous district of Iraq that welcomed fleeing Christians, Yezidis, and other refugees from the genocide. In the Nineveh Plain, the land of Jonah, an area of northern Iraq between Kurdistan to the east and Syria to the west, Christians continue to leave.
My organization, Alliance Defending Freedom International, has worked to gain international legal recognition of the ISIS genocide, and continues to support religious freedom cases in Iraq and throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Recently I visited Qaraqosh, in Nineveh, and Erbil, in Kurdistan. The Christians I met there tried to display hope, but it is clear that they believe the Christian population will continue to dwindle.
Rebuilding and Remembering
Qaraqosh is the largest Christian town in Iraq, currently with approximately 25,000 residents. When I traveled there just after Easter in 2025, I was surprised to see enormous Easter lights on top of the seventh-century Mart Barbara Monastery in nearby Karemlesh, and three enormous crosses on the large hill behind it. I walked to the top of the hill with my guide, an Iraqi allied lawyer named Youhanna, and we could see all of Qaraqosh to the south, and to the north the mountain ranges that hold a number of historic monasteries. Most of the Christian population within Iraq, outside of the Kurdistan region, was within that view. These are the last remaining Christians in a land where the apostle Thomas is said to have introduced Christianity in the first century A.D.
On August 6, 2014, ISIS—having taken over the large, ancient city of Mosul—set its sights on Qaraqosh, then with 50,000 residents and one of the central symbols of the living Christian faith within Iraq. ISIS ordered the Christians to leave immediately, as they planned to destroy the city and anyone left within it.
I met with the retired Syrian Catholic archbishop of Mosul at the Al-Tahira Church. He said that he and a group of nuns fleeing ISIS had tried to stay as long as they could, but once the attacks became imminent, they had no choice but to leave. It would be years until they could return.
The hallmarks of ISIS’s brutal handiwork are still evident throughout Qaraqosh and the neighboring areas. Work to rebuild Al-Tahira began in 2019, and when I visited, the church looked beautiful and new, with dozens of young people attending a first confirmation mass. But no one wants to forget what happened. On the far side of the courtyard, one building remains unrestored. It is fill with endless bullet holes. ISIS used it for target practice. Religious images at the Monastery of Mar Behnam and Marth Sarah have their faces shot off—a casualty of ISIS’s opposition to religious iconography.
Every religious site preserves the history of the genocide while working toward reconstruction, with rebuilding efforts largely funded by international faith-based organizations. The tomb of Behnam and Sarah, whose martyrdom led to the conversion of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in the fourth century, were bombed by ISIS. When I visited, the tombs had been recently restored.
St. George’s Church, in Bartella, had been engulfed in flames and almost entirely blackened. The entrance gate to the church has a bent cross—after ISIS was defeated, it was found with bodies hanging from it. St. George’s renovation is stunning, but one corner of the church has been left untouched, still blackened with soot and holding burnt Bibles.
Living in the Shadows
In Bartella, children play in the church courtyard in the evening, but their parents are secret Christians who cannot be open about their faith. Bartella’s demographics have shifted over recent decades from being majority Christian to majority Shia Muslim. The story for the whole of Nineveh is the same: churches finally being restored, but with fewer and fewer Christians left to worship in them.
Locals recount endless difficulties. The shifting demographics has left Christians with very little in the way of political leadership, and the influence of Iranian-backed Shia militia leaders have made prospects dim. Finding work has been difficult for Christians, so many have sold off their farmland or properties and left. Other have left only to return and find illegal developments on their property, with little chance of regaining ownership. Thousands of Christians continue to leave each year, seeking better prospects elsewhere.
Christians also face legal challenges. ADF International is currently supporting a case involving an Iraqi woman who has been a lifelong Christian but whose ID identifies her as Muslim. Her father converted to Islam shortly before her parents divorced, and so, under Iraqi law, his daughter’s official status was immediately changed to “Islam.” Individuals can convert to Islam, but not away from Islam. Religious identity on official documents can have grave consequences. A woman registered as a Muslim cannot marry a Christian man, for example. Unless the legal case succeeds, this woman’s whole life will be precarious.
In Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, Christians feel generally more accepted. I attended the first-ever Kurdistan National Prayer Breakfast, where political and religious leaders spoke movingly of the importance of religious freedom and coexistence among faith groups. ADF International also convened a roundtable discussion with two dozen local Christian and religious minority leaders to hear about continuing issues. In Kurdistan, Christians are grateful to have greater security and some better economic prospects, but wish for greater help in restoring their religious sites and keeping them safe.
Christians are also concerned by instances of hostility and discrimination from the broader Muslim population and some pockets of extremism. One woman I met was a Muslim who wanted to convert to Christianity, and she had been attending a local church secretly with her children. Her husband found out and has repeatedly threatened to kill her. There are no Christian “safe houses” to which she can turn.
I also spoke with George Yousif, the president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Iraq and Kurdistan Region. He noted that sometimes the historic Christian denominations viewed newer Protestant communities as competitors rather than partners. I can only think that it would be better for all if beleaguered Christian minorities in the Middle East worked together on friendlier terms across denominational lines.
Still, I am hopeful for all these communities. Many of the Christians who remain in Iraq are deeply committed to their faith and its history in the region. The reconstruction of destroyed churches is locally and internationally celebrated, and a new international airport in Mosul may allow more international visitors to see this beautiful and ancient area, and to appreciate its rich history.
The devastation wrought by ISIS’s opened the eyes of many to the necessity of preserving the communities of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. But changes must go beyond preservation and allow real economic opportunity and full legal rights to Iraqi Christians. Otherwise, the living faith of nearly 2,000 years could soon become merely a museum piece.
Article Author: Sean Nelson
Sean Nelson is an international human rights lawyer serving as senior counsel for global religious freedom at ADF International.