The Iraqi Christian community, now nearly gone, was the church’s center for a millennium.
Across much of the Middle East, the ancient Christian story seems to be coming to a bloody end almost before our eyes. The most dramatic catastrophe in recent years has been that of Iraq’s Christians, who represented 5-6 percent of Iraq’s population in 1970. That number is now below 1 percent, and shrinking fast in the face of persecution and ethnic/religious cleansing.