Christians remain the largest religious minority in the Middle East and North Africa, according to Pew Research, representing 2.9 percent of its population in 2020, but their share is down from 3.3 percent in 2010. Over the years, they have fled conflicts in Gaza, Iraq and Syria, where another 13-year civil war took a major toll on Christian residents.

Church leaders in Syria estimate that the Christian population there has shrunk from 1.5 million in 2011, when the war began, to about 400,000 now. In Lebanon, Christians made up more than half of the population before the civil war, but now represent about 32 percent.”