Talk:Christianity in the Middle East/Archive 1

Archive 1

Expanding the article?

Hey, does anyone think this article needs to be expanded? Because right now, it's basically a disambiguation page of Christianity in the Middle East. I think the article could benefit from some background information on each church, and church members, and other useful info. I think User:Garzo could be useful for this article. Some other Christianity expert could also spruce this article up. — EliasAlucard (HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! · contribs) 02:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

• I think so, but I'm certainly no expert. Funkynusayri (talk) 02:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The article is still quite new and definitely needs polishing. User:Garzo, unfortunately, hasn't edited Wikipedia in several weeks now. I hope he's just on Christmas break and will be back soon. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 08:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

• He's on it, looks very good, thanks, Garzo! Funkynusayri (talk) 18:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Syrian Orthodox Church

"Syrian Orthodox Church (also known as the Jacobite Church and sometimes Assyrian Orthodox Church)". What a bold statement. The Syrian Orthodox Church is NOT known as the Assyrian Orthodox Church. The TriZ (talk) 03:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It says very clearly, sometimes. Some local Syrian Orthodox Churches use Assyrian Orthodox Church in a semi-official manner. You may have serious difficulties accepting this fact, but it's cited anyway and your opinion on the issue is irrelevant. — EliasAlucard (Discussion · contribs) 08:09, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you blame him? He has probably never left Northern Europe in his whole life. Chaldean (talk) 15:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

And what do you know about where i have been and not? I seriously doubt that you have been to more places than i have. But that is irrelevant. But what isnt irrelevant is that the church is never refered as the Assyrian Orthodox Church. If it is, its only by assyrian fanatics like youself in a purpose to create conflicts. The TriZ (talk) 17:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The church does not officially use the name Assyrian, unlike the Church of the East who have adopted the name. It is used by some Syriac Orthodox parishes in northern Europe on an unofficial basis. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 20:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I live in northern Europe, no one would never call the church Assyrian here except really big Assyrian fanatics, neverless, it is wrong, you know it and it gives a wrong impression by saying it sometimes being called Assyrian Orthodox Church. Btw, as you are reading Syriac in Oxford, I presume you know of Sebastian Brock? The TriZ (talk) 22:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The Syriac Orthodox in Sweden are divided by 'ethnic arguments', with some preferring to be called 'Assyrian'. That's why there are two or three bishops for Sweden: one for each party. It's all rather sad and meaningless in my opinion. However, the Patriarch and the Synod maintains the name 'Syriac Orthodox' (and specifies that spelling in English). Sebastian Brock is in active retirement here. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 15:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

True, there is two bishops in Sweden. But it is wrong to say that it is "one for each party". Its mixed in the both "churches" to. The TriZ (talk) 16:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

TriZ, Syrian Orthodox Churches, have throughout history, sometimes, been known as Assyrian Orthodox Church. This is cited to a reliable source (Virginia Tech). You may not like this and feel like protesting against it (it's to me, quite amazing that an extra A can make self-hating Assyrians go berserk), but that is the case. I live in northern Europe too, and I know Syriac Orthodox Christians who style themselves Assyrian Orthodox when referring to their Christian heritage. Oh and by the way, please lose the "Assyrian fanatics" remark; it doesn't suit you. Don't take after me on this, I have a copyright on the term "Oromoyo fanatics" and there's a good reason as to why I've labelled you guys that, and the main reason is your entire world view revolves around the Syriac Orthodox Church and every single order said church hands out to you. If the Syrian Orthodox Church states you guys are Aramaeans, all of you will instantly and zealously believe it, unquestionably. We Assyrians may be nationalists with a religious fervour (and with good reason, considering the dire situation Assyrians in Iraq are in today), but we are certainly no religious fanatics like you guys. — EliasAlucard (Discussion · contribs) 09:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Good for you! You actually know people, thats surprising. And no one in Sweden calls the church the Assyrian Orthdox church, if someone calls themself Assyrian Orthdox is because they dont want to call themselfs Syriac orthodox cause in Swedish "Syriacs" will be "Syrianer". OMG these Assyrian fanatics... The TriZ (talk) 15:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Malta

Okay, to what extend should Malta be discussed in the article? And yeah, this shouldn't just be a dab page, but maybe it's a good start, just to get an overview of the many churches before we really begin. Funkynusayri (talk) 21:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, for starters, are Maltese people actually Arabs? Are they considered a Middle Eastern people? Malta isn't in the Middle East though, so that could be a problem, and their creed is definitely not of a Middle Eastern variety (it's Roman Catholicism). I think we should list the different churches in a dab like fashion, and from there, begin expanding it into a real article. What about the Kurdish Christians? Do they have a Kurdish Church? Also, I think we should include ethnic Persians who are Christians, and possibly also Greek Orthodox Christians in Eritrea. — EliasAlucard (talk · contribs) 21:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, if we re-name the Arab Christians article to Arab-speaking Christians, the Maltese should be dealt with there, and not here. I think the confusion over the many sects and places made me ignore the obvious...

But yes, I think every Christian church and community in the Middle Eats should be dealt with in this particular article, so let's see how far we get... Maybe also syncretic ones should be briefly mentioned, like Alawism and the religion of the Shabak people, and odd, Christianity linked religions like Mandaeism. Druze are apparently gnostic, don't know if they have anything to do with Christianuty.

There is apparently a Kurdish Church, look under Christian Kurds. Funkynusayri (talk) 21:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree about the Maltese issue. I already looked in that article (actually skimmed through it) and couldn't any Kurdish Church. — EliasAlucard (talk · contribs) 21:23, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

• There was this: "The Kurdish-Speaking Church of Christ (The Kurdzman Church of Christ) was established in Hewlêr (Arbil) by the end of 2000 and has branches in the Silêmanî, Duhok and Kirkûk governorates. This is the first evangelical Kurdish church in Iraq [14]."

By the way, if you wonder why I care about this topic, it may be because I have some recent Lebanese ancestors (family of my great grandmother) who were some kind of local Catholics, not because I have some pro-Arab agenda, hehe.

Oh I see. Generally speaking, I have nothing against Arabs. But when they're trying to Arabize and Islamize us, that ticks me off :P Although I do think we should aim for peace since we're all Semites. — EliasAlucard (talk · contribs) 21:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, do you think Africa should be mentioned, apart from Egypt, which is already in the Middle East by most definitions? Funkynusayri (talk) 21:26, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, that depends, is Eritrea and Ethiopia considered part of the Middle East? According to this map it is. Also, Eritreans/Ethiopians speak a Semitic language. — EliasAlucard (talk · contribs) 21:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

• Hmmm, I think Eritrea and Ethiopia are only included on that map simply because Egypt and Southern Arabia wouldn't fit into the image if they weren't! Funkynusayri (talk) 21:35, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I think they should be included simply because of the historical importance of Christianity in Ethiopia. It's close enough to the Middle East that we can be generous about it, I think. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 21:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I second that. — EliasAlucard (talk · contribs) 01:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

yeah, at least some of them are members of the Coptic Church, so maybe they should simply be mentioned in the Coptic section, instead of a new section about Africa.

Hmm, or seems like both some Ethiopian, Syriac and Armenian churches belong to Oriental Orthodoxy. Damn, this stuff is extremely complex. At some point I think we'll have to figure out a way to categorise the churches on the list in some better way. Funkynusayri (talk) 21:42, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Maltese share many genetic similarities with the Arabs and the North African Berbers. If I am not mistaken, I believe they are considered to be a semitic people, like the Arabs and the Hebrews. And until Malta was conquered by the Normans, it was politically a part of the Middle East. On the flip side, it is a very Euro-centric country today, and geographically, it is much closer to North Africa then the Middle East. So, if you are going by geography or modern politics, then the answer is 'no'. But if you are going by race, than the answer would be 'yes'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.48.19.93 (talk) 22:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Caucasus is not Middle East

And this is only one of many issues this article fails to describe properly. Population box should also describe citizens and foreign workers separately, so Saudi Arabia for example includes only Christian foreign workers, with no single Christian citizen - that should be mentioned with foot notes. Arab Christians are not properly mentioned (except Melkites). I will begin general editing of this article, and assistance by other editors is welcome to make some order here.Greyshark09 (talk) 07:40, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

You have a point with the Caucasus.

Removed.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Most gulf states have a negligible number of non-Muslim natives (probably not more that a 100 each), non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia for example cannot become citizens. There are some underground Christians in these countries probably but their numbers are impossible to verify.--Rafy talk 08:15, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe we should put foreign workers in brakets, since those populations are highly dynamic and as a matter of fact have little to none ties to indegenous Christian communities, thus don't have any tendency to stay in the region.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Rafy, nice work with the pops table - seems it clears up the foreign workers issue.Greyshark09 (talk) 22:03, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Middle Eastern christians section Notable Christians in the ME section

I was entirely surprised to discover that about half of the notable christians in the Middle East have never been to the Middle East, and were neither born or did die in the Middle East. Apparently, many persons of some Middle Eastern ancestry were automatically considered "part of Middle Eastern Christian community". But i ask - how come? Does it make sense to consider Shakira a "Middle Eastern Christian", just because her paternal grandparents made it from Lebanon to Columbia? Clearly this is dubious, as unlike the articles on Maronites, Assyrian Christians and Arab Christians, which include communities out of their countries of origin, "Middle Eastern" is a clear geographic term - not to be confused with ancestry and religious belonging. I did put "dubious" on all such persons, but i think we should remove all of them from here.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:04, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

"Middle Eastern" does indeed also indicate ancestry, there should be no doubt about that, in the same way as European and Asian. FunkMonk (talk) 16:31, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

But it doesn't indicate nationality. Shakira is not Lebanese and nor is the former president of Argentina, despite what some people see as wishful thinking. Anyway the article encompasses the communities of Christians in the Middle East, less relevant to those who live abroad.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:13, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

If we retitled the section "Christians of Middle Eastern ancestry" you'd be right. If we called it "Middle Eastern Christians" you'd have a case - though I think I'd still argue against it. But the section title is "Notable Christians in the Middle East" so I think Greyshark's right and we should exclude Christians who aren't actually in the Middle East. NebY (talk) 17:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Issues of edit-warring by Crucial Details

Apparently there are 2 issues, where CrucialDetails is performing an ongoing edit-warring - one is the numbers of Egyptian Copts in the table, where 2RR were performed by him in the last 24h; another is the subsection of the "Egypt" section, which has been as well reverted twice. I provided a warning on his page and invitation to discuss the issue here.

It must be mentioned that this page is currently undergoing a profound editing by myself and several other editors in order to make it well referenced and an NPOV as much as possible, and no edit-warring is contributing at this point to the goal. Improving references and sources is a must-have to make this article a B-class, whereas removing all problematic sources except one or two might result in severe POV article.Greyshark09 (talk) 11:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

This is exactly the reason why I am promoting Muslim Wikipedia to get away from all this non-neutral nonsense. The other user was being neutral and you kept pushing your POV. Majority of the media agencies western and non western have said an approximate of 10% which amount to roughly 8 million but you keep pushing non-neutral source of "coptic group". The suptopic will remain the way it is, I completely agree that it is needed to properly explain the current position and is very important to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.214.144.113 (talk) 07:00, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Is a sockpuppetting investigation required?Greyshark09 (talk) 07:08, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

now your accusing other users of sockpuppetry? crucial details here btw. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.125.75 (talk) 08:11, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

here you go signed in for you and no it did not qualify as a three revert. if you check again you can see that the second revert was me reverting my own mistake not another edit. as for the rest the other user seems to have done a good job answering all your accusations.CrucialDetails (talk) 08:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for going on discussion. As mentioned before i'm engaged in improving this article, which requires reference verification and addition. By removing references at this stage according to "what seems logical to you", you cause a reduction of article quality and violating NPOV and Verifiability. It must be mentioned that CIA source is not of high quality and is about the same level as Coptic sources and Egyptian government sources, if you like we might use a single scholar source in the table, but it seems to me there is none updated (the most recent is 1985-6), thus at this point we should remain with claims of both sides.Greyshark09 (talk) 09:34, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

In addition, you have caused referencing disruption by removing chunks of this article, which might legally be considered as vandalism.Greyshark09 (talk) 09:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I have absolutely no idea what "chunks" you are talking about??? are you talking about the references which had inactive and dead links?CrucialDetails (talk) 10:01, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Both claims by the governement and Coptic NGOs are not considered NPOV, but they are still both mentioned. I think the best solution is to put 8 million in the infobox while mentioning the range from 6-12 in the footnotes.

What is "Muslim Wikipedia" by the way?--Rafy talk 08:31, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I would rather we did not put a single unqualified figure in the infobox and I do prefer seeing a range. I don't think even "approx 8m" would convey the extraordinarily wide range of estimates and claims, from minus a quarter to half as much again or even more. But the patient and constructive manner that Greyshark and yourself have approached this article gives me confidence that you will find a suitable solution and I hope that CrucialDetails will engage with the process in the same spirit.

To this end I don't want to butt in and start dropping "citation needed" tags all over the place, but a statement that the Egyptian government decries overestimates by Christian groups and western media needs referencing, especially as in the light of recent events it would it would be significant whether it was the Mubarak regime or the current government that made these claims, and what each has asserted to be true.

Lastly, I do question whether it is appropriate to remove references simply because the material is no longer available on the internet; we maintain information on when material was retrieved precisely because we know that the internet is not a permanent repository any more than it is a complete store of human knowledge. NebY (talk) 10:23, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Muslim Wikipedia as the user stated is the place where we dont have to deal with rubbish. We can put in the facts as they are and not have to come day after day to edit the vandalism and biased posts of someone else. Unfortunately everyone feels that wikipedia has come to an end and was going to fail anyway. A lot of the muslims are moving over to the new site makes it easier to put the facts properly and show their countries in the correct light. so a lot of the people just putting up with it till then i suppose.CrucialDetails (talk) 10:01, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm even more confused now by your definition of "Muslim Wikipedia". You might want to create a page explaining WP:Muslim Wikipedia in more details.

How did you conclude that we need a subsection on the accusations of Egyptian government? Don't you think for example that the fact that Egypt is seen as one of the worst violators of religious liberty in the world is more noteworthy than this?

Why do we need a paragraph dealing with a non-related trend among Muslim Egyptians and praising Zahi Hawass? I understand that he's your idol but c'mon, you can't stick his name everywhere you wish.--Rafy talk 10:12, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The person GreyShark has a completely wrong understanding of the paragraph he keeps putting in the estimate. The section is talking about the claim of 10 percent which is viewed as controversial not other numbers that are viewed as non existent nonsense. The other small para that explains some history maybe, I reworded the professor part of the other user so it does not seem out of place. On the topic of Muslim Wikipedia its a site where people from muslim countries can put in the facts of their countries without having to come in every single day and dealing with vandalism. So basically nobody is going to remain on this site because this site is exactly like Fox news. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.139.17 (talk) 08:17, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

3RR violation by CrucialDetails

As of 17 October, CrucialDetails has violated the 3RR, by making 3 reverts within 24h, and thus a complaint can be issued for his behaviour. Those are the related reverts in the article: [1] (16 Oct, 10:47), [2] (16 Oct, 11:24), [3] (17 Oct, 09:46).Greyshark09 (talk) 10:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Its a close call especially the last one, he must have made a mistake and not kept track. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.139.17 (talk) 08:17, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Sock puppetry by CrucialDetails

I have filed a Sockpuppet investigation since CrucialDetails have been using multiple ip's to do his bid lately. You can't say you haven't been warned.--Rafy talk 12:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Possibly ip 139.168.7.219 is also related to this case.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Apparently anyone who doesn't agree with you is a sockpuppet lol CrucialDetails (talk) 06:24, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Removing the Middle Eastern Christian personalities' list

Well, i saw it removed, but i actually think such list is quiet useful for readers and essentially encyclopedic.Greyshark09 (talk) 20:21, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Ethiopia?

I cannot aknowlege how come Ethiopia is here? How is it linked to the Middle East?Greyshark09 (talk) 21:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)