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Christians have historically comprised a small community in Afghanistan. The total number of Christians in Afghanistan is currently estimated to be between 15,000 and 20,000 according to International Christian Concern. Almost all Afghan Christians are converts from Islam. The Pew Research Center estimates that 40,000 Afghan Christians were living in Afghanistan in 2010.[1] The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan did not recognize any Afghan citizen as being a Christian, with the exception of many expatriates (although, Rula Ghani, the country's First Lady from 2014 until 2021, is a Maronite Christian from Lebanon).[2][3] Christians of Muslim background communities can be found in Afghanistan, estimated between 500-8,000,[4][5] or between 10,000 to 12,000.[6]
 | This article needs to be updated. (August 2021) |
Afghanistan was number one on Open Doors’ 2022 World Watch List, an annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.[7] In 2023 the country was ranked number 9;[8] this was mainly due to the Taliban focusing on politics rather than non-Muslims.
After the Taliban retook control of the country in August 2021, the USCIRF warned that Christians in the country were in "extreme danger."[9] Many fled and sought asylum, while the few Christians left in the country reported that they were in hiding from Taliban sweeps. The Taliban falsely claims that there are "no Christians" remaining in Afghanistan.[10]
Despite societal restrictions, many sources claim that there is a secret underground community of Afghan Christians living in Afghanistan.[11][12] The US Department of State has stated that estimates of the size of this group range from 500 to 8,000 individuals.[12] However, estimates of the size of the Afghan Christian community in Afghanistan are not reliable.[13] Due to Afghanistan's hostile legal environment, Afghan Christians secretly practice their faith in private homes.[14][13] The complete Bible is available online in Pashto, in the Yusufzai dialect.[15]
There are a number of Afghan Christians (both converts and their descendants) who live outside Afghanistan, including Christian communities in India,[16] the United States,[17] the United Kingdom,[18] Canada,[19] Austria,[20] Finland,[21] and Germany.[22][23]
According to the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:9) in the Bible ethnic Jews and converts to Judaism from the Parthian Empire (which included parts of western Afghanistan[24][25][26]) were present at Pentecost. According to Eusebius' record, the apostles Thomas and Bartholomew were assigned to Parthia.[27]
A legend that is contained in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas and other ancient documents suggests that Saint Thomas preached in Bactria, an ancient region in Central Asia that was located on flat land which straddles modern-day northern Afghanistan.[28] An early third-century Syriac work known as the Acts of Thomas[27] connects the apostle's ministry with two kings, one in the north and the other in the south. According to the Acts, Thomas was at first reluctant to accept this mission, but the Lord appeared to him in a night vision and compelled him to accompany an Indian merchant, Abbanes (or Habban), to his native place in northwest India. There, Thomas found himself in the service of the Indo-Parthian (Southern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Northern India) King, Gondophares. The Apostle's ministry resulted in many conversions throughout the kingdom, including the king and his brother.[27]
Bardaisan, writing in about 196, speaks of Christians throughout Media, Parthia, and Bactria[29] and, according to Tertullian (c.160–230), there were already a number of bishoprics within the Persian Empire by 220.[30] By the time of the establishment of the Second Persian Empire (AD 226), there were bishops of the Church of the East in northwest India, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan, with laymen and clergy alike engaging in missionary activity.[27]
In 409, the Church of the East (also sometimes called the Nestorian Church) received state recognition from King Yazdegerd I[31] (reigned 399–409), of the Iranian Sassanid Empire which ruled what is now Afghanistan from 224 to 579.
In 424, Bishop Afrid of Sakastan, an area covering southern Afghanistan including Zaranj and Kandahar,[32] attended the Synod of Dadyeshu.[33] This synod was one of the most important councils of the Church of the East and determined that there would be no appeal of their disciplinary or theological problems to any other power, especially not to any church council in the Roman Empire.[34]
The year 424 also marks the establishment of a bishop in Herat.[35] In the 6th century, Herat was seen as a Metropolitan See the Apostolic Church of the East,[35][36] and from the 9th century Herat was also the see of the Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan.[36] The significance of the Christian community in Herat can be seen in that till today there is a district outside of the city named Injil,[37] The Arabic/Dari/Pashto word for Gospel. The Christian community was present in Herat until at least 1310.[38]
The Apostolic Church of the East established bishops in nine cities in Afghanistan including Herat (424–1310), Farah (544–1057),[38] Zaranj (544), Bushanj (585), Badghis (585) Kandahar, and Balkh.[35][38] There are also ruins of a Nestorian convent from the 6th–7th centuries a short distance from Panj, Tajikistan on the north bank of the Amu Darya very close to the Afghan border, near Kunduz. The complex was discovered and identified by Soviet archeologists in 1967. It consists of dozens of small rooms carved into a rock formation.[40]
Ahmed Tekuder, also known as Sultan Ahmad (reigned 1282–1284) was the sultan of the Ilkhan Empire, a Mongol Empire that stretched from eastern Turkey to Pakistan and covered most of Afghanistan. Tekuder was born Nicholas Tekuder Khan as a Nestorian Christian; however, Tekuder later embraced Islam[41] and changed his name to Ahmed Tekuder. When Tekuder assumed the throne in 1282, he turned the Ilkhan empire into a sultanate. Tekudar zealously propagated his new faith and sternly required his ranking offices to do the same. The Ilkhan Empire ultimately adopted Islam as a state religion in 1295. The Church of the East was almost completely eradicated across Afghanistan and Persia during the reign of Timur (1336–1405).[42]
In 1581 and 1582 respectively, the Jesuit and Spanish Montesserat and the Portuguese Bento de Góis were warmly welcomed by the Islamic Emperor Akbar, but there was no lasting presence by the Jesuits in the country.[43][44]
There were Armenian merchants living in Kabul as early as 1667 who were in contact with the Jesuits in Mughal (modern day India).[45] It is unclear if these Armenian merchants were Christians but their presence suggests an Armenian community in Kabul in the 17th century. Kabul was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Armenian Apostolic Church Perso-Indian diocese in New Julfa, Esfahan (modern day Iran),[46] which sent Armenian priests to the community; however, no Armenian priest came after 1830.[47]
In 1755, Jesuit missionaries to Lahore Joseph Tiefenthaler reported that Sultan Ahmad Shah Bahadur took several Armenian gunmakers from Lahore to Kabul.[48] Anglican missionary Joseph Wolff preached to their descendants in Kabul in Persian in 1832; by his account, the community numbered about 23 people.[47][49] In 1839, when Lord Keane marched to Kabul, the Chaplain, the Rev. G. Pigott, baptised two of the children at the Armenian church.[50] And in 1842, the Rev. J. N. Allen, Chaplain to General William Nott's force, baptized three others.[46][51]
The only reported baptism of an ethnic Afghan in the Armenian Church was said to be a robber who broke into the church through the roof and fell three times while attempting to leave with the valuable silver vessels stored there. When he was discovered, he begged for mercy and later asked to be baptized.[52] The Armenian church building near Bala Hissar was destroyed during the Second Anglo-Afghan War by British troops; the community received compensation from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office for their loss, but the church was never rebuilt.
As late as 1870, British reports showed 18 Armenian Christians remaining in Kabul.[47] In 1896, Abdur Rahman Khan, Emir of Afghanistan, even sent a letter to the Armenian community at Calcutta, India (now Kolkata), asking that they send ten or twelve families to Kabul to "relieve the loneliness" of their fellow Armenians, whose numbers had continued to dwindle.[53] However, despite an initial reply of interest, in the end, none of the Armenians of Calcutta accepted the offer.[54] The following year, the final remnants of the Armenians were expelled after a letter from Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to the Afghan ruler questioning the loyalty of the Armenians.[55]
The Armenians of Kabul took refuge in Peshawar. These refugees carried their religious books and ancient manuscripts with them. An article on this issue in the Englishman (Calcutta) dated 11 February 1907 stated: "These people in the time of the late Ameer Abdul Rahman had dwindled down to ten families. They were, for reasons unknown, banished to Peshawar and brought down with them a collection of manuscripts said to be of immense antiquity. Indeed, they are so old that none of the families possessing them are able to read them. In any case an examination by experts of the manuscripts now said to be in Peshawar, should yield some valuable results. The families themselves are unaware of the history of the first settlement in Kabul, except that it dates back to the very earliest times."[56] Armenian Archbishop Sahak Ayvadian, after this publication went to Peshawar for a pastoral visit to these Armenians as well as to examine the books and manuscripts. On his return to Calcutta he presented some books to the Armenian Church Library, which he had obtained from the refugees.[57]
Until 2021, when all minority religious institutions ceased to be recognized, the only legally recognized church in Afghanistan was within the compound of the Italian embassy. Italy was the first country to recognize Afghanistan's independence in 1919, and the Afghan government asked how it could thank Italy. Rome requested the right to build a Catholic chapel, which was being requested by international technicians then living in the Afghan capital. A clause giving Italy the right to build a chapel within its embassy was included in the Italian-Afghan treaty of 1921, and that same year the Barnabites arrived to start giving pastoral care.[58] The actual pastoral work began in 1933 when the chapel international technicians had asked for was built.[59] In the 1950s, the simple cement chapel was finished.[60]
From 1990 to 1994, Father Giuseppe Moretti served as the only Catholic priest in Afghanistan,[61] but he was forced to leave in 1994 after being hit with shrapnel when the Italian embassy was attacked during the civil war, and he had to return to Italy.[62] After 1994, the Little Sisters of Jesus were the only Catholic religious workers who were allowed to remain in Afghanistan, because they had been there since 1955, and their work was renowned.[63] An official from President Mohammed Najibullah's government in 1992 visited Moretti for planning a new church compound, but nothing came out of it as Najibullah was shortly afterwards deposed by the rebels during the conflict.[64]
In 1959, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower visited Afghanistan. The Islamic Center of Washington had recently been built in Washington, DC, for the Muslim diplomats there and President Eisenhower requested permission from King Zahir Shah to construct a Protestant church in Kabul on a reciprocal basis for the use of the diplomatic corp and expatriate community in Afghanistan. Christians from all around the world contributed to its construction. At its dedication, the cornerstone which was carved in Afghan alabaster marble read: "To the glory of God 'Who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood' this building is dedicated as 'a house of prayer for all nations' in the reign of H.M. Zahir Shah, May 17, 1970 A.D., 'Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone'."[65][66] However, the church building was destroyed 17 June 1973,[66] during the republican coup d'état by Mohammed Daoud Khan against the monarchy. Since then, no place of worship has been authorized for Protestant Christians.
Christians were persecuted after the Taliban came to power in the mid-1990s.[67] The number of converts to Christianity increased as the U.S. presence increased after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Most of the Christian converts lived in urban areas, so the threat from the Taliban was minimal. But many Christian converts started fleeing Afghanistan (mostly to India) around 2005, fearing their identities might become public.[68] A 2015 study estimated some 3,300 believers in Christ from a Muslim background living in the country.[69]
Under the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the Constitution of Afghanistan allowed the practice of religions other than Islam, as long as it was within the legal framework of Islamic laws and did not threaten the Islamic religion. However Muslims who converted to Christianity were subjected to societal and official pressure,[14][70] which may lead to confiscation of property, imprisonment, or death.[71] "Christian minority has never been known or registered here,” Inamullah Samangani, a Taliban spokesman told VOA in 2022. He further added “There are only Sikh and Hindu religious minority in Afghanistan that are completely free and safe to practice their religion,”[72]
| This section needs to be updated. (October 2017) |
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The Taliban took back power in Sept 2021. A report in 2022 report noted that they had stated that the country is an Islamic emirate whose laws and governance must be consistent with sharia law. Non-Muslim minorities reported continued harassment from Muslims, while Baha’is and Christians continued to live in constant fear of exposure.[117]
In 2023, Freedom House rated Afghanistan’s religious freedom as 1 out of 4.[118]
In 2023, it was reported that violations against minorities had increased after September 2021. In particular many minorities fled to neighbouring countries such as Iran and Pakistan.[119]
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