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The following is a list of notable individuals who converted to Catholicism from Islam (including to Eastern Catholic Churches).
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2021) |
The following is a list of notable individuals who converted to Catholicism from Islam (including to Eastern Catholic Churches).
Main articles | Catholicism-related lists
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Arab Christians are ethnic Arabs, Arab nationals, or Arabic speakers, who follow Christianity. The number of Arab Christians who live in the Middle East was estimated in 2012 to be between 10 and 15 million. Arab Christian communities can be found throughout the Arab world, but are concentrated in the Eastern Mediterranean region of the Levant and Egypt, with smaller communities present throughout the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa.
Crypto-Christianity is the secret adherence to Christianity, while publicly professing to be another faith; people who practice crypto-Christianity are referred to as "crypto-Christians". In places and time periods where Christians were persecuted or Christianity was outlawed, instances of crypto-Christianity have surfaced.
Christianity in Lebanon has a long and continuous history. Biblical scriptures show that Peter and Paul evangelized the Phoenicians, leading to the dawn of the ancient Patriarchate of Antioch. As such, Christianity in Lebanon is as old as Christian faith itself. Christianity spread slowly in Lebanon due to pagans who resisted conversion, but it ultimately spread throughout the country. Even after centuries of living under Muslim Empires, Christianity remains the dominant faith of the Mount Lebanon region and has substantial communities elsewhere.
Christians in Morocco constitute less than 1% of the country's population of 33,600,000. Most of the Christian adherents are Catholic and Protestants.
Lebanon is an eastern Mediterranean country that has the most religiously diverse society within the Middle East, recognizing 18 religious sects. The recognized religions are Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
Christianity, which originated in the Middle East during the 1st century AD, is a significant minority religion within the region, characterized by the diversity of its beliefs and traditions, compared to Christianity in other parts of the Old World. Today, Christians make up approximately 5% of the Middle Eastern population, down from 13% in the early 20th century. Cyprus is the only Christian majority country in the Middle East, with Christians forming between 76% and 78% of the country's total population, most of them adhering to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Lebanon has the second highest proportion of Christians in the Middle East, around 40%, predominantly Maronites. After Lebanon, Egypt has the next largest proportion of Christians, at around 10% of its total population. Copts, numbering around 10 million, constitute the single largest Christian community in the Middle East.
Religion in Algeria is dominated by Muslims, with nearly ninety-eight of the population adhering to Sunni Islam of the Maliki school of jurisprudence, as of 2020. The remainder include other Islamic schools and branches, Christian denominations (Roman Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists, the Protestant Church of Algeria, Lutherans, Anglicans and Egyptian Copts, Baháʼís and Jews. Estimates of the Christian population range from 71,000 to 200,000. The latest available estimates suggest a Baháʼí population of 3,300, and a Jewish community of less than 200 people.
Maronites are a Syriac Christian ethnoreligious group group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant whose members belong to the Maronite Church. The largest concentration has traditionally resided near Mount Lebanon in modern Lebanon. The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church in full communion with the pope and the rest of the Catholic Church.
The Lebanese Druze are an ethnoreligious group constituting about 5.2 percent of the population of Lebanon. They follow the Druze faith, which is an esoteric Abrahamic religion originating from the Near East, and self identify as unitarians.
The main religion in Morocco is Sunni Islam, which is also the state religion of the country. Officially, 99% of the population are Muslim, and virtually all of those are Sunni. The second-largest religion in the country is Christianity, but most Christians in Morocco are foreigners. There is a community of the Baháʼí Faith. Only a fraction of the former number of Maghrebi Jews have remained in the country, many having moved to Israel.
The Eparchy of Notre-Dame du Liban de Paris is a Maronite Catholic diocese. It was erected on 21 July 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI who appointed Eparch Nasser Gemayel as its first bishop. It had 50,300 baptized at the same year in 2013. The Eparchy has 9 churches.
The people of Mauritania are overwhelmingly adherents of Sunni Islam, of the Maliki school of jurisprudence.
Lebanese Melkite Christians refers to Lebanese people who are members of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in Lebanon, which is the third largest Christian group in the country after the Maronite Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.
Freedom of religion in Morocco refers to the extent to which people in Morocco are freely able to practice their religious beliefs, taking into account both government policies and societal attitudes toward religious groups. The constitution declares that Islam is the religion of the state, with the state guaranteeing freedom of thought, expression, and assembly. The state religion of Morocco is Islam. The government plays an active role in determining and policing religious practice for Muslims, and disrespecting Islam in public can carry punishments in the forms of fines and imprisonment.
Christianity and Druze are Abrahamic religions that share a historical traditional connection with some major theological differences. The two faiths share a common place of origin in the Middle East and are both monotheistic. Christian and Druze communities share a long history of interaction dating back roughly a millennium, particularly in Mount Lebanon. Over the centuries, they have interacted and lived together peacefully, sharing common social and cultural landscapes, despite occasional exceptions. Moreover, Druze beliefs, scriptures and teachings incorporate several elements from Christianity.
The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church in full communion with the pope and the worldwide Catholic Church, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. The head of the Maronite Church is Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, who was elected in March 2011 following the resignation of Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir. The seat of the Maronite Patriarchate is in Bkerke, northeast of Beirut, Lebanon. Officially known as the Antiochene Syriac Maronite Church, it is part of Syriac Christianity by liturgy and heritage.