Almost a third of Syria’s Christians have left since the start of the civil war, according to one of the country’s senior clerics.
Syria’s most senior Catholic leader Gregorios III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch, told the BBC that more than 450,000 of Syria’s estimated 1.75 million Christians have gone.
However, he said he remained sure that Syria’s Christian community would survive.
The precise number of Christians in Syria is open to debate, as is the number of those who have left the country.
A spokesperson for Open Doors International, an organization which supports Christians under pressure for their faith, says he thinks the figure for those who’ve left may be significantly lower.
There is some debate about the number of Christians in Syria at the beginning of the civil war. Suggestions that Christians amounted to around 8 percent of the population are thought optimistic by some.
And of those Syrians known to have left the country – whether to refugee camps in neighboring countries, or further afield – the percentage of Christians is believed to be lower than 8 percent.
Read more at http://www.religiontoday.com/blog/one-third-of-syrian-christians-have-gone-says-cleric.html