User:Tiamut/Sources for Arab Christians

Self-identification of sects

 * The Arab Americans
 * Maronites are listed on pages 18-19, but it is noted that, "The Maronites, who trace their heritage back to the Phoenicians, often identify as Lebanese and Phoenician, and do not usually consider themselves Arabs."
 * Catholics (Greek Catholics or Melkites, Roman Catholics, and Syrian Catholics) are listed on page 19
 * Chaldeans are listed on pages 19-20, but it is noted that, "Chaldeans usually consider themselves Chaldeans, not Arabs." It is also noted that they, like Assyrians and some Syrians, spea Aramaic at home, but usally also speak Arabic fluently. Worldwide, they are said to number some 195,000.
 * Orthodox Christians (Greek Orthodox Church, Armenian or Gregorian Church, Eastern or Assyrian Church of the Nestorians, Syrian Jacobite Church) are listed on page 20. It is noted that "Most of the Greek Orthodox in the Arab world consider themselves Arabs, but the smaller Eastern churches have different ethnic affiliations, some dating back to medieval times."
 * Copts (Coptic Orthodox, Coptic Catholic and Coptic Protestant) are listed on pages 20-21, but itis noted that the Copts tend to consider themselves Pharaonic or specifically Egyptian, rather than Arab."
 * Protestants are listed on page 21 and are it is said that, "Protestants generally consider themselves Arabs."

Iraqi Christians

 * Citizenship and crisis: Arab Detroit after 9/11) which discuss the community when discussing Arabs, albeit while clarifying the ambivalence and sometimes outright rejection of Arab identity by its membership. The best thing to do in cases like that is outline the controversy, not ignore it. The source says for example that while it is true that many Iraqi Christians, including Chaldeans reject Arabness entirely, and might be considered historically and culturally distinct, there are "[...] many Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syriacs, and other Iraqi Christians (roughly 45 percent) who are willing to identify as Arab Americans," and that "half of all Chaldeans speak Arabic, that Chaldeans have come from and maintain active ties to a nation-state that has an Arab majority culture, and that many of Detroit's secular Arab American organizations, even those associated with or dominated by Muslims, have prominent Chaldean members."

Definitions

 * Christians in the Middle East: Christian Arabs in the Middle East by Haseeb Shehadeh of the University of Helsinki, published in The Middle East-- unity and diversity: papers from the Second Nordic Conference on Middle Eastern Studies, Copenhagen 22-25. October 1992.
 * "The term Christian Arab is pluralistic in its essence and compound in its meaning. Here it is employed in its wide sense, including all Arabic-speaking Christian communities in the Arab world, numbering more than ten million faithful. These Christians are the surviving heirs of Chalcedon or Chalcedonians (that is Melkites, Malkites or Melchites) and the Monophysites, such as the Copts, the Western Syrians and the Armenians and their offspring, the Latins and the Protestants. All Oriental Christians agree Jesus Christ has two natures, divine and human, but the interpretation of the relation between these two aspects gave rise to different sects."

History

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