Christian history had been going for six centuries or so; there were little fragments of history in some big books. Christianity crackdown: Crosses forcibly removed – church burned CHRISTIANS in Pakistan were forced to remove a cross from their church after threats from local Muslims. Ashraf was hospitalized. In muslim majority places, there are NO minority rights. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing. It is a dynamic list, in alphabetical order by names of cities/towns etc. [42], Ayub Masih, a Christian, was convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death in 1998. [66], The 2009 Gojra riots was a series of violent pogroms against Christian minorities by Muslims. Angie Marshall. Pakistan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, which we do not say proudly. They entered the third-floor offices of the Institute for Peace and Justice (IPJ) and shot their victims in the head. Tweet. Pakistan: After Friday prayers on May 8, an armed Muslim mob shouting “anti-Christian slogans” attacked and tried to set fire to the Trinity Pentecostal Church in Hakeem Pura. There are also significant numbers of Shīʿite Muslims. [45][46] Bibi was acquitted in 2018. How the challenges of the modern life have transformed and sustained the religion which has captivated millions in the country. The majority of Pakistani Christians are descendants of untouchables converted to Christianity in the late 19th century. [58] On 25 December 2002, several days after an Islamic cleric called for Muslims to kill Christians, two burqa-clad Muslim gunmen tossed a grenade into a Presbyterian church during a Christian sermon in Chianwala in east Pakistan, killing three girls. Pakistan wasn’t always its own country and used to be a part of India while it was under British control. Our Christian family in Sri Lanka has suffered one of its greatest attacks in recent history. [29][30], In 2009, a series of attacks killed eight Christians in Gojra,[31] including four women and a child. Therefore, not every member of a minority community faces the same degree of adversity. Northern Pakistan had several Nestorian Christian settlements," Bhatti told the newspaper. This page was last edited on 7 March 2021, at 12:07. Hats off to Asif Aqeel. small numbers of converts to Anglicanism, Methodism, the Lutheran Church and Catholicism from the native populations. Maulana Farooqi said, “Our lawyers are preparing to ask the court to ban the book.”[72], On 23 September 2012, a mob of protesters in Mardan, angry at the anti Islamic film Innocence of Muslims, reportedly "set on fire the church, St Paul's high school, a library, a computer laboratory and houses of four clergymen, including Bishop Peter Majeed." LDS members are most prevalent in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. Masih has been released. Pakistani Punjab is now over 2% Christian, with very few Hindus and Sikhs left. Her changes were reversed by the Nawaz Sharif administration. But despite all myriad trials of adversity originating from history and religion, a good number of Christians have risen to prominence in Pakistan – becoming symbols of national pride. At least 81 Christians attending Sunday worship service in their historic church were killed and 131 others were wounded after two Taliban suicide bombers stormed the building in northwest Pakistan. Christianity is the largest religious minority in Pakistan. Lower appeals courts upheld the conviction. The total number of Christians in Pakistan is approximately 2,800,000 in 2008, or 1.6% of the population. [citation needed] Jinnah had repeatedly promised all citizens of Pakistan complete equality of citizenship, but this promise was not kept by his successors. The victims of what is being called the deadliest-ever attack on Christians include 37 women. 1.59% of the Pakistani population practice Christianity of which Roman Catholics and Protestants make the majority. In Pakistan a minority religion is linked with low status, perpetuating the Indian Hindu caste system even though the Muslim majority has disassociated itself from all things Hindu and Indian. [21] Following the death of K. T. Paul of Salem, the principal of Forman Christian College in Lahore S. K. Datta became the president of the All India Conference of Indian Christians, representing the Indian Christian community at the Second Round Table Conference, where he agreed with Mahatma Gandhi's views on minorities and Depressed Classes. Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil said the victims had their hands tied and their mouths had been covered with tape. [63] On June 5, 2006, a Pakistani Christian stonemason named Nasir Ashraf was working near Lahore when he drank water from a public facility using a glass chained to the facility. Abbottabad. [1] Of these, approximately half are Catholic and half Protestant. [32] In 2013, a suicide bombing at a Church in Peshawar left more than 100 people dead, and a series of attacks at churches in Lahore in 2015 left 14 dead. Christians have also contributed as educationists, doctors, lawyers and businessmen. [2], In 1745, the Bettiah Christians, the northern Indian subcontinent's oldest surviving Christian community, was established by the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin under the patronage of King Dhurup Singh; the Hindustan Prefecture was raised in 1769 at Patna and later shifted to Agra, which was elevated to the status of a Vicariate in 1820. [1][3] According to the 2017 Census, the proportion of Christians in Pakistan was estimated as about 1.27% of the population. [13] The Capuchins, through their Agra Diocese and Allahabad Diocese, expanded their ministry and established in the 1800s Catholic churches in colonial India's northern provinces including Rajasthan, UP, CP, Bihar and Punjab, the latter of which now includes Pakistan. It is a dynamic list, in alphabetical order by names of cities/towns etc. [36] Others have been victims of church arsons or demolitions. ", "Pakistan should be on the genocide watch list: US think tank", "Orders fresh probe into church attack SC rues poor investigation in sensitive cases | Newspaper", "Six Killed in Anti-Christian Attack in Karachi", "# girls died in attack on Christian church in Pakistan", Asien, Pakistan: Sangla Hill attack continues to draw condemnation - missio, "PAKISTAN Islamic extremists still unpunishedied 40 days after the Sangla Hill attack - Asia News", "International Christian Response: Cartoon Protesters in Pakistan Target Christians", "Pakistan Church, Christian Homes Attacked in Land Dispute", "Muslim Mob Attack Protestant Church In Pakistan", "Pakistan: Who's Attacking the Christians? With the governments of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Zia ul-Haq, more stringently Islamic laws transformed Pakistan. The New Apostolic Church also has followers in Pakistan. Cardinal Keith O’Brien stated, "To increase aid to the Pakistan government when religious freedom is not upheld and those who speak up for religious freedom are gunned down is tantamount to an anti-Christian foreign policy. When Pakistan was created on 14 August 1947, the organization and activities of the Christian community changed drastically; the Catholic Union of India granted independence to its branches in Sind and Baluchistan in its Second Annual General Meeting in Bangalore in October 1947. It includes the mission churches, denominations, and related institutions established by Western missionaries, numerous independent and indigenous movements (churches or sects established by Asian Christians, which are organizationally independent of Western churches), as well as the personal … [65], In July 2008, a mob stormed a Protestant church during a prayer service on the outskirts of Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, denouncing the Christians as "infidels" and injuring several, including a pastor. The majority of Pakistan’s Christians are descendents of low caste Hindus … Some people accused of blasphemy have been killed in prison or shot dead in court, and even if pardoned, may remain in danger from imams in their local village. 12/14/2019 Pakistan (International Christian Concern) – Release International, an organization that supports persecuted Christians around the world, reports that Christians in Pakistan are ten times more likely to be accused of blasphemy than other members of the country’s population. But Bede is really readable. Most Christians in Pakistan are descended from recent converts from Hinduism during British Indian rule in the 19th and early 20th century.. Ancient Beginnings. AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs . Stanton stated that he had been framed because he had rebuffed pressures to convert to Islam. Philip Schaff A.D. 1-100. work and spiritual life of that period. Posted on February 15, 2016. [64] In August 2006, a church and Christian homes were attacked in a village outside of Lahore in a land dispute. Our hearts sank on Easter Sunday to hear from our Open Doors field workers that terrorists attacked three churches during Easter services and three hotels in Sri Lanka. Islam was very strong in the provinces of Punjab, Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province, but small native communities of converts to Christianity were formed. Conversion to other faiths than Islam is not prohibited by law, but culture and social pressures do not favour such conversions. The history of India since 1498 is of a tremendous confrontation of cultures and religions. [citation needed], Several hundred Christians, along with Muslims themselves (though much fewer in comparison), have been prosecuted under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, and death sentences have been handed out to at least a dozen. [18][19][20] The meeting of the All India Conference of Indian Christians in Lahore in December 1922, which had a large attendance of Punjabis, resolved that the clergymen of the Church in India should be drawn from the ranks of Indians, rather than foreigners. Issues@Hand. In the 1990s, some Christians were arrested on charges of blasphemy, and for protesting that appeared to insult Islam. There also is a sizeable minority of the New Apostolic Church and other older denominations such as the Nestorians and… [73][74] On 12 October 2012, Ryan Stanton, a Christian boy of 16 went into hiding after being accused of blasphemy and after his home was ransacked by a crowd. [13], In 1877, on Saint Thomas' Day at Westminster Abbey, London, Rev. Christians in Pakistan face a number of key challenges. Christians are Pakistan’s second-largest minority group after Hindus. [37], Christians, along with other non-Muslim minorities, are discriminated against in the Constitution of Pakistan. and can be added to as per the accepted format below. Udai Shankar Oct 03, 2016 02:26pm. Thomas Valpy French was appointed the first Anglican Bishop of Lahore, a large diocese of the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon, which included all of the Punjab, then under British rule in colonial India, and remained so until 1887; during this period he also opened the Divinity College, Lahore in 1870. Shadows in the dark (a history of Christianity in Pakistan up to the 10th century) A history of the 1st period of the Christian church in Pakistan from St. Thomas, Ahmadyya, beliefs that Jesus lived and died in Kashmir, Christians in Persia & their migration to Pakistan, & Muslim missionary work.