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Nearly 40,000 Iraqi Christian refugees in Jordan and Syria are unlikely to return home any time soon, despite the recent national elections. Lack of safety is their biggest concern. "We voted, but we don't know whether elections will change the situation. If security is restored, then we may return to Iraq. But if there is no improvement, we won't go back," 18-year-old Boutros Chamoun told Christianity Today after Sunday mass at the Church of St. Terese of Little Jesus in the famed Old City sector of Damascus, Syria.

Chamoun fled with his widowed mother and his three siblings to Syria after militants blew up the laundry they ran in Baghdad. Among their clients were U.S. soldiers. The teenager's dark eyes looked anxious as he spoke about the future. "I don't think anyone ruling Iraq will consider the interests of Christians in or out of the country."

He's not alone in his grim assessment. Record numbers of Christians have fled Iraq, prompting worries that their 2,000-year-old presence is being seriously eroded. About 400,000 Iraqi refugees are now in Syria, according to reliable estimates. Only 4,000 are registered with the United Nations. Of the estimated 40,000 Christians who have left Iraq, the greatest number fled after a series of church bombings last August, according to church leaders in Syria and Jordan.

Today there are some 750,000 Christians in Iraq—about 3 percent of the nation's 26 million people. Before the war, the Christian community numbered 1 million. In 1987, there were 1.4 million Christians.

Most of Iraq's Christians are Chaldean Eastern Rite Catholics (though autonomous from Rome, they recognize papal primacy). Other Christian denominations in Iraq include Roman and Syrian Catholics, Assyrians, Presbyterians, Anglicans, evangelicals, and Greek, Syrian, and Armenian Orthodox.

Yohanna, an Iraqi university professor, escaped to Damascus with his family because as a Christian and a professional he was a tempting double target. "I don't expect the newly elected politicians in Iraq's first free elections in half a century to help our tiny minority, because to do so would weaken their own position," he explained.

"It breaks our hearts to leave our country. But circumstances have overcome us and we were forced to leave," he said, shaking his head in grief. "Although I aided my Muslim colleagues, they identified me as a crusader because of the American presence."

Less than 150 miles south of Damascus, Iraqi Christian refugees in Amman, Jordan, dream of a fresh start outside Iraq. But that may be thwarted by politics. Chaldean Catholic worshipers in the drab working-class district of Hashimi Shamali told Christianity Today some of their own religious leaders inside Iraq are telling foreign embassies to refuse requests for political asylum from Iraqi Christians. The motive is unclear, but refugees speculate these religious leaders want to maintain the strongest possible Christian influence inside Iraq.

"They are trying to imprison us," one Christian refugee complained, "but they won't help ensure our safety." Boulos, a businessman from Baghdad, said he and his extended family fled to Amman only after terrorists targeted a relative. "Insurgents kidnapped my 18-year-old nephew, Girguis, in Baghdad. They beat him very badly and cut him with knives all over his body," Boulos said, the horror plainly written across his face.

"While he was in captivity, they showed him tapes of insurgents killing Christians. They warned him, 'If you go to church again, we will cut off your head!' We had no other choice but to leave Iraq."

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April 2005, Vol. 49, No. 4