We don't want to go back home say Middle East Catholics

The vast majority of Christians who have fled persecution and hardship in the Middle East do not plan to return, a new study has found.

Research by the Universities of St Andrews, Kirkcaldy and Lodz also found that UK politicians' understanding of Middle Eastern Christians was “very limited”.

The two-year study, thought to be one of the first of its kind, surveyed 393 Middle Eastern Christians living in Britain, Sweden and Denmark, and government and church officials with whom they had contact. 

Worsening persecution has prompted an exodus of Middle Eastern Christians, sparking fears that the faith could disappear from parts of the region. 

Britain is home to around 30,000 Middle Eastern Christians, mainly Egyptian Copts but also Chaldean and Syriac Catholics and Assyrian Orthodox, who have arrived as refugees, students or economic migrants since the 1950s. 

A number of older respondents said they wanted to return home when they retired, but most of those surveyed said they would not – either because they had put roots down in Europe or because of civil unrest at home. 

Britain’s Iraqi Catholics arrived as refugees over the last 50 years as persecution at home worsened. 

Many participants said that in Britain they had been mistaken for Muslims. 

Presenting the findings at the Chaldean Mission in west London on Sunday, Dr Fiona McCallum said it was “very clear” that politicians, local clergy and local NGO workers she interviewed for the project had “very limited” knowledge of the different communities of Middle Eastern Christians living in Britain.

Fr Nadheer Dako, head of the Chaldean Mission, said that Christians in the Middle East wanted those who had moved to Europe “to build a new base for them here”.