The earliest Prot mission in Iraq was launched by the London Jews Society in 1820. In 1850 the ABCFM, representing Presb and Congreg, opened a mission station in Mosul. The Church Missionary Society (Anglican) entered in 1882 and was active until World War I. The Arabian Mission of the Ref Church in America (cf. United States no. 36) entered Basra in 1889, initiating work which, during the 1920s, received support from two other American denominations — the Evangelical and Reformed Church, and the United Presbyterian Church in the USA (the church in the northern United States before the reunion in 1983). The United Mission, as it was later called, was joined in 1957 by yet a fourth body, the Presbyterian Church in the USA (the church in the southern USA before the reunion of 1983). Strongly involved in educational work, the United Mission had little success in the evangelistic sphere. The result was basically four separate Evangelical (Presb-Ref) congr in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Basra, and Mosul, all served by Egyptian pastors. There are two Evangelical churches in Baghdad and Mosul, which are independent of each other. The Armenian Evangelical Church is related to the Union of Armenian Evangelical Churches and consists of one small congregation in Baghdad. There have been a variety of other Prot churches in Iraq, with some relative degree of success in the years immediately preceding the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. Those included the Assembly of God, the Basra Assembly, the Evangelical Alliance of Mission, and the Adventists. In 1969 all American missionaries were expelled from the country and their schools nationalized or closed. However, the churches continued to function under national leadership. Iraqhas been largely isolated from the international community since the Gulf War of 1991 and the subsequent sanctions imposed by the United Nations at the instigation of the United States. As a result, contact with the churches has been impossible. Statistics and information about the status of these churches and how well they are functioning are therefore not known.
|
