Christian Churches in the Persian Gulf

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As of March 2009, there are still no Christian churches in Saudi Arabia. However, other countries in the Persian Gulf do allow churches. Here's a picture of Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church in Qatar. It opened in 2008 minus a cross, bells and a steeple.


A July 19, 2008 Newsweek article discusses the booming Christian population in the Persian Gulf thanks to foreign workers.

Foreign laborers now represent 35 percent of Bahrain's inhabitants. The number is 60 percent in Kuwait and 80 percent in the United Arab Emirates, and almost half of the 35 million people on the Arabian Peninsula are now foreign-born. A large proportion of them hail from Christian areas such as the Philippines and southern India.

A Christian Church in Saudi Arabia may not be in the near future, but the three monotheistic traditions are at least talking to each other.

From the Newsweek article:

Earlier this month King Abdullah took the unprecedented step of hosting a major interfaith meeting in Madrid with senior figures from Islam, Christianity and Judaism. This followed his own meeting with the pope last year in Rome and modest improvements in domestic religious tolerance.

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