Quora Answer: What is a Levantine Christian?

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What is a Levantine Christian?” 

The Levant is a geographic region pertaining to Lebanon, Palestine, Cyprus, Syria and parts of Iraq, the Egyptian Sinai and parts of Turkey.  Historically, this was the region that the Crusader states existed. 

Levantine Christians are Latin Christians, primarily of Roman Catholic affiliation, who are descendants of the Crusaders.  They are distinct from the originally native Christians of the area in that they follow the Latin Rite, and do not have the same theology or even Bible as many of the Christians of the Muslim lands, mainly of Syrio-Orthodox, Monophysite, Nestorian or other churches driven to extinction in the West by the Catholic Church itself.  Many Latin Christians are of Frankish, Norman, Genoese or Venetian descent.  However, they later interbred with the local population and distinctions are less pronounced.



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