Christianity in Pakistan

Christianity is the third largest religion in Pakistan, making up about 1.27% of the population according to the 2017 Census. Of these, approximately half are Catholic and half Protestant (primarily Anglican and Presbyterian). A small number of Eastern Orthodox Christians, and Oriental Orthodox Christians also live in Pakistan. Around 75 percent of Pakistan's Christians are rural Punjabi Christians, while some speak Sindhi and Gujarati, with the remainder being the upper and middle class Goan Christians and Anglo-Indians. As Punjabi Christians are mainly Dalit Christians—descendants of lower-caste Hindus who converted during the colonial era in India—their dire socio-economic conditions facilitate religious discrimination; for example, it is estimated that Christians fill about 80% of the manual sewer cleaning jobs in the whole of Pakistan. Thomas the Apostle is credited with the arrival of Christianity to the Indian subcontinent, establishing the community of Saint Thomas Christians on the Malabar Coast; Saint Thomas Christian crosses (Mar Thoma Sleeva) have been found all over the Indian subcontinent, including one near the city of Taxila in what is now Pakistan. In 1745, the Bettiah Christians, the northern Indian subcontinent's oldest surviving Christian community, was established by the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin under the patronage of King Dhurup Singh; the Hindustan Prefecture was raised in 1769 at Patna and later shifted to Agra, which was elevated to the status of a Vicariate in 1820. The Capuchins, through their Agra Diocese and Allahabad Diocese, expanded their ministry and established in the 1800s Catholic churches in colonial India's northern provinces including Rajasthan, UP, CP, Bihar and Punjab, the latter of which now includes Pakistan. In 1877, on Saint Thomas' Day at Westminster Abbey, London, Rev. Thomas Valpy French was appointed the first Anglican Bishop of Lahore, a large diocese of the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon, which included all of the Punjab, then under British rule in colonial India, and remained so until 1887; during this period he also opened the Divinity College, Lahore in 1870.