SW News: In Iraq, the Endowment Office of Minority Faith Communities' Department of Christian Affairs has established a computerized "database" to collect statistical data on Christians. This information is being collected for the purpose of promoting and facilitating the feasibility study of government-allocated investment and service projects to support indigenous Christian communities.

The Department of Christian Affairs has created and is circulating an online form to gather statistical data from non-Muslim organizations in the nation. It considers where they live, their degree of education, their employment, the number of family members, their vocations, and the quality of their dwelling among several factors.

The Department of Christian Affairs has contacted leaders of Christian denominations in Iraq, urging them to spread the news about the online poll, which may be found on the Department's website. Due to the voluntary nature of each citizen's involvement in the online form, the data received cannot be used as an official census of Christian organizations in Iraq.

The online poll is a flexible tool since its creators want it to be a live record that can follow changes in the number and location of Christian communities around the nation, as well as their economic and social status. The government hopes to formulate policies and programs for the betterment of Christians based on information gleaned from this database.

Christians in Iraq have existed longer than most other Christian groups in the world. The great majority of Iraq's Christians are native Eastern Aramaic speakers with Assyrian origins who profess Syriac Christianity. They are spread across both the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syriac Christian Church. A small number of them also belong to the Latin Church.