Patrick Comerford
My brief and furtive passages through Muscat Airport early on Friday morning and two weeks earlier left me with no time to consider the long history of the Christian presence in Oman. But in sleepless bouts brought about by jet lag in the last two days, I have been catching up on some of the stories, form Biblical times to a late 19th century Anglican missionary bishop, Oman’s role in advancing Christian-Muslim dialogue and peace-making in the Gulf region and Middle East, and the emergence of a new Anglican church in Muscat.
Christian churches in Oman are mainly found in the Muscat area, Sohar, and Salalah, meeting the needs of a large expatriate population. The major denominations include Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and various Protestant and evangelical groups.
Islam is the official state religion, and Article 28 of the constitution limits freedom of religious practices to the boundaries of Islamic law and proselytising in public is forbidden. Instruction in Islam is compulsory in public schools, but people who are legally non-Muslims are exempted from this.
Christianity is the religion of 3.63% of the population of Oman, with about 90 Christian congregations. Almost all Christians there are from other countries, including the Philippines, India and some Western countries.
Oman can claim to be one of the Biblical lands: Job’s tomb is claimed to be in Oman, although it is one of three places that claim to be his burial place; the Queen of Sheba, who brought spices to King Solomon (see I Kings 10), held territories in what is now south Oman; and the gifts brough to the Christ Child by the Magi may have been from the region, such as frankincense and myrrh found in the Dhofar. Later, it is said, the Apostle Thomas brought Christianity to the shores of Oman on his way to India.
The Chronicle of Arbela, which may date from the mid-sixth century, tells of a diocese at Bet Mazunaye, an area that included Oman. The Bishop of Sohar or Beit Mazunayeh attended synods in the years 424, 544, 576 and 676 CE.
There are few official records of Christianity in Oman from that time until the arrival of the Portuguese in 1504. Portugal occupied from 1507 to 1650 and the ruins of what is thought to have been a church have been found in Suhar.
The Roman Catholic Vicariate, the Anglican Church, the Protestant Church of Oman, and the al Amana Centre are among the recognised religious bodies in Oman, and there is a Christian cemetery in Muscat.
Roman Catholics, who number 138,000 in Oman, make up almost 70% of all Christians in the sultanate. They are part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Soth Arabia, with four parishes in Oman – Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church and Holy Spirit Church in Muscat, Saint Anthony’s Church, Sohar, and Saint Francis Xavier Church, Salalah. Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church in Ruwi, the oldest Catholic church is in Muscat, was built in 1977. Most Catholics in Oman are from India and the Philippines, as well as some from Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
Eastern Orthodox Christians in Oman are part of the Archdiocese of Baghdad, Kuwait and Dependencies and of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch. There are 24,000 Orthodox Christians in Oman, accounting for 12.5 per cent of Christians in the country The first Orthodox church in Oman, Saint Constantine and Saint Helen, was built in Muscat in 2019.
For Anglicans, Oman is part of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf in the Anglican or Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East. The Anglican presence in Oman dates back to Bishop Thomas Valpy French (1825-1891), who became the first Bishop of Lahore in 1877, and who moved to Muscat in 1891 shortly before he died.
Thomas Valpy French was born in the Abbey, Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, on 1 January 1825, a son of the Revd Peter French, Vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Burton upon Trent, for 47 years, and was educated at University College, Oxford (BA 1846, MA 1849; Fellow 1848-1853)
French joined the Church Mission Society (CMS) in 1850 and was sent to Agra in India, where he founded Saint John’s College. French learnt seven languages, including Hindustani, Punjabi, Urdu, Persian, Pashto and Arabic, and moved to the Punjab in 1861, but ill-health forced him to return for England in 1862. He was consecrated the first Bishop of Lahore in 1877 and remained there until 1887. He founded the Lahore Divinity College, supervised the translation of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Hindustani and Pashto, and visited Kashmir and Iran before returning to England in 1887, once again due to ill health.
French insisted all must be equally welcome and respected within a house of worship, with no differences defined by race ot station, or between individuals in ‘a House of Prayer for all people.’ French arrived in Muscat on his final missionary journey on 8 February 1891 and was the first missionary to visit the region. He had just started setting up his work there when his health started failing. He was cared for by Portuguese Catholic missionaries until he died on 14 May 1891 in Muscat, and he was buried in a Christian cemetery.
Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury has described French as a personal hero. He has said that while French ‘seems to have made no converts’ during his final years in the Middle East, he was not there primarily to make converts but out of ‘the desire to be where Jesus was … to be in the company of Jesus Christ.’
Two years after French’s death, missionaries from the New Jersey-based Arabian Mission opened a mission station in Muscat in November 1893. Peter Zwemer (1868-1898), a younger brother of Samuel Marinus Zwemer (1867-1952), one of the founders of the Arabian Mission, arrived in Muscat in 1893 and died in 1898.
The mission set up schools, medical facilities with missionary doctors and a printing press in Muscat. For much of its history the primary focus of the mission was the Arabic church, but with the advent of oil the English-language congregation become the main focus.
The Protestant Church in Oman was supported by the Reformed Church in America and became a partnership between the RCA and the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, with both traditions appointing pastors and supporting what has become a multidenominational, multicultural and multinational church.
The PCO that has provided an umbrella group for a number of churches and traditions, with two campuses in Muscat, Ruwi and Ghala, and one in Salalah in the south and Sohar in the north. There are English, Arabic, Tagalog (Filipino) and Korean congregations. The PCO also oversees or sponsors more than 60 congregations in Ruwi and Ghala, and 21 denominations in Oman all come under its umbrella.
Al Amana Centre is one of the few Christian-led organisations in the Muslim-majority world working toward sustainable peace. It has been cultivating dialogue and deep understanding in Oman for over130 years. The centre’s roots are in the work of the Reformed Church in America and it works to foster peace and deeper mutual understanding between all people of faith.
Prince Charles (now King Charles III) was a guest at a service in Bait al Noor church (House of Light) in Ruwi, Muscat, in 2016 to mark the 125th anniversary of the final missionary journey of Bishop Thomas Valpy French. Recent Anglican clergy in Oman have included Alan Gates (1978-1980), John Hall (1980-1982), Daniel Lloyd (1982-1984), Richard Boulter (1984-1986), Ray Skinner (1987-1989), Robert Fieldson (1990-1995), Gerard Storey (1995-1999), John Aldis (2000-2001), Mike Clarkson (2004-2006), Ruth Lichtenberger (2005-2007), Benjamin Chase (2006-2007) and Chris Howitz.
Until the end of January 2023, the Revd Chris Howitz, like Anglican priests in Oman before him, worked under the local auspices of the PCO. The Church of Saint John, Muscat, emerged with reconfiguring the Anglican presence in Oman and an opportunity for a fresh start. The new Church of Saint John was celebrated at the Eucharist on 13 April 2023, attended by Archbishop Michael Lewis and about 100 people, including people who have continued with the PCO, representatives of the RCA and staff of the Al Amana Centre.
Bishop Sean Semple of Cyprus visited Saint John’s Church, Muscat, at the end of last year (13 November 2025 ). He met officials of Oman’s Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs and the PCO and thanked them for the partnerships with the Anglican Church in Muscat.
• The Prayer Diary of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf today (8 March 2026) invites prayers for ‘the Provinces of the whole Anglican Communion, their people, and Primates’ and for ‘St John’s, Muscat, Oman’.
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