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Christianity came to North Africa in the Roman era. According to historian Theodore Mommsen what is now Mediterranean Algeria was fully Christian by the fifth century. Berber Christian of Algeria was Saint'Augustine (and his mother Saint Monica), one of the most important saints of Roman Catholicism. Its influence declined during the chaotic period of the Vandal invasions but was strengthened in the succeeding Byzantine period, only to disappear gradually after the Arab invasions of the 7th century.〔Deeb, Mary Jane. "Religious minorities" ''Algeria (Country Study)''. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress; Helen Chapan Metz, ed. December 1993. ''This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.()〕 North Africa is primarily Muslim: Islam is the state religion of Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. While the practice and expression of other faiths is guaranteed by law, the same legal framework tends to restrict them insofar as overt proselytising is concerned. Converts to Christianity may be investigated and searched by the authorities.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=2011-01-03 )〕 Although the current number of Christians in North Africa is low, churches built during the French and to a lesser extent Italian rule can still be found. There is some evidence that there has been an increase in conversions to Christianity among North African Muslims in recent years. The total number of Christians remains very low relative to the populations of those countries. The percentage of Christians in Algeria is less than 2% (2009). In 2009, the UNO counted 45,000 Roman Catholics and 50,000 to 100,000 Protestants in the country. A 2015 study estimates 380,000 Muslims converted to Chrisitanity in Algeria.〔(Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census )〕 Conversions to Christianity have been most common in Kabylie, especially in the wilaya of Tizi-Ouzou.〔 * (Sadek Lekdja, ''Christianity in Kabylie'', Radio France Internationale, 7 mai 2001 )〕 In that wilaya, the proportion of Christians has been estimated to be between 1% and 5%. Christians have at times been subjected to religiously-motivated attacks. In 1996, Mgr Pierre Claverie, bishop of Oran, was assassinated by terrorists. This murder occurred soon after that of seven monks of the Trappistes of Tibérine, and of six nuns. During that era, commonly known as the black decade, between 100,000 and 200,000 Algerians lost their lives. ==Indigenous Christianity after the Arab conquest == The conventional historical view is that the conquest of North Africa by the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate between AD 647 and 709 effectively ended Christianity in Africa for several centuries.〔http://www.bethel.edu/~letnie/AfricanChristianity/WesternNorthAfricaHomepage.html〕 The prevailing view is that the Church at that time lacked the backbone of a monastic tradition and was still suffering from the aftermath of heresies including the so-called Donatist heresy, and this contributed to the earlier obliteration of the Church in the present day Tamazgha.〔The Disappearance of Christianity from North Africa in the Wake of the Rise of Islam C. J. Speel, II Church History, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Dec., 1960), pp. 379-397〕 Some historians contrast this with the strong monastic tradition in Coptic Egypt, which is credited as a factor that allowed the Coptic Church to remain the majority faith in that country until around after the 14th century AD. However, new scholarship has appeared that disputes this. There are reports that the Christian faith persisted in the region from Tripolitania (present-day western Libya) to present-day Morocco for several centuries after the completion of the Arab conquest by 700 AD. A Christian community is recorded in 1114 in Qal'a in central Algeria. There is also evidence of religious pilgrimages after 850 AD to tombs of Christian saints outside of the city of Carthage, and evidence of religious contacts with Christians of Muslim Spain. In addition, calendar reforms adopted in Europe at this time were disseminated amongst the indigenous Christians of Tunis, which would have not been possible had there been an absence of contact with Rome. Local Christianity came under pressure when the Muslim fundamentalist regimes of the Almohads and Almoravids came into power, and the record shows demands made that the local Christians of Tunis to convert to Islam. There are reports of Christian inhabitants and a bishop in the city of Kairouan around 1150 AD - a significant report, since this city was founded by Arab Muslims around 680 AD as their administrative center after their conquest. A letter in Catholic Church archives from the 14th century shows that there were still four bishoprics left in North Africa, admittedly a sharp decline from the over four hundred bishoprics in existence at the time of the Arab conquest.〔http://www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/maghreb.htm〕 Berber Christians continued to live in Tunis and Nefzaoua in the south of Tunisia up until the early 15th century, and the first quarter of the 15th century, the native Christians of Tunis, though much assimilated, extended their church, perhaps because the last Christians from all over the Maghreb had gathered there.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Christianity in Algeria」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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