The Church Missionary Society in the Middle East and North Africa, operated through branch organisations, such as the Mediterranean Mission (for countries bordering on the Mediterranean), with the mission extending to Palestine (Jerusalem, Gaza, Jaffa, Nazareth, Nablus and Transjordan), Iran (Persia), Iraq, Egypt, Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and the Sudan.

The CMS made an important contribution to the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East.

[2] Following the Crimean War (1853-1856) the Sultan of Turkey was forced to issue a decree to secure religious liberty throughout the Ottoman Empire.

[3] However, the continued opposition by the Turkish authorities to evangelism resulted in the failure of the mission, which closed in 1877.

The CMS concentrated the Mediterranean Mission on the Coptic Church and in 1830 to its daughter Ethiopian Church, which included the creation of a translation of the Bible in Amharic at the instigation of William Jowett, as well as the posting of two missionaries to Ethiopia (Abyssinia), Samuel Gobat (later the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem)[4] and Christian Kugler arrived in that country in 1827.

[2] The CMS sent missionaries to Palestine (Jerusalem, Gaza, Jaffa, Nazareth, Nablus and Transjordan), which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.

The Revd Frederick Augustus Klein arrived in Nazareth in 1851 where he lived for 5–6 years, then he moved to Jerusalem until 1877.

Klein discovered the Moabite Stone, and assisted with the translation of the Book of Common Prayer into Arabic.

[11] The CMS established hospitals at Gaza, Jaffa, Nablus, Acre, Salt and Karak,[12] and an orphanage at Nazareth.

He reached Shiraz,[16] then he travelled to Tabriz to attempt to present the Shah with his Persian translation of the New Testament.

[2] Llewellyn Gwynne, Archibald Shaw and Dr Frank Harpur established mission stations in North Sudan at Omdurman (1899) and Khartoum (1900).

At the request of the government the CMS established schools in the Nuba Mountains at Salara (1935) and Katcha in (1939).