Vanished Churches

FRANK E. KEAYFrank E. Keay was ordained a clergyman of the Church of England in 1908. He went to India that same year under the Church Missionary Society and was stationed at Jubbulpore as Principal of the Mission High School until 1922. He served in India intermittently until 1957. He holds the B.A., M.A., and D. Litt. degrees from London University.

The history of Christianity’s great expansion in early days and of the subsequent disappearance of the Church in Asia and in other areas has much to teach us in these days. But to most Christians it is not known. Few Christian people pay much attention to Church history.

Tradition has it that some of the apostles carried the Gospel to Eastern lands. In the Acts of the Apostles we read that Christians who left their homes because of persecution “went everywhere preaching the Word.” It is probable that persecution drove many of them out of the Roman Empire and into the East.

Just when Christianity first came to Persia (Iran) is uncertain; but what was called the Church of the East centered there and spread all over Asia. Later it was called (by nonmembers) the Nestorian Church, for it accepted the views of Nestorius, who was condemned by the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431. The Church of the East was certainly very active in spreading the Gospel.

Edessa, with its theological school, in northern Mesopotamia was the center of Christianity in the early days. During the Decian and Diocletian persecutions Christians left the Roman Empire, and a century and a half later the Nestorians fled into Persia. Here, under Sapor II (A.D. 339 to 379) there was fierce persecution and Christians suffered martyrdom rather than deny Christ. The price that was paid was heavy, but it purged the Church and deepened its spirituality, and led also to the spread of the Gospel to other lands.

Missionaries at this time had to support themselves by trade, as artisans or clerks, with some offering their services as skilled physicians.

By the end of the fifth century the area which the Nestorians had evangelized included Egypt, Syria, Arabia, the Island of Soqotra, Mesopotamia, Persia, Media, Bactria, Hyrcania, Turkestan, India, and Ceylon. Thus, by the seventh century the Church had spread far and wide in Asia, but its internal divisions greatly hindered an effective witness for Christ.

Christianity probably came to China about the early part of the seventh century or before, and spread throughout the land during the period of the T’ang dynasty (A.D. 618 to 906). At first the rulers favored it. However, in 845 persecution began, and the Church greatly diminished by the end of the tenth century. At the beginning of the eleventh century there was a remarkable mass movement towards Christianity among the Kerait Turks north of Mongolia. In the thirteenth century European friars, traveling in Asia, found Christian communities in existence all over East Turkestan and China, and the Mongol ruler of China, Kublai Khan, though not a Christian, was favorable towards them. Under the Ming dynasty Christianity was extirpated from China.

The advent of Islam in the seventh century was a setback to the Christian church. Much of the survival of the church depended on the rulers, and some of them were guilty of persecution. The church went on spreading, however, and became established in places as far away as Mongolia and Siberia, even Burma.

By the end of the thirteenth century Nestorian Christianity was so widely spread over Asia that one writer gives a list of 27 metropolitan sees with 200 bishops that extended over the whole of Asia from the River Tigris to China and from Lake Baikal to Cape Comorin. Today many of these areas are closed to Christian missionaries.

Tradition says it was the Apostle Bartholomew who first brought the Gospel to South Arabia. Churches were built and bishoprics established. In A.D. 523 a fierce persecution broke out. Under this trial the Christians showed great constancy and steadfastness. The Christian king of Ethiopia came to their rescue and a Christian dynasty came into power. The church emerged from the crisis too ready to take revenge on enemies—an indication of spiritual deterioration. In 570 Muhammad was born, and after his advent to power Christianity rapidly declined in Arabia. For 1,300 years the greater part of Arabia has been a land closed to the Christian Gospel.

We may mention here two other areas where there had been a Christian church that later vanished. In the Island of Soqotra the people were once Christians. But at some time Islam came in and today Soqotra is solidly Muslim.

In the north of Eritrea the Ethiopian church became decadent, ignorant of the truths of the Gospel, and superstitious. Then Muslim missionaries came in, and the Christians in that area all became Muslims. Today Christian missionaries are facing the uphill task of winning them back to the true Christian faith.

In North Africa there was a flourishing church in the early centuries of the Christian era, with great church leaders like Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine. Within 10 years after Muhammad died (A.D. 632), the Muslims had mastered Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, and then swept through North Africa. The church in North Africa, which had survived the previous shock of the Vandal invasions, was obliterated. Today North Africa also is a land of the vanished Church.

The Causes Of Decline

What led to such eclipse of the Christian church in Asia and North Africa?

One reason was the advance of Islam. In many Muslim areas Christians were given religious freedom on the promise that they would not openly propagate their faith and would agree to pay heavy taxes. However, this often resulted in wholesale secession to Islam or emigration.

Most of the ruin to the Christian church was due to the wars of conquest conducted by Mongol rulers. Genghis Khan, who first began his exploits in 1203, and died in 1227, was not a Muslim. In the dominions under his rule he was a good administrator and often favored Christians. But there was ruthless slaughter and destruction in his wars.

Still a greater blow to the Christian church in central and northern Asia was the devastation wrought by Amir Timur (Tamerlane). While still under 30 years of age he became ruler of Transoxiana with his capital at Samarkand. When he started his career of conquest, whole provinces were turned into deserts by the ravages of his troops. In 1390 he invaded Persia and brought about massacres and ruin. This destruction was spread over large areas. Churches and temples were destroyed wherever he went and the Christian church almost vanished from the greater part of Asia.

It was not, however, only the shock of ruthless invasions that brought an end to the church in such vast areas. Whatever may have been its pristine purity and zeal in early days, the church became sadly decadent. Again and again it had survived severe persecution, but in large areas it failed to arise after the heavy blows. Even in some of the areas not affected the church ceased to be, or fell away from the high ideals of earlier days and became ignorant and full of error and superstition. Many factors, including lack of real spiritual life and formal ecclesiasticism, resulted in its inability to stand up to the assaults made upon it.

In many areas of our world, missionaries do not seem to have given to the people the Scriptures in their own language. Services have often been held in a foreign language. Existing remnants of the Nestorian and Jacobite churches still use liturgies in Syriac.

Then in many cases churches relied too heavily on foreign missionaries. For example, of the 75 names of presbyters mentioned on the Nestorian monument in China, there are hardly any Chinese names.

In countries where Christians, with no sound biblical knowledge, came in contact with Buddhism, they let their doctrines become infiltrated with Buddhist ideas. Similar disintegrating influence occurred with Islam. For instance, Muslims do not believe that Christ was crucified because God would not have allowed his prophet to be so treated. Its rapid spread seems proof to Islam of its divine origin, for the Muslim accepts success as a main criterion of truth. There was also the tendency among Christians to rely on the favor of rulers.

Serious divisions within the Christian church also caused its weakness; often there were squabbles in the same church over the election of leaders.

We may observe then that where spiritual life has been weakened there has been a lowering of scriptural standards, and the church has become a prey to corrupting influence and therefore cannot stand up to persecution. Where people are not grounded in the teaching of the Bible, and where their Christianity becomes only a nominal adherence to a creed, they are easily overcome by carnal motives and become open to influences that draw them away from loyalty to Christ.

What lessons can Christians learn from all this? First, it must be said that we need to beware of a shallow optimism about the church. In many lands it is passing through a time of severe testing. Persecution in Communist countries is ruthless and subtle. It is well known that Communism is out to destroy faith in God. Young people are being indoctrinated in atheism, and there is an unending pressure on Christians to put loyalty to a Communist state above loyalty to Jesus Christ. Islam also is advancing in many areas, and even Hinduism is seeking to win back to its fold weak and uninstructed Christians.

Do we realize our responsibility to pray for these Christian brothers and sisters in lands where they are subject to pressure? The church in vast areas was obliterated in years gone by. We must face this as a real danger today.

There is urgent need in all lands for the Christian church to be established in God’s Word. Christian communities must be built up to meet the onslaughts of Communism and other ideologies. A mere nominal Christianity can never withstand the attacks that are being made against it.

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