East Syriac Christianity along the Ancient Silk Road: A multi-ethnic Christian history on the Chinese western frontier (AD 386-1392)

Abstract

To resurge a long-forgotten part of Christian history, this thesis examines events that stretch over a millennium in four historical stages with their associated historic landmarks in the regions around the eastern part of the Tian-shan Mountains in the westernmost frontier of China. To facilitate a better understanding of the interaction between Christianity and racial-ethnic identity during the observed periods, this thesis provides a corresponding introduction to the racial-ethnic and religious context of each historical stage and the relevant ruling groups in each era. Just as Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Manichaeism came to the regions along the Silk Road in different ages, so too did missionaries from the East Syriac Church in Persia successfully introduced Christianity, after Zoroastrianism and Buddhism had been established. Christianity achieved indigenisation (contextualisation) among the different racial-ethnic groups and kingdoms before eventually diminishing under Islamic conquest. In the history of the Silk Road, ethnic groups migrated west while religions spread east. Consequently, the identities and selfawareness of people living along the Silk Road mutated in complex ways. The central theoretical argument of this study is that Christianity was a prevalent religion in the regions surrounding the eastern part of the Tian-shan Mountains, not only among the native Indo-Europeans since at least the fifth century, but also among the East Asian Uyghurs after the ninth century. Before the Islamic conquest in the fourteenth century, the two dominant religions in this region had become Christianity and Buddhism. Other minority religions in the regions included Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Daoism. Besides introducing some minor theories, this thesis develops and contributes two major theories to the field of Central Asian ethnic-religious studies: 1. The history of Christianity began as early as the 5th century in the regions surrounding the eastern Tian-shan Mountains, at least four centuries earlier than currently believed by academia. 2. After the Uyghur immigration to the regions in AD 841, Christianity, not Buddhism (as some scholars generally believe), gradually became the dominant religion among the Uyghurs, being Uyghurised until the Islamic conquest in 1392.