Christianity along the Silk Road
- When
- 600–1300 AD
- Where
- Persia, India, China
- Kind
- Migration
The Church of the East planted communities as far as Xi'an, where a stele of 781 records its presence, and in Kerala where they survive.
The Church of the East, outside the empire and so unhindered by its politics, followed the trade routes east. A stele erected at Xi'an in 781 records a Christian mission received at the Tang court in 635 and is the plainest surviving evidence of it. There were metropolitans at Merv, Herat and Samarkand, communities in India that long predate any European arrival, and monasteries along the routes through central Asia. Most of it was destroyed by the collapse of the Mongol order and by Timur's campaigns; the Indian church survived, and the Chinese mission left almost nothing but the stone.
Bodies it bears on
Carried it on
Either side of it
The whole timeline, from the apostolic communities to the present.