page_title: Christianity in Afghanistan
section_title: The Apostle Thomas and early Christianity
hierarchical_section_title: Christianity in Afghanistan / History / The Apostle Thomas and early Christianity
caption_attribution_description: Coin of Gondophares. Personal coin. Personal photograph 2007.
context_page_description: Christians have historically had a small community in Afghanistan; there are currently no reliable estimates of its population. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan does not recognize any Afghan citizen as being Christian, except many expatriates. Afghan citizens are not legally permitted to convert to Christianity; although there are no explicit laws that forbid evangelizing by non-Muslims, many authorities and most of society view its toleration as contrary to the practice of Islam. There is only one legally recognized Christian church building in Afghanistan, the Catholic chapel at the Italian Embassy which has been operational since the 1930s.
  Rula Ghani, the country's First Lady since 2014, is a Maronite Christian from Lebanon.
context_section_description: According to the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:9) in the Bible ethnic Jews and converts to Judaism from the Parthian Empire (which included parts of western Afghanistan) were present at Pentecost. According to Eusebius' record, the apostles Thomas and Bartholomew were assigned to Parthia.
  Legend based on the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas and other ancient documents suggests that Saint Thomas preached in Bactria, which is today northern Afghanistan. An early third-century Syriac work known as the Acts of Thomas connects the apostle's ministry with two kings, one in the north and the other in the south. According to the Acts, Thomas was at first reluctant to accept this mission, but the Lord appeared to him in a night vision and compelled him to accompany an Indian merchant, Abbanes (or Habban), to his native place in northwest India. There, Thomas found himself in the service of the Indo-Parthian (Southern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Northern India) King, Gondophares. The Apostle's ministry resulted in many conversions throughout the kingdom, including the king and his brother.
  Bardaisan, writing in about 196, speaks of Christians throughout Media, Parthia and Bactria and, according to Tertullian (c.160–230), there were already a number of bishoprics within the Persian Empire by 220. By the time of the establishment of the Second Persian Empire (AD 226), there were bishops of the Church of the East in northwest India, Afghanistan and Baluchistan, with laymen and clergy alike engaging in missionary activity.
caption: According to tradition, the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares was proselytized by the Apostle Thomas, who continued on to southern India, and possibly as far as Malaysia or China.
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