page_title: Church of the East in China
section_title: Tang era
hierarchical_section_title: Church of the East in China / Tang era
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Wandbilder aus einem christlichen Tempel, Chotscho.Einzelnachweis: http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/LFc-42/V-1/page-hr/0046.html.en English: Nestorian Temple - Palm Sunday (probably), Khocho, Sinkiang, 683-770 AD. Located in Berlin. 日本語: もう一枚はやや大きく幅約70ｃｍ、高さ約63ｃｍ。この壁画の下半分は手に棕櫚の枝を持った一群の信徒が牧師を取り囲む図で、上半分には手に十字架を持った騎士像が描かれていたが、しかし現在は馬蹄部分が残るのみである。ル・コックはこの絵をキリスト教の司祭が洗礼を施している場面だと考えた。しかし羽田亨の考証によれば、この絵はキリスト教の祝日である聖枝祭（Palm Sunday）、すなわち復活祭の前の日曜日であり、ロバに乗ってエルサレムに入場するキリストを人々が迎える場面であるという[12]。もう一人の日本学者吉村大次郎は、この絵にあらわされた左側の大きな人物がキリストで、右側の三人の人物はそれぞれペテロ、ヨハネ、マグダラのマリアであるとした。 中文（繁體）‎: 另一幅殘畫面積稍大，寬約70釐米，高約63釐米。這幅畫的下半部表現一群手持棕櫚枝的信徒簇擁著一位牧師，上半部描繪一個手持十字架的騎士像，但是只有馬蹄部份被揭取下來。勒柯克起初以為，這幅畫表現基督教祭司施洗禮的情景。據羽田亨考證，此畫實際上描寫基督教節日——聖枝節（Palm Sunday），也即復活節前一個星期天，人們歡迎基督騎驢進入耶路撒冷城的場景。另一位日本學者吉村大次郎還指出，此畫左邊較大的人物像是耶穌，右邊三個小人物分別為彼得、約翰和瑪利亞·抹大拉。
context_page_description: The Church of the East or the sometimes referred to as Nestorian Church historically had a presence in China during two periods: first from the 7th through the 10th century, and later during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in the 13th and 14th centuries. Locally, the religion was known as Jingjiao.
  After centuries of latency, the 21st century marked a historical moment between the Assyrian Church of the East and the Church in China, when the Liturgy of Addai and Mari was celebrated.
context_section_description: Two possibly Nestorian (Church of the East) monks were preaching Christianity in India in the 6th century before they smuggled silkworm eggs from China to the Eastern Roman Empire.
  The first recorded Christian mission to China was led by the Syriac monk known in Chinese as Alopen. Alopen's mission arrived in the Chinese capital Chang'an in 635, during the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. Taizong extended official tolerance to the mission and invited the Christians to translate their sacred works for the imperial library. This tolerance was followed by many of Taizong's successors, allowing the Church of the East to thrive in China for over 200 years.
  China became a metropolitan province of the Church of the East, under the name Beth Sinaye, in the first quarter of the 8th century. According to the 14th-century writer ʿAbdishoʿ of Nisibis, the province was established by the patriarch Sliba-zkha (714–28). Arguing from its position in the list of exterior provinces, which implied an 8th-century foundation, and on grounds of general historical probability, ʿAbdishoʿ refuted alternative claims that the province of Beth Sinaye had been founded either by the 5th-century patriarch Ahha (410–14) or the 6th-century patriarch Shila (503–23).
  In 781 the Christian community in Chang'an erected a tablet known as the Nestorian Stele on the grounds of a local monastery. The stele contains a long inscription in Chinese with Syriac glosses, composed by the cleric Adam, probably the metropolitan of Beth Sinaye. The inscription describes the eventful progress of the Nestorian (Church of the East) mission in China since Alopen's arrival. The inscription also mentions the archdeacons Gigoi of Khumdan [Chang'an] and Gabriel of Sarag [Lo-yang]; Yazdbuzid, 'priest and country-bishop of Khumdan'; Sargis, 'priest and country-bishop'; and the bishop Yohannan. These references confirm that the Church of the East in China had a well-developed hierarchy at the end of the 8th century, with bishops in both northern capitals, and there were probably other dioceses besides Chang'an and Lo-yang.
  It is unlikely that there were many Christian communities in central China, and the only inland Chinese city south of the Yellow River where a Nestorian presence can be confirmed in the Tang dynasty is Chengdu. And two monasteries have been located in Chengdu and Omei Shan, both in Sichuan. Shortly afterwards Thomas of Marga mentions the monk David of Beth ʿAbe, who was metropolitan of Beth Sinaye during the reign of Timothy I (780–823). Timothy I is said also to have consecrated a metropolitan for Tibet (Beth Tuptaye), a province not again mentioned.
  The province of Beth Sinaye is last mentioned in 987 by the Arab writer Ibn al-Nadim, who met a Nestorian monk who had recently returned from China, who informed him that 'Christianity was just extinct in China; the native Christians had perished in one way or another; the church which they had used had been destroyed; and there was only one Christian left in the land'. The collapse of the Church of the East in China coincided with the fall of the Tang Dynasty, which led to a tumultuous era (the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period).
  Dozens of Jingjiao texts were translated from Syriac into Chinese. Only a few have survived. These are generally referred to as the Chinese Jingjiao Documents. One of the surviving texts, the Zunjing or Book of Praise (尊經), lists about 35 books that had been translated into Chinese. Among these books are some translations of the Scriptures, including the Pentateuch (牟世法王經) - Genesis is known as 渾元經, Psalms (多惠聖王經), the Gospels (阿思瞿利容經), Acts of the Apostles (傳化經) and a collection of the Pauline epistles (寳路法王經). These translations of the Scriptures have not survived. However, three non-scriptural Christian books listed in the Zunjing are among the Jingjiao manuscripts that were discovered in the early 20th century: the Sutra on the Origin of Origins, the Sutra of Ultimate and Mysterious Happiness, and the Hymn of Perfection of the Three Majesties (also called Gloria in Exc
caption: "Nestorian Christians in a procession on Palm Sunday", in a Tang dynasty wall-painting from a Nestorian church in Khocho, China
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