Additionally I was privileged to speak on behalf of our department on the topic “A Silk Road Legacy: Freedom of Trade & Freedom”, at the June conference Central Asia and the Great Silk Road: Dialogue of Cultures and Confessions Religion. This conference was organized and sponsored by UNESCO, the Kazakhstan Ministry of Culture, and the International Center for the Rapproachment of Cultures. So the question arises: just how significant was the Nestorian Christian history of Kazakhstan and Central Asia? To attempt to answer this question, I’d like to offer a brief overview of the spread of Christianity into what is today Kazakhstan and other Central Asian territories.
Known in western academies as Eastern Syriac Christianity and the Church of the East, Russian and Chinese academies refer to this field as Nestorian Christianity, named after the 5th century Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople. Indeed there was extraordinary Christian advancement along the Silk Road from the earliest days of the Church. The Apostles Thaddaeus and Bartholomew brought the gospel to what is today Armenia between 40-60 AD. Just over two centuries later Armenia would become the first Christian nation in 301. Simon and Andrew brought the gospel to what is today Georgia, also in the first century. Sources record that Thomas baptized the Indo-Parthian King Gondophares in modern-day Iran, before bringing the gospel to India as well.
As far as the earliest sources describing Christianity in Central Asia, 196 Bardaisan writes of Christians amongst the Parthians, Bactrians (Kushans) and other peoples in the Persian Empire. A tradition, later verified in the Syriac Didascalia Apostolorum (Doctrine of the Apostles) c. 225-250, told of the evangelism of Gilanians in the Caspian Sea area in 120-140 AD.
In 220 AD, Tertullian wrote of the existence of several bishops overseeing churches in Persian territory. In 334 AD, the first bishop was consecrated for the city of Merv (modern Mari, Turkmenistan). In 424, bishops were appointed to oversee churches in Herat (modern Afghanistan) as well as Samarkand (Uzbekistan). In 549 a bishop was appointed for the Hephthalites (also known as the White Huns and later Avars).
Because of the extensive development of the Church in the region of Merv, an archbishop was appointed in 554 AD. In 780 AD, the Eastern Church Patriarchate Timothy I, baptized the Karluk king, whose seat was in their capital city Talas - modern day Taraz, Kazakhstan. This was followed by mass conversions of Karluks, recorded in 781-782 AD. The Karluks are the fathers of what is today the Uzbek and Uighur peoples.
Later in 1007, the King of the Keraites was baptized. The Keraites are one of the main tribes which comprise today’s Kazakh people group. In his book written in the 13th century, William of Rubruck records that there were 200,000 baptized Keraites Christians. In fact, of the two dozen Turko-Mongol tribes which Genghis Khan united in 1206 to form the Mongolian Empire, at least seven of them were Nestorian Christian.
To give some perspective to the extent of Nestorian development, Philip Jenkins in his book The Lost History of Christianity, notes that in 8th century – before Christianity was accepted in German, Dutch, and Russian territories – the Eastern Church patriarch Timothy already presided over 19 metropolitan sees (regional archbishops) which oversaw eighty five bishops along the Silk Road.
Two excavations in the summer of 2016 and 2017, conducted by the Kazakhstan Archeological Institute in partnership with the Tandy Archeological Institute of Texas, yielded several Nestorian gravestones in the ancient city Ilibalik in East Kazakhstan. These successful excavations led to the creation of the Department of Nestorian Studies by the Archeological Institute of the Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences.
In his address to the Nur Otan Party in 2015, President Nursultan Nazarbayev affirmed Kazakhstan’s policy recognizing the important role religion plays in the affairs of a nation when he stated: “We are entering a period of our development, when spiritual development is no less important than economic and material interests.” This vision is expressed as well in the new program Course Ahead: Spiritual Renewal. In discussions on economic development, particularly as it relates to the One Belt One Road project, Kazakhstan understands the significant role religions of the Silk Road played in trade and commerce.
The Department for Nestorian Studies was created to investigate the Nestorian aspect of this history, and is a positive step to facilitate the investigation of the role Nestorianism played in the territories of what is to today Kazakhstan and other Central Asian nations. As Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev succinctly stated: “We need to look into the past in order to understand the present and foresee the future.”
The primary goal of the Department of Nestorian Studies is to create infrastructure which will facilitate the research and development of the Nestorian history of Kazakhstan and Central Asia, recruit the top experts in the field as well as promising young Kazakhstan students, and creating the best possible atmosphere for them to conduct research and publish findings.
We welcome departments from universities and schools, as well as other groups, which may wish to collaborate in research efforts. We are very interested in exploring opportunities for partnerships in archeological excavations, research and development. Please contact us if you would like to get involved.
Some Images from the summer digs:
