I was browsing the shelves of my local library when I came across Yan Sen-Fu’s book about Nestorian Christianity in China. Talk about a find!  It was awesome. 🙂

Nestorianism is a fairly unknown branch of Christianity – at least in the West. They broke off from mainline Christianity in 431 A.D. when the First Council of Ephesus declared the teachings of Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople, about the nature of Jesus to be heretical (ie. did Jesus have one or two natures?). As a result, the followers of Nestorius turned eastward to Persia, India and China.

Before I go on, I think it is worth noting that I don’t think the teachings of Nestorius where really “heretical”. I think it was mostly a political move by the other bishops to gain control over the church as the Coptic Church was “kicked” out in a similar move in 451 AD. But, that is just my view. 😉

Back to Yang Sen-Fu’s book – It was originally written in Chinese and was translated into English by Dr. Herbert Hatcher in 2007. As a result, the book was a tad hard to understand as the wording didn’t always work out… but the essence of the book translated well.

In a nutshell, Sen-Fu shows Christian could have entered China as early as the first century AD via the Apostle Thomas and/or Bartholomew. I say “could have” as there is no proof of this – just legend.

However, it is know that a Jewish colony was started in China around 70 AD. Seeing that Christianity was part of Judaism at that time, it is possible that Christianity did indeed reach China in the First Century.

Little is known between the First Century and the Seventh Century. Yet, some how the Nestorians entered China before 600 AD as they experienced a “Golden Age” between around that time – ending in the 700’s as the Chinese Emperor begin to cast out all foreign religions, including Islam, Buddhistism, and Zoroastrianism.

Yet Marco Polo came to China in the late 1200’s, he found Nestorian churches in eleven major Chinese cities. Some how Christianity survived – well, I guess, it would be better to say that God protected His faith.

As you can see, this was a very interesting book about the spread of Christianity in the East. =)