Archaeologists discover that Christianity existed along Silk Road long before the Russians arrived.
A team of archaeologists uncovered seven Christian gravestones late this summer in the ancient Silk Road city of Ilyn Balik near the Kazakhstan-China border.
The historic find is rare archaeological evidence that eastern Christianity was established along East-West trading routes hundreds of years ago, not brought in by the Russian Orthodox Church as many had believed.
“This discovery supports the understanding of ancient Kazakhstan as a multicultural center between the East and West with Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians living among the local herdsmen and nomadic tribes,” stated Thomas Davis, a member of the field team and archaeology professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) in Fort Worth, Texas.
“[It] reinforces so much of what we already knew about the church of the East in central and eastern Asia,” said Philip Jenkins, author of The Lost History of Christianity.
“It is strange to think that at the time those places flourished, they might have been on the same scale as the famous Christian cities of Europe,” the Baylor University history professor told CT. “There is nothing new in the world except the history we have forgotten.”
Kazakh evangelicals hailed the discovery. “It proves that Christianity was present here in Kazakhstan before Islam,” said a prominent Kazakh pastor who requested anonymity.
“It is a door opening for evangelism and talking about Jesus,” he told CT. “History tells me what my fathers believed, as we as a nation consider what we should believe. God is going to use this and open doors.”
Much of the contemporary Christian presence in Kazakhstan comes from the Russian Orthodox Church, and there is a ...
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