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O'zbekiston Bibliya Jamiyati Bible Society of Uzbekistan

The Christian Children's Camp of The Baptist Union

Early Asian Christianity. The story of Christianity in the West has often been told, but the history of Christianity in the East is not as well known. The seed was the same: the good news of Jesus Christ for the whole world, which Christians call "the gospel." But it was sown by different sowers; it was planted in different soil; it grew with a different flavor; and it was gathered by different reapers. But it is generally known that the Church began in Asia. Its earliest history, its first centers were Asian. Asia produced the first known church building, the first New Testament translation, perhaps the first Christian king, the first Christian poets, and even arguably the first Christian state. Asian Christian endured the greatest persecutions. They mounted global ventures in missionary expansion the West could not match until after the thirteenth century. By the Nestorian church (as most of the early Asian Christian communities came to be called) exercised ecclesiastical authority over more of the earth than either Rome or Constantinople. One reason, of course, for the neglect of the Asian dimension in church history is the comparative paucity of available source materials on the Eastern roots of Christianity outside the Roman Empire. The surviving documents are too slender a base to support some of the bold and contradictory statements made about these earliest Christians of the East. One historian, for example, calls the Nestorian the greatest missionaries the world has ever seen. Another dismisses them as "passionless" Christians embarrassingly obsequious to the politically powerful. The same kinds of contradictions persist in theological arguments about early Asian Christianity. To some Nestorians are heretics, condemned by the ecumenical councils. To others they are ancient and apostolic Asian Christians untainted by the perversions of Western Greek philosophy. And, of course, many have forgotten the Nestorians altogether. Nestorian Church. Nestorian Church, a communion of Eastern Christians, who follow the teachings of Nestorius, archbishop of Constantinople, condemned as a heretic by the Council of Ephesus in 431. Most Nestorians, numbering about 176,700, live in Iraq, Syria, and Iran, where they are generally known as Assyrians. Headed by a patriarch, at present residing in Iraq, they reject the doctrine, defined at Ephesus, that affirms that Jesus Christ is one single divine hypostasis (person), and that consequently his mother, Mary, should be called "Mother of God." Nestorian doctrine, following the teachings of the great exegete Theodore of Mopsuestia, insists on the distinctiveness of divinity and humanity in Jesus, which leads its critics to accuse Nestorians of believing that Christ was two distinct persons-the Son of God and the son of Mary. The Nestorians crystallized into a separate religious body when a large group of them immigrated (489) to Persia to escape persecution within the Roman Empire. The intellectual center of the Persian Nestorians was the school they established at Nisibis, Persia, and under the leadership of the Catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, they also established bishoprics in Arabia and India. Occasionally persecuted by Persian Zoroastrians, they were granted legal protection by Muslims after the Arab conquest (637) of Persia. Between the 7th and the 14th centuries Nestorian communities were established, through an extraordinary missionary effort, in Central Asia, Mongolia, and China. They were later absorbed by Islam. Asian Christianity. The term "Asian Christianity" is open to more than one interpretation. For more clear understanding it is better to use it culturally, not strictly geographically. Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Antioch and Armenia are all geographically in Asia, but politically and to a considerable extent culturally they belonged sooner or later to the West, that is, to the Roman Empire until the Muslim conquest. "Asian Christianity" refers to the churches that grew and spread outside the Roman Empire in ancient oriental kingdoms east of the Euphrates and stretching along the Old Silk Road from Osrhoene through Persia to China or along the water routes from the Red Sea around Arabia to India. Before the end of the first century the Christian faith broke out across the border of Rome into "Asian" Asia. Its first roots may have been as far away as India or as near as Edessa in the tiny semi-independent principality of Osrhoene just across the Euphrates. From Edessa, according to tradition, the faith spread to another small kingdom three hundred miles farther east across the Tiger River, the kingdom of Adiabene, with its capital at Arbela, near ancient Nineveh. By the end of second century, missionary expansion had carried the church as far east as Bactria in what is now northern Afganistan, and mass conversions of Huns and Turks in central Asia were reported from the fifth century onward. In Bukhoro region (formerly a vast Persian area in Central Asia) before it was captured (early 8th century) by the Arabs, the process of town formation was very active, ancient settlements surrounding Bukhoro have developed into the towns of Varakhsha, Vardanzi, Ramish (Ramitan), Kermine, Paikend. All these towns had more or less a similar structural pattern: the arks (citadel), the shakhristan - well-planned residential core, necropolis beyond the town limits and the church building. Bukhoro itself also followed this pattern of development. The rectangular of Bukhoro shakhristan was cut into four sections by two crossing main streets which led to gates opening out on four sides of the world. The Christian temple stood at the eastern gate of Bukhara. By the end of the seventh century Persian missionaries had reached the "end of the world", the capital of T'ang-dinasty China. But by then a cloud from the desert, Islam, was about to bring this first period of Asian church history crashing to a close. It was not the end, however. Out of Asia after another six hundred years, came another cloud, a storm of Mongol nomads racing west, destroying all before them and threatening the very center of medieval Christianity in Europe. The Christianity return into Central Asia. The term Central Asia is sometimes used to denote the inclusion of adjacent portions of China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Himalayan lands. But, arguably , more commonly Central Asia a designation for a region of western Central Asia extending from the Caspian Sea on the west to China on the east; the southern boundary is formed by Iran and Afghanistan. The northern boundary is less clearly defined. One interpretation placed it at the southern border of the Kazakhstan, while another placed it at the northern border of the Kazakh Republik. Still other interpretations placed the boundary somewhere between the two extremes. Administratively, during the Soviet period, the region comprised the following SSR's: Tadzhik (also spelled Tajik), Turkmen, Uzbek, and Kirghiz (also spelled Kyrgyz), and portions of the Kazakh SSR, the size of which depended on the placement of the northern boundary. Russian domination of the area dates from the second half of the 19th century, before which much of the territory was ruled by the khanates of Bukhoro, Khiva, and Kokand. The Christianity has come back to this region in form of Russian Orthodox Church simultaneously with Russian domination. The influence of this church as a rule did not overstep the limits of Russian colonial community. But by the end of the eighteenth century other movements already existed in the religious life of Russia. Those movements were able to play more important role in Christianity dissemination. Molokans, Baptist, Mennonites in Central Asia and Uzbekistan. The Molokans were followers of Russian national form of Protestantism. They have rejected the formalities of Russian Orthodox Church, but they did not have a clear Evangelical doctrine. Therefore when the Baptist movement had gained ground in Russia, most Molokans became Baptists. By 20th century the most of Baptist Churches in Russian empire half consisted of former Molokans. Many colonists who have migrated to Central Asia were Molokans or Baptists. The Molokans were skilled farmers. In nineteenth century their settlements existed all over the Central Asia right up to the border with Iran in actual Turkmenistan at the present time. Besides new opportunities the resettlers were looking for more freedom in religious life. The third component of the Evangelical Christianity in Central Asia became the Mennonites. They were German resettlers, who left homeland and then also their settlements in Russia for Mennonites wished to escape military service both in Germany and in Russian army. The first Uzbekistan Baptist congregations. The first Baptist congregations in Uzbekistan have been started at the close of the nineteenth century at small towns near to Tashkent (Gazalkent, Karabog, Iskander) where the population were mostly consisted of the colonists from Russia. The extant Gazalkent Baptist congregation is oldest in Uzbekistan. The oldest Tashkent Baptist congregation has been started in 1905 from the group of the military. To our time, this congregation is the largest in Uzbekistan (about 600 members). Uzbekistan Baptist, Evangelical Christianity under the soviet regime. The soviet regime harassed the Baptist (as well as other Evangelical Christianity denominations) sore and showed them little mercy. Since 1932 till 1944 the Baptist churches activity was possible only in form of secrecy. Even being officially allowed Evangelical Christianity was always persecuted by soviet authorities. Baptist Union in Uzbekistan. The Baptist Union had been set up in Uzbekistan in 1925. Today the Baptist Union in Uzbekistan unifies near 30 congregations throughout the country that consist of near 1800 believers. The cited sources: Samuel Maffett, A History of Christianity in Asia. L. Mankovskaya, Bukhara. From the history of the city. Rev. John Meyendorff, Nestorian Church.

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