Source: Back to Jerusalem, October 9, 2024
“Dude, where are we?” I asked as we bounced around in the back seat; our heads hitting the roof of the car.
“I don’t know.” The cameraman replied, laughing as we desperately tried to find a sign of historical reference.
We were looking for one of the most significant sights in all of China for Christians—China’s oldest church.
The famed church is over a thousand years old and is rumored to have been built by [people from what is Iran today]. Most historians will use the word “Persia.”
The Nestorian church used the Silk Road trading route and sent out more missionaries than almost any other church. These ambitious missionaries were planting churches throughout Central Asia, Tibet, Korea, India, Vietnam, Japan, and China.
Iran sent missionaries out just as the early church sent missionaries to it. One of the twelve disciples, Simon the Zealot, is said to have made his way there and was martyred by being sawed in half in Suanir, Iran.
Two monasteries in the northern part of Iran, Saint Thaddeus and Saint Stephanos Monasteries, are said to be related to the history of the apostles Jude and Bartholomew bringing the gospel to Iran. Thomas, also known as doubting Thomas, is thought to have made contact with the Iranian church and obtained the support he needed to continue all the way to India. The ancient trade routes between China and Iran would have played a key role for these early missionaries.
Interestingly, the oldest surviving church in Iran was rebuilt by the Chinese!
Read more in Eugene Bach’s The Day I Learned the First Missionaries to China Were from Iran. It’s part history lesson, part travelogue.
Other recent news from Back to Jerusalem includes a reflection on the influence of the Moravian movement, how to travel to China visa-free (?), and how China is partnering with North Korea to persecute Christians.