Origin to 1405
By the end of the thirteenth century, the Church of the East was the most geographically extensive Christian communion in the world, with roughly two hundred bishoprics stretching from the Mediterranean to India and China. The Central Asian campaigns of the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur across the final decades of the fourteenth century broke it. Nestorian communities across Central Asia, Persia and Mesopotamia were massacred, forcibly converted or scattered; by Timur's own death in 1405, only around seven of the church's former two hundred bishoprics still functioned. Surviving communities regrouped mainly in the mountains of Kurdistan, between the upper reaches of the Tigris, and separately, much further away, along India's Malabar Coast; the once vast, multi-continental communion that had reached Tang China seven centuries earlier never again held anything like its former geographic extent.
Facts
Disputed
Start YearTimur's campaigns against Central Asian and Persian cities and communities ran across roughly two decades rather than a single dated event, intensifying through the 1380s and 1390s; 1380 is used here as a representative starting point for that sustained campaign of destruction, not a single fixed date. The end year given separately, 1405, is fixed independently: Timur's own death, by which point the collapse in the number of functioning Church of the East bishoprics, from roughly two hundred to around seven, was already essentially complete. Dates
End Year1405 CE is the year of Timur's own death, by which point only around seven of the Church of the East's former two hundred bishoprics still functioned, with survivors regrouped mainly in Kurdistan and, separately, on India's Malabar Coast. Learn More
How Timur's Campaigns Nearly Extinguished the Church of the East
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
By the end of the thirteenth century, the Church of the East was the most geographically extensive Christian communion anywhere in the world, with roughly two hundred bishoprics stretching from the Mediterranean to India and China, the same church whose mission had reached the Tang court centuries before. The campaigns of the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur across the final decades of the fourteenth century broke that reach almost entirely.
Timur's armies carried the violence directly to the church's own communities. Nestorian congregations across Central Asia, Persia and Mesopotamia were massacred, forcibly converted or scattered as the campaigns advanced, and by Timur's own death in 1405 only around seven of the church's former two hundred bishoprics still functioned, a collapse of more than nine in every ten.
The communities that survived regrouped in two places far apart from each other: mainly in the mountains of Kurdistan, between the upper reaches of the Tigris, and separately, much further away, along India's Malabar Coast. What this changed for Christianity's spread was the effective end of the Church of the East as a geographically vast communion: the once multi continental church that had carried the faith from Sasanian Persia to Tang China seven centuries earlier never again held anything close to its former extent, surviving only in isolated remnants rather than as the connected network it had been.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Asia directly: "The Central Asian campaigns of the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur across the final decades of the fourteenth century broke it."
This source names China directly: "from the Mediterranean to India and China."
This source names India directly: "stretching from the Mediterranean to India and China."
This source names Mongols directly: "By the end of the thirteenth century, the Church of the East was the most geographically extensive Christian communion in the world, with roughly two hundred bishoprics stretching from the..."
Occurred In
Central Asia, Persia and Mesopotamia together, mapped to the wider Mesopotamia region since the surviving communities regrouped mainly in Kurdistan, between the upper Tigris, though the destruction itself ran across a far wider territory. That approximation is named here rather than smoothed over.
Spread Event Of
The near-extinction of a communion that once reached Tang China is as much a part of Christianity's own spread history as its own founding episode, and this atlas records it exactly that plainly.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.