A timeline of Christianity in the Middle East
Dated moments from the sources below. Each date says what kind of date it is, so the age of a building is never confused with a tradition, a community’s foundation or a modern designation. Church traditions are named as they stood at the time.
Event
Dura-Europos is abandoned
After its destruction the city on the Euphrates is abandoned, leaving its Christian house church and painted baptistery to be excavated in the 20th century.
Building
The first church at Bethlehem
A church is completed over the cave that Christian tradition had identified as Jesus’ birthplace since the 2nd century. The present building replaced it in the 6th century.
Community founded
A monastery at Antony’s hermitage
Under Emperor Julian, after Antony’s death in 356, a monastic settlement with a church, cells, a kitchen and a bakehouse is founded near his desert hermitage.
Sources: Otto Meinardus & Maurice Martin & Peter Grossmann, “Dayr Anba Antuniyus”, The Coptic Encyclopedia (CE:719b–729a); Antoine Guillaumont, “Antony of Egypt, Saint”, The Coptic Encyclopedia (CE:149a–151a)
Community founded
Official foundation of Qartmin (Mor Gabriel)
An imperial benefaction formally establishes a community that had begun decades earlier with the hermits Shmuel and Shemʿun.
Event
First synod of the Church of the East
Bishops meet at Seleucia-Ctesiphon, south of today’s Baghdad, seat of the catholicos; a bishop from the Gulf coast is among them.
Sources: Marica C. Cassis, “Seleucia-Ctesiphon”, Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Entry “Seleucia-Ctesiphon”); Lucas Van Rompay, “Beth Qaṭraye”, Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Entry “Beth Qaṭraye”)
Event
Death of Simeon the Stylite
After 47 years on his pillars, Simeon dies; his body is carried with great ceremony to Antioch for burial.
Building
The main church of Mor Gabriel
According to the monastery’s record, Emperor Anastasius has a church with a splendid prayer hall built at Qartmin; it is still the monastery’s main church.
Building
Justinian’s church at Sinai
The monastery church is built within the fortified enclosure; its roof-beam inscriptions date it between Theodora’s death and Justinian’s.
Manuscript
The Rabbula Gospels are completed
In February a scribe named Rabbula finishes this illuminated Gospel book at a monastery in northern Syria.
Event
A mission reaches China
The monk Aluoben of the Church of the East receives the Tang emperor Taizong’s permission to teach, with the capital as his base.
Sources: Jeff W. Childers, “Xi’an”, Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Entry “Xi’an”)
Building
Abu Serga is built in Old Cairo
The oldest known church foundation inside the Roman fortress of Babylon is built at the turn of the 7th and 8th centuries.
Sources: Peter Grossmann, “Babylon”, The Coptic Encyclopedia (CE:317a–323b)
Event
The Xi’an stele is dedicated
A stele in Chinese and Syriac records the Church of the East’s growth in China since 635 and names 74 of its clergy.
Sources: Jeff W. Childers, “Xi’an”, Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Entry “Xi’an”)
Building
Wall paintings in the Church of Saint Antony
The church is restored and painted in its sanctuary, nave, narthex and chapel; it is among the few parts of the monastery older than its 16th-century rebuilding.
Event
Death of Bar Hebraeus
The maphrian dies at Maragha; his remains are later moved to Mor Mattai near Mosul.
Event
Mongol looting and restitution at Mar Behnam
An army of Khan Baidu loots the monastery; the abbot persuades him to return the objects and make a gift, used for a new tomb for the saint’s relics in 1300.
Event
A Catholic line of the Church of the East
Yoḥannan Sullaqa, abbot of Rabban Hormizd, is elected patriarch in 1552 and ordained in Rome in 1553, beginning a line in communion with Rome.
Sources: Herman G. B. Teule, “Yoḥannan Sullaqa”, Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Entry “Yoḥannan Sullaqa”); Heleen L. Murre-van den Berg, “Hormizd, Monastery of Rabban”, Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Entry “Hormizd, Monastery of Rabban”)
Community founded
New Julfa is founded in Isfahan
Shah ʿAbbas I deports the Armenians of Julfa in 1604; from the summer of 1605 they begin building New Julfa on the right bank of the Zayandarud.
Event
A printing press at All Saviour’s Monastery
Khachatur Kesaratsi sets up the press that introduces European letterpress printing to Persia.
Event
A New Testament in modern Aramaic
The American mission press at Urmia prints the first vernacular New Testament in modern Aramaic; the Old Testament follows in 1852.
Heritage designation
The Church of the Nativity on the World Heritage List
UNESCO inscribes the church and the pilgrimage route of Bethlehem; it is also placed on the List in Danger until 2019. The date is a heritage designation, not the age of the building.
Sources
Main book references
- Vazken S. Ghougassian. “Julfa i. Safavid period”. Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 2–3. Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, 2009. Article, printed pp. 217–231.
- Hidemi Takahashi. “Bar ʿEbroyo, Grigorios”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Bar ʿEbroyo, Grigorios”.
- Bas Snelders. “Behnam, Dayro d-Mor”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Behnam, Dayro d-Mor”.
- Lucas Van Rompay. “Beth Qaṭraye”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Beth Qaṭraye”.
- Lucas Van Rompay. “Dura-Europos”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Dura-Europos”.
- Andrew N. Palmer. “Gabriel, Monastery of Mor”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Gabriel, Monastery of Mor”.
- Heleen L. Murre-van den Berg. “Hormizd, Monastery of Rabban”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Hormizd, Monastery of Rabban”.
- Lucas Van Rompay. “Rabbula Gospels”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Rabbula Gospels”.
- Marica C. Cassis. “Seleucia-Ctesiphon”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Seleucia-Ctesiphon”.
- Robert Doran. “Shemʿun the Stylite”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Shemʿun the Stylite”.
- Heleen L. Murre-van den Berg. “Urmia”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Urmia”.
- Jeff W. Childers. “Xi’an”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Xi’an”.
- Herman G. B. Teule. “Yoḥannan Sullaqa”. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, ed. Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay; electronic edition. Gorgias Press (print, 2011); Beth Mardutho (electronic edition), 2011/2018. Entry “Yoḥannan Sullaqa”.
- Antoine Guillaumont. “Antony of Egypt, Saint”. The Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. Aziz S. Atiya; Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia electronic edition. Macmillan, 1991. CE:149a–151a.
- Peter Grossmann. “Babylon”. The Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. Aziz S. Atiya; Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia electronic edition. Macmillan, 1991. CE:317a–323b.
- Otto Meinardus, Maurice Martin, Peter Grossmann. “Dayr Anba Antuniyus”. The Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. Aziz S. Atiya; Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia electronic edition. Macmillan, 1991. CE:719b–729a.
- George H. Forsyth. “Mount Sinai Monastery of Saint Catherine”. The Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. Aziz S. Atiya; Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia electronic edition. Macmillan, 1991. CE:1681b–1686a.
Data and supplementary sources
- “Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route, Bethlehem (inscribed 2012)”. World Heritage List. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 2012. Property 1433, description.
Encyclopedia entries were read in full in their electronic editions; each is credited to its author. Page and column references appear only where the source prints them; the Gorgias dictionary is cited by entry title.