Alopen received at the Tang court

Assembled from 50 blocks · 1 evidence · 61 related

1. Story
2. According to the Xi'an stele, the Church of the East missionary Alopen reached Chang'an in 635 and was received by Emperor Taizong, who permitted the propagation of the 'Luminous Religion'. This is Christianity arriving in China by the caravan route roughly eight centuries before it arrived by sea, and it arrived as a tolerated foreign religion under imperial licence rather than as a state faith.
3. Knowledge
4. Church of the East (Nestorian Christianity)
5. Christianity
6. Silk Road religious corridor
7. Xi'an Stele (Jingjiao / 'Nestorian' Stele)
8. Alopen received at the Tang court
9. Connections
10. Church of the East (Nestorian Christianity)
11. Xi'an Stele (Jingjiao / 'Nestorian' Stele)
12. Silk Road religious corridor
13. Christianity
14. Chang'an
15. Christianity
16. Limits of religious diffusion
17. Silk Road religious corridor
18. Alopen reaches Chang'an
19. The Nestorian Stele is erected at Chang'an
20. Xi'an Stele (Jingjiao / 'Nestorian' Stele)
21. Alopen received at the Tang court
22. The Xi'an stele is erected
23. Church of the East (Nestorian Christianity)
24. Religious syncretism at contact points
25. Alopen received at the Tang court
26. The Xi'an stele is erected
27. Buddhism
28. Church of the East (Nestorian Christianity)
29. Xuanzang
30. Dunhuang
31. Indian Ocean maritime trade network
32. Ashoka's bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription at Kandahar
33. Buddhism attested in Han China
34. Traditional founding of the first cave at Mogao
35. Xuanzang's overland journey to India and return
36. Alopen received at the Tang court
37. The Xi'an stele is erected
38. Church of the East (Nestorian Christianity)
39. Alexandria
40. Constantinople
41. Judaism
42. Jerusalem (Old City)
43. Aksum
44. Armenia's traditional adoption of Christianity as state religion
45. The 'Edict of Milan' — toleration and restitution in the Roman Empire
46. Aksum adopts Christianity under King Ezana
47. Alopen received at the Tang court
48. Measured global religious composition, 2010-2020
49. Evidence
50. A limestone stele 279 cm high, bilingual in Chinese and Syriac, records roughly 150 years of the Church of the East in China, names the missionary Alopen as received by Emperor Taizong in 635, and calls the church 'the Luminous Religion of Daqin'; its Chinese text uses Daoist and Buddhist vocabulary.