Alopen 阿罗本（Alopen Abraham) is the first recorded Christian missionary to reach China, during the Tang Dynasty. He was an envoy of the Assyrian Church of the East (commonly labelled 'Nestorian') to the Chinese, but the mission did not gain widespread momentum. During that time, Tang China welcomed all sorts of foreigners ranging from Arab Muslims, Syrian Christians, Turks and Sassanid Persians. The Tang Emperor of Alopen's time, Tang Taizong, was hospitable towards the church mission, but he did not embrace the faith, being a devout Buddhist like most Chinese. Nestorianism eventually died out in China when the Tang Dynasty collapsed, but was revived among Central Asians like the Khitans and Mongols around the Middle Ages. This article is becoming very long. ... A missionary is traditionally defined as a propagator of religion who works to convert those outside that community; someone who proselytizes. ... The Tang Dynasty (Chinese: ; pinyin: ) (June 18, 618–June 4, 907), lasting about three centuries, followed the Sui Dynasty and preceded the Song Dynasty and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period in China. ... The Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East under His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV is a Christian church that traces its origins to the See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, said to be founded by Saint Thomas the Apostle as well as Saint Mari and Addai as evidenced in the Doctrine... The term Nestorianism is eponymous, even though the person who lent his name to it always denied the associated belief. ... For other uses, see Arab (disambiguation). ... A Muslim is a believer in or follower of Islam. ... Syriac Christianity is a culturally and linguistically distinctive community within Eastern Christianity. ... Sassanid Empire at its greatest extent The Sassanid dynasty (also Sassanian) was the name given to the kings of Persia during the era of the second Persian Empire, from 224 until 651, when the last Sassanid shah, Yazdegerd III, lost a 14-year struggle to drive out the Umayyad Caliphate... The Persians of Iran (officially named Persia by West until 1935 while still referred to as Persia by some) are an Iranian people who speak Persian (locally named Fârsi by native speakers) and often refer to themselves as ethnic Iranians as well. ... Emperor Taizong of Tang China (January 23, 599–July 10, 649), born Li Shimin, was the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty of China from 626 to 649. ... A replica of an ancient statue found among the ruins of a temple at Sarnath Buddhism is a philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, a prince of the Shakyas, whose lifetime is traditionally given as 566 to 486 BCE. It had subsequently been accepted by... The Khitan, in Chinese Qidan (契丹 Pinyin: Qìdān), were an ethnic group which dominated much of Manchuria and was classified in Chinese history as one of the Tungus ethnic groups (東胡族 dōng hú zú). They established the Liao dynasty in 907, which... Mongols (Mongolian: Монгол Mongol, Turkish: MoÄŸollar) are an ethnic group that originated in what is now Mongolia, Russia, and China or more specifically on the Central Asian plateau north of the Gobi desert and south of Siberia. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ...

External links

• early Christianity in China