Archaeologists in China have uncovered evidence of first-millennium Christian activity that could show that believers were more widely accepted than had previously been thought.
Experts working in the Longmen Grottoes, a Unesco World Heritage in central Henan province, have uncovered a niche in a stone wall with a cross carved above it which they believe to be a repository for the bones and ashes of Christians.
The grottoes contain thousands of Buddhist and Daoist statues and carvings. The discovery was made in 2009 by Jiao Jianhui, a researcher at the Longmen Grottoes Research Institute and it has just been made public.
Mr Jiao told UCA News: "This is the first discovery of a religious relic other than that of Buddhism and Daoism … I felt instantly that it was different from other niches and grottoes.”
The date of the find has not been verified but it is estimated to be from the time of the Ming and Tang dynasties between (316-907 AD).
It could predate an inscribed limestone tablet known as the Nestorian Stele that dates back to 781, which is currently held as the oldest Nestorian artefact found in China.
The Church of the East, or Nestorian Church, had a presence in China from the seventh century. Nestorianism originated in the Middle East in the fifth century and was at first tolerated in China by Buddhist Tang Emperor Taizong (598-649), before being suppressed by his successors.
Mr Jiao said the find suggests a measure of tolerance of Nestorianism at a time when historical records show the Tang dynasty took steps to suppress it.
“The niche shows some religious tolerance, as the two religions could coexist harmoniously at the Grottoes.”
Because it stressed a disunity between the human and divine natures of Jesus, the Nestorian Church was considered heretical by Rome.
Known nowadays as the Assyrian Church of the East, it signed a common declaration of doctrine with the Vatican in 1994.
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