The Martyred Church

Description: This absorbing book deals with the Church of the East the so called Nestorian Church arguably the most interesting of all the Syriac speaking Churches. Few Christians nowadays outside the Middle East are familiar with its name, let alone its history, yet between the ninth and fourteenth centuries the Church of the East was in geographical extent the largest Christian Church in the world, with dioceses stretching from the Mediterranean right across Asia to China. The Church of the East, which began life as the indigenous church of Sasanian Persia, has been harried and persecuted throughout its history. The tragic story of this martyred church is brought vividly to life in this impressive book. Author Information: David Wilmshurst was educated at Worcester College, Oxford, where he took a first class BA degree in Classics (1979) and a D Phil degree in Oriental Studies (1998). He has spent much of his life in Hong Kong, and is one of the few modern scholars of the Church of the East who can read Syriac, Arabic and Chinese. He first became interested in the Church of the East during a visit in 1988 to Chuan chou in southern China, whose city museum housed a fascinating collection of Nestorian tombstones from Marco Polo s time. Presently working as Academic Editor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Wilmshurst is the author of The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318 1913 (Louvain, 2000), a study hailed as an indispensable research tool for students of the Church of the East and Syriac scholars.