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To: Cronos
While somewhat off-topic, you seem to be the right person to ask: how did Christianity fail to make significant inroads among the Persians (modern day Iranians) even as it was embraced by many of her neighbors (notably Armenia) in the first three or four centuries after Christ?

I mean, it seems a natural, yet, they went from paganism to Islam even as Christianity was "available" to them.

34 posted on 07/01/2013 7:13:08 AM PDT by Oratam
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To: Oratam

I am guessing but “in the first three or four centuries after Christ”, the survival of Christianity anywhere was problematic.


35 posted on 07/01/2013 7:20:47 AM PDT by SMARTY ("The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms." H. Amiel)
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To: Oratam
Actually Christianity DID make significant inroads in Persia

In the first 3 centuries, Christianity spread a lot in the East. The Persians under the Sassanids were tolerant and Christian proselytisation under the Ancient Church of the East (the Assyrian Church) spread, with the Holy Eucharist being celebrated under the auspices of the Catholicos of Ctesiphon (the erstwhile Persian capital which is now in Iraq) and them sending missionaries to India and to Mongolia (incidently a few Mongol tribes, including the one Genghis Khan married into were Christian -- the Naiman tribe. The descendents of this tribe are one of the Kazakh tribes now) and elsewhere

By the 9th century there were more adherents to the Catholicos of the Assyrian Church than to the other 5 Patriarchs, fully 1/3rd of all Christians

But in the 4th century the Roman Empire first legalised Christianity in 313 (first by Constantine's co-emperor, second by Constantine) and it was made the state religion in 378 by Emperor Theodosius

The latter Emperor even urged the Persian Shahenshah to take up Christianity. This made the Persians see Christians as a fourth column in their empire and persecutions started

it was also exacerbated by Christian bishops who tore down Zoroastrian agiaries (fire-temples)

Anyway, Christianity then spread past Persia central into Khorestan and other far-flung parts of the Empire, into what is now Afghanistan and Tajikistan

Then the Arabs conquered the Persians and for 300 years Christians were left more or less in peace as Arabs initially didn't proselytize

The tragedy of the Church of the East started with first the conversion of the Turkic peoples to Islam and ended with Timur-e-lang (incidently the elder Tsarnaev brother's name was Timur) -- Timur waged a genocidal war against Christians and against Persians. He killed the most people % wise -- killing off 5 to 7% of the world's population, far more, percentage wise than Hitler-Stalin combined.

He nearly eradicated the Georgians and he eliminated the Church of the East, burning thousands of Churches, Christians etc.

His favorite was to make a pyramid of skulls...

43 posted on 07/01/2013 8:43:30 PM PDT by Cronos (Latin presbuteros>Late Latin presbyter->Old English pruos->Middle Engl prest->priest)
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