![]() ![]() The practice of religion was tightly controlled in dynastic times and it is also tightly controlled today. These estimations are controversial because the organizations which make them are often accused of deliberately inflating them. On the other hand, some international Christian organizations estimate that there are tens of millions more, who choose not to publicly identify as such. In 2018, the Chinese government declared that there are over 44 million Christians in China. The number of Chinese Christians had increased significantly since the easing of restrictions on religious activities during the economic reforms of the late 1970s. In the early 2000s, there were approximately 38 million Protestants and 10-12 million Catholics, with a smaller number of Evangelical and Orthodox Christians. Accurate data on Chinese Christians is difficult to access. There were some four million before 1949 (three million Catholics and one million Protestants). It is estimated that Christianity is the fastest growing religion in China. ![]() Beginning in the early nineteenth century, Protestant missionaries attracted small but influential followings, and independent Chinese churches were also established. ![]() Catholicism was one of the religions patronized by the emperors of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, but it did not take root in China until it was reintroduced by Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century. The Syro-Persian Church of the East (frequently mischaracterized as Nestorianism) appeared in China in the 7th century, during the Tang dynasty. Arnobius of Sicca, "Against the Heathen, Book II" For the deeds can be reckoned up and numbered which have been done in India, among the Seres, Persians, and Medes in Arabia, Egypt, in Asia, Syria among the Galatians, Parthians, Phrygians in Achaia, Macedonia, Epirus in all islands and provinces on which the rising and setting sun shines. His virtues have been made manifest to you, and that unheard-of power over things, whether that which was openly exercised by Him or that which was used over the whole world by those who proclaimed Him: it has subdued the fires of passion, and caused races, and peoples, and nations most diverse in character to hasten with one accord to accept the same faith. Taizong, who had studied the Christian Scriptures which were given to him by the Assyrian missionary Alopen, realized "their propriety and truth and specifically ordered their preaching and transmission." īoth events prevented Christians from staying in contact with their mother church, the Syriac Antiochian Church, thereby halting the spread of Christianity until the reign of emperor T'sai-tsung, or Taizong (627-649). The significant lack of evidence of Christianity's existence in China between the 3rd century and the 7th century can likely be attributed to the barriers placed in Persia by the Sassanids and the closure of the trade route in Turkestan. Christianity in China has been present since at least the 1st century, and has gained a significant amount of influence during the last 200 years. ![]()
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