Page 13 - Christianity among the Arabs

exiem cjinsuaii, noiauiy me rxeiaus, uignuis, iNaimans anu ivierwis.

Keraits were a Turko-Mongolian tribe. The Kerait capital at this time was Karakoram,
where Marco Polo found a church. They were a cluster of hunting tribes east and south
of Lake Baikal. The principal tribes evangelized there by the Nestorians were the
Naiman, the Merkit and the Kerait. It seems that the Gospel was taken to those tribes
by Christian merchants. An account of the conversion of the Keraits is given by the
thirteenth century Jacobite historian Gregory Bar Hebraeus. According to Hebraeus, at
the beginning of the eleventh century, a king of the Keraits lost his way while hunting in
the high mountains. When he had abandoned all hope, a saint appeared in a vision and
said, "If you will believe in Christ I will lead you lest you perish." He returned home
safely. He remembered the vision when he met some Christian merchants. He inquired
of them of their faith. At their suggestion he sent a message to the Metropolitan of
Merv for priests and deacons to baptize him and his tribo. As a result of the mission
that followed, the Kerait prince and two hundred thousand of his people accepted
baptism. (R. Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers
University Press, 1970, p. 191. See also Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia pp.
400-401.)

Mosheim writes, "It is placed beyond controversy that the kings of the people called
Carth, living on the borders of Cathai, whom some denominate tribe of the Turks, and
others of Tartars, constituting a considerable portion of the Mongols, did profess
Christianity from this time [tenth century] onward, and that no inconsiderable part of
Tartary or Asiatic Scythia lived under bishops sent among them by the Pontiff of the
Nestorians. (Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History; Vol. 11, p. 123. He places the conversion of
the Keraits at the end of the tenth century.)

The historical basis of the Pester John legend may well have been connected with a
Christian ruler of the Keraits. "The history of this race of Christian kings, afterward so
celebrated in Europe under the name of Pester John, is properly referable to the two
succeeding centuries." (Asahel Grant, op. cit, p. 376.)

The Keraits organized themselves into a confederation and thus influenced the
political organization among the later Mongols. It was the Keraits who patronized and
helped the growth of Temujin who later became the Chengis Khan (1162-1227) of the
Mongols. The Keraits also had religious influence over the Mongols through royal
marriage. Chengis Khan’s eldest daughter-in-law was a Nestorian Kerait princess called
Sorkaktani -beki (or Sorghaghtani). She became the Christian mother of three imperial
sons, an emperor (Great Khan) of the Mongols, an emperor of China and an emperor
(ilkhan) of Persia. To the south of the Keraits were the Uighurs and there were
Christians among them. The Uighur script had been created for them by the Syrian
Nestorians. It was this script which was passed on to Mongols who still had no written
language.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Nestorian missionaries were very active in
Central Asia.

In the Tartary and the adjacent regions, the activity of the Nestorians
continued daily to gain over more people to the side of Christianity; and
such is the mass testimony at the present day, that we cannot doubt but
that bishops of the highest order, or metropolitans, with many inferior
bishops subject to them, were established at that period in the provinces of
Cashgar. Naucheta, Turkistan, Genda, Tangut and others, whence it will be
manifested that there were a vast multitude of Christians in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries in those countries, which are now devoted to
Mohammadanism or the worship of imaginary gods. That all these