On Christianity During Yuan

Standing at the Han's culture of view, conservative historians always believe that, the Yuan Dynasty, which was established by the Mongolians, was an era of "Dark Age" in the history of China. They did not aware the Yuan Regime was the most exoteric period in culture after the Tang Dynasty and with a mixture of different races and various cultures in the Asia mainland.Christianity used the good chance to return to China. Nestorians, mainly the disciples from Inner Asia, Western Asia and Europe were exiled to Central Asia but with the rising of Genghis Khan, they returned back to China in 1215.At the same time, Roman Catholic Christianity first arrived in China in the late Thirteenth Century. A Franciscan friar, Fr. John of Montecorvino, went to Beijing in A.D. 1294. The Mongol (the Yuan) dynasty often showed favor towards Christian missionaries. Within one hundred years, thousands of converts were made and churches were built. However, as the previous dynasty, after the ousting of the Mongols in A.D. 1368 and with their replacement by a new, native Chinese, dynasty (the Ming), Christianity in China suffered persecution and once again almost entirely disappeared from the country.The spread of Christianity in Yuan China was far beyond than the other dynasties. Ways of Christians living and the mixture with Chinese culture were important topics in Chinese history studies. This thesis focused on the study how the concept of globalization and localization transformed Christianity to become a Chinese style religion and why it was suddenly disappeared after the tail of Mongols in China.