Lecture Summaries:  16 January, 2002

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THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE NESTORIAN CHURCH IN ARABIA
by
Joe Elders
Archaeology Officer
Council for the Care of Churches

     The recent discovery of monasteries on the islands of Sir Bani Yas and Marawah by the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey has led to a reappraisal of a hitherto poorly understood period in the history of Arabia during the three centuries before the dawn of Islam.  In a burst of eastward expansionist activity Nestorian Christians built monasteries on islands such as Failaka off Kuwait, Kharg off the coast of Iran, and the two islands off the coast of Abu Dhabi. Other recent finds along the coast of north-eastern Arabia and elswhere indicate that the peninsula itself was evangelised to some degree.
     Were these foundations part of a systematic program of evangelisation of Arabia itself by the Nestorians, or were they built primarily as staging posts along the coastal margins? This lecture attempts to combine the historical evidence of Nestorian activity along the shores of the Arabian peninsula and inland with the new archaeological evidence emerging, and present an overview and research agenda for this hitherto relatively neglected episode.