1
00:00:03,920 --> 00:00:06,440
When I was a small boy,
my parents used to drive me

2
00:00:06,440 --> 00:00:12,760
round historic churches,
searching out whatever looked
interesting or odd.

3
00:00:12,760 --> 00:00:17,960
But soon they realised that
they had created a monster.

4
00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:23,560
The history of the Christian
Church became my life's work.

5
00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:29,200
For me, no other subject can
rival its scale and drama.

6
00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:36,040
For two thousand years,

7
00:00:36,040 --> 00:00:39,720
Christianity has been one of the
great players in world history,

8
00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:43,000
..inspiring faith,

9
00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:44,960
but also squalid politics.

10
00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:52,920
It is an epic story starring
a cast of extraordinary people,

11
00:00:52,920 --> 00:00:55,920
from Jesus himself
and the first apostles

12
00:00:55,920 --> 00:00:59,680
to empresses, kings and popes.

13
00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:00,920
CROWD CHEERS

14
00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:05,680
From reformers and champions
of human conscience

15
00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:08,960
to crusaders and sadists.

16
00:01:08,960 --> 00:01:13,600
Religious belief can
transform us for good or ill.

17
00:01:13,600 --> 00:01:17,160
It has brought human beings
to acts of criminal folly

18
00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:22,240
as well as the highest achievements
of goodness and creativity.

19
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,080
I will tell the story
of both extremes.

20
00:01:30,320 --> 00:01:34,040
Christianity has survived
persecution,

21
00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:36,120
splits,

22
00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:37,800
wars of religion,

23
00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:39,600
mockery, hatred.

24
00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:45,760
Today there are two billion
Christians - a third of humanity.

25
00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:47,600
Protestant,

26
00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:53,320
Catholic, Orthodox,
Pentecostal and many more.

27
00:01:55,480 --> 00:02:01,880
Deep down the Christian faith boasts
a shared core, but what is it?

28
00:02:01,880 --> 00:02:06,680
In modern Europe,
Christianity seems threatened

29
00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:11,640
by the apathy of a secular society.

30
00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:16,040
Will it survive?

31
00:02:16,040 --> 00:02:19,280
Can it?

32
00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:22,480
I'm chasing the story of
Christianity across the globe,

33
00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:25,520
coming face to face with people
who have got their own take

34
00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:27,640
on this 2,000-year-old adventure.

35
00:02:27,640 --> 00:02:31,920
And where better to start
than in the city which first knew
Jesus the Christ?

36
00:02:31,920 --> 00:02:33,680
Jerusalem.

37
00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:55,480
RADIO PLAYS POP MUSIC

38
00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:09,560
I'm in Jerusalem for
a very good reason,

39
00:03:09,560 --> 00:03:12,440
but it's probably
not what you think.

40
00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:16,920
We've all heard something
of the Christian story.

41
00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:24,360
Jesus, the wandering Jewish
teacher, crucified by the Romans.

42
00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:30,880
Paul, who had hunted down Christians
until on the road to Damascus,

43
00:03:30,880 --> 00:03:36,320
he experienced a
blinding vision of Jesus Christ
resurrected from the dead.

44
00:03:37,960 --> 00:03:42,200
Paul's new-found zeal focused on
people beyond the Jews - Gentiles.

45
00:03:42,200 --> 00:03:46,120
It took him far from Jerusalem, to
Rome, and it reshaped not just

46
00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,760
the faith of Christ but in the end,
all estern civilisation.

47
00:03:51,640 --> 00:03:55,440
That's the familiar story of
the origins of Christianity.

48
00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:59,560
But I'm here in Jerusalem because I
want to look for something else.

49
00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:08,880
You can find clues here in
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

50
00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:17,560
The Church is said to have
been built where Jesus
was crucified and buried.

51
00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:26,360
At its heart is what's
believed to be his tomb.

52
00:04:30,640 --> 00:04:37,440
Somehow the followers
of Jesus became convinced
that he rose from here to new life.

53
00:04:42,040 --> 00:04:44,360
The belief that Jesus
can overcome death is

54
00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:48,520
the most difficult and troubling
affirmation of the Christian faith.

55
00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:51,840
Over 20 centuries
it's made Christians act in heroic,

56
00:04:51,840 --> 00:04:54,880
joyful, beautiful, terrible ways.

57
00:04:54,880 --> 00:04:58,440
It's made this one
of the holiest sites on earth.

58
00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:06,320
You see, at heart Christianity
is a personality cult.

59
00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:10,960
Its core is the unprecedented
idea that God became human,

60
00:05:10,960 --> 00:05:14,080
not in a pharaoh,
a king or even an emperor,

61
00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:18,320
but in a humble peasant
from Galilee.

62
00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:22,760
And the conviction that you can
meet Jesus, the son of God,

63
00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:26,960
and transform your life
is a compelling message.

64
00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:30,320
It's what drove Christianity's
relentless expansion.

65
00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:40,200
But the Church built around the tomb
of Jesus is also the starting point
for a forgotten story,

66
00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:45,400
a story that may
overturn your preconceptions
about early Christianity.

67
00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:52,080
Pride of place in this building
goes to two churches.

68
00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:55,600
This chapel belongs to
the Greek Orthodox Church.

69
00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:58,240
Orthodoxy is a large part
of the Christian story.

70
00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:05,120
The other church with a strong
presence here is actually

71
00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:06,840
the biggest in the modern world -

72
00:06:06,840 --> 00:06:07,880
Catholicism.

73
00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:11,360
HE INTONES

74
00:06:13,440 --> 00:06:17,280
Orthodoxy and Catholicism
dominated Christianity in Europe,

75
00:06:17,280 --> 00:06:20,040
in the West, for its
first 15,000 years.

76
00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:28,400
But as you walk around the edges of
the Church you can't fail to notice
other curious little chapels.

77
00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:30,400
They're not Western or European,

78
00:06:30,400 --> 00:06:33,640
they're Middle Eastern or African.

79
00:06:33,640 --> 00:06:38,080
And they tell a very different story
about the origins of Christianity.

80
00:06:39,600 --> 00:06:45,640
Around the back of Christ's tomb
is Egypt's Coptic Church.

81
00:06:47,280 --> 00:06:52,680
There are plenty of other
Churches represented here, but you
need to know where to look.

82
00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:56,160
Now this is the chapel of
the Syriac Orthodox Church,

83
00:06:56,160 --> 00:07:00,400
which the Greek Orthodox
of course would call unorthodox.

84
00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:13,080
Back outside and through a side door
leading up to the roof, you'll
find the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

85
00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:19,960
Many versions of Christian history
would make this unorthodox too

86
00:07:19,960 --> 00:07:25,200
and yet it's far older than
better-known versions of
Christianity, like Protestantism.

87
00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:32,120
It's easy for tourists to dismiss
these ancient churches as quaint,

88
00:07:32,120 --> 00:07:36,000
irrelevant even, but that
would be a big mistake.

89
00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:42,200
These chapels contain vital
clues to the story I want to tell.

90
00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:46,160
Because the origins of the
Christian faith are not in the West,

91
00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:49,640
but here in these
ancient Churches of the East.

92
00:07:53,720 --> 00:07:57,000
For centuries Christianity
flourished in the East.

93
00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:01,640
And indeed at one point
it was poised to triumph in Asia,
maybe even in China.

94
00:08:01,640 --> 00:08:06,120
The headquarters of Christianity
might well have been Baghdad
rather than Rome.

95
00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:10,320
And if that had happened
Western Christianity would
have been very different.

96
00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:17,120
I will trace that huge voyage...

97
00:08:19,240 --> 00:08:22,880
..from Jerusalem to Syria,

98
00:08:22,880 --> 00:08:25,200
through Central Asia,

99
00:08:25,200 --> 00:08:28,480
to the far reaches
of the Asian continent.

100
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:36,920
In my journey, I'll discover how
the Christian faith survived
worlds away from Jerusalem.

101
00:08:41,640 --> 00:08:46,280
I'm not giving you a history of
Christian theology, though I won't

102
00:08:46,280 --> 00:08:50,440
be afraid to plunge you
into many ancient arguments
about Christian faith.

103
00:08:54,160 --> 00:08:57,640
The main character here
is not Jesus or the gospels.

104
00:08:57,640 --> 00:09:00,400
It is in fact the Church,

105
00:09:00,400 --> 00:09:05,000
the institution of Christian faith
that has fought its way
through history.

106
00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:13,960
It all started here in Jerusalem,
when the first followers of Jesus
formed a Jewish Christian Church.

107
00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:20,440
It was led by James, whom the
gospels call the brother of Jesus.

108
00:09:23,400 --> 00:09:28,520
Here in the Old City is
the Armenian Cathedral of St James.

109
00:09:28,520 --> 00:09:32,560
His tomb is said to lie
below the high altar.

110
00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:42,160
The Jerusalem church probably would
have remained the headquarters
of a single unified Christianity.

111
00:09:43,920 --> 00:09:46,760
But in the year 70, disaster struck.

112
00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:57,200
A rebellion of Jews
against the Romans ended
in a siege of Jerusalem.

113
00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:08,200
As troops finally broke into the
city, the Temple went up in flames.

114
00:10:18,920 --> 00:10:23,360
Today its Western Wall
is all that remains.

115
00:10:23,360 --> 00:10:26,320
Christians quit the city
before the siege.

116
00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:34,680
Now the fledgling faith
would have to survive
outside its Jewish homeland.

117
00:10:34,680 --> 00:10:36,880
But could it adapt?

118
00:10:36,880 --> 00:10:40,120
That's the big test
facing any world religion.

119
00:10:42,880 --> 00:10:46,840
With Jerusalem gone where would
Gentile Christians look now?

120
00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:51,120
Well, you might think
obviously west to Rome,
because that's where Paul had gone.

121
00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:53,920
But at the time it would not
have seemed obvious at all.

122
00:10:53,920 --> 00:10:57,200
Paul had been killed in Rome.
So had the Apostle Peter.

123
00:10:57,200 --> 00:11:01,160
What if you take the other road
out of Jerusalem - east?

124
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:18,080
Today this is Urfa
in south-east Turkey.

125
00:11:18,080 --> 00:11:21,400
In the first century
it was called Edessa,

126
00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:24,080
capital of a small kingdom,

127
00:11:24,080 --> 00:11:28,560
and wealthy because it controlled
part of the main trade route east.

128
00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:36,480
Edessa is special, because
its ruler King Abgar set an
important precedent here.

129
00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:43,360
He chose to show his personal
devotion to Jesus by adopting
Christianity as the Kingdom's

130
00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:48,040
official state religion, at least
100 years before the Romans did.

131
00:11:50,240 --> 00:11:55,520
For the last 17 centuries,
Christianity has been repeatedly
linked with the state,

132
00:11:55,520 --> 00:12:00,160
so in the United Kingdom,
the monarch is still Supreme
Governor of the Church of England.

133
00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:05,480
And this is where it all started -
in the ancient Eastern
Christian kingdom of Edessa.

134
00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:20,160
And Edessa pioneered
something else that has become
inseparable from Christianity...

135
00:12:23,640 --> 00:12:25,000
HE SINGS

136
00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:27,200
Church music.

137
00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:40,560
Christian Edessa
has long since disappeared.

138
00:12:40,560 --> 00:12:47,120
After the First World War
it became a community in exile, over
the border in neighbouring Syria.

139
00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:53,240
This is the only surviving
descendent of that ancient Church.

140
00:12:54,320 --> 00:12:56,280
CONGREGATION SINGS

141
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:08,200
But its liturgical chant is
still based on the distinctive
tradition of Edessa.

142
00:13:18,240 --> 00:13:25,240
These hymns are derived from
the poetry of the great 4th century
Syrian theologian St Ephrem.

143
00:13:25,240 --> 00:13:29,040
And he was building on an even
earlier tradition from these lands,

144
00:13:29,040 --> 00:13:32,160
echoing the music
of the Roman Empire.

145
00:13:35,480 --> 00:13:39,360
I found that service very touching
because what we were hearing was

146
00:13:39,360 --> 00:13:42,440
the ghost of the music
of the streets and market places,

147
00:13:42,440 --> 00:13:46,400
seized by the Church, turned
into psalms and hymns, taken

148
00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:48,280
across the western Mediterranean,

149
00:13:48,280 --> 00:13:50,640
turned into the music
of the whole Church -

150
00:13:50,640 --> 00:13:53,160
Latin Gregorian Chant,
Johann Sebastian Bach,

151
00:13:53,160 --> 00:13:58,200
even the tambourines
and guitars of the Pentecostals.
All come from here.

152
00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:05,480
But at the start of
the 4th century, hymn singing

153
00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:11,160
would have been the last thing
on the minds of Christians in the
western half of the Roman Empire.

154
00:14:11,160 --> 00:14:12,520
HORN BLARES

155
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:15,680
In the West, most Christians
wouldn't be singing the public

156
00:14:15,680 --> 00:14:18,040
praises of God because
it was too dangerous.

157
00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:21,880
Successive Roman Emperors from Nero
onwards persecuted Christianity.

158
00:14:21,880 --> 00:14:25,280
They hated it. I expect most Romans
would've agreed with them.

159
00:14:25,280 --> 00:14:28,440
In the early 4th Century,
a betting man might have put

160
00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:32,560
his money on Christianity becoming
a major religion here in the East,

161
00:14:32,560 --> 00:14:36,400
but then something completely
unexpected happened in the West.

162
00:14:36,400 --> 00:14:41,520
A new Roman Emperor, Constantine,
made Christianity his own.

163
00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:48,080
Out went the old gods
and goddesses of pagan Rome.

164
00:14:48,080 --> 00:14:51,800
In came the one God
of the Christians.

165
00:14:51,800 --> 00:14:55,920
It was a turning point in the
history of the Christian faith.

166
00:14:57,360 --> 00:15:02,320
It was more than a 100 years
after the King of Edessa had made
Christianity his official religion.

167
00:15:02,320 --> 00:15:07,800
But to be the state religion
of a whole Empire was
something else altogether.

168
00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:16,240
The ability to reinvent itself
would become a hallmark
of Christianity.

169
00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:19,720
But this was the greatest
reinvention of them all.

170
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:26,280
It meant an end to persecution.
It brought power and wealth.

171
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:30,720
It gave the Christian faith
the chance of becoming
a universal religion.

172
00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:38,960
From this moment, a Church
of the Roman Empire emerged.

173
00:15:40,520 --> 00:15:45,200
In theory, it embraced Christians
in the Eastern Empire
as well as the West.

174
00:15:53,120 --> 00:15:59,000
But in the East, many Christians
were unimpressed by the new
alliance, even hostile.

175
00:15:59,760 --> 00:16:05,560
At stake were fundamental
disagreements about the direction
the faith should take.

176
00:16:05,560 --> 00:16:10,080
Jesus had told people to
abandon wealth, not to ally
with the rich and powerful.

177
00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:13,280
Remember his joke about a rich man
wanting to enter the kingdom

178
00:16:13,280 --> 00:16:16,720
of Heaven was like a camel trying
to get through the eye of a needle?

179
00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:20,200
Some Christians actually
listened to what Jesus had said.

180
00:16:24,680 --> 00:16:29,000
It was Eastern Christians here
in Syria who led the way...

181
00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:34,960
..showing Western Christianity
a pattern for spiritual life.

182
00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:40,000
We call this pattern monasticism.

183
00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:45,160
A way of life involving
isolation from the world,

184
00:16:45,160 --> 00:16:46,840
austerity,

185
00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:48,720
and suffering.

186
00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:06,920
In the north of Syria there is one
of the oddest souvenirs of the new

187
00:17:06,920 --> 00:17:10,280
religious movement
in Eastern Christianity.

188
00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:16,240
For almost 40 years
a holy man called St Simeon

189
00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:20,320
lived on top of a stone column.

190
00:17:20,320 --> 00:17:23,480
He's now known
as a pillar saint or Stylite.

191
00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:29,480
I am actually really excited to be
here, because I first saw a picture

192
00:17:29,480 --> 00:17:33,840
of this when I was eight and I never
thought I'd come here and now I am.
I'm here.

193
00:17:33,840 --> 00:17:37,480
And there it is,
the stump of his pillar.

194
00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:40,400
Among all the other
pillars you can see.

195
00:17:40,400 --> 00:17:43,680
it's the thing
which looks shapeless.

196
00:17:47,480 --> 00:17:52,200
You've gotta imagine this stump
30ft high or whatever it was.

197
00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:55,000
Very strange sight indeed.

198
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:57,160
It's still pretty strange.

199
00:17:58,880 --> 00:18:02,800
Crowds came to see St Simeon
sitting on his pillar.

200
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:05,920
The church was built
around it after his death.

201
00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:09,200
And it's pilgrims who made
the pillar look so strange.

202
00:18:09,200 --> 00:18:13,160
In their search for healing
souvenirs, they whittled it down

203
00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:16,440
until it looks like a
well-sucked holy lollipop.

204
00:18:17,600 --> 00:18:21,080
St Simeon is the most
famous of many Syrian hermits

205
00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:25,040
who tried to come closer to God
by punishing their bodies.

206
00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:32,640
For them, suffering was the road
to salvation and they tried
to inspire others to follow.

207
00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:36,440
According to the Syrian enthusiast
for St Simeon's Church I met,

208
00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:39,640
this approach set Eastern
Christians apart from the West.

209
00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:41,600
St Simeon here,

210
00:18:41,600 --> 00:18:44,200
he was on the crossing
of two main roads

211
00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:47,600
between Aleppo and Antioch,
between Apamea

212
00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:54,280
and Syrius, so that was a crossing
where many people used to pass
with their caravan or whatever.

213
00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:57,800
That's interesting because the
stereotype in Europe of the hermit

214
00:18:57,800 --> 00:19:00,080
is someone who goes away
from the world,

215
00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:02,560
yet this man is right
in the middle of things.

216
00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:05,840
Yeah, therefore as you said,
when you see the man

217
00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:11,800
as a Stylite - vertical connection -
he is between the land and God.

218
00:19:11,800 --> 00:19:14,920
He is like a lighthouse.
Exactly. Here is a man,

219
00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:20,720
who's suffered more than most
people in his life. What is it
that makes him want to suffer?

220
00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:23,640
Christians at the beginning
of Christianity here,

221
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:27,280
they were thinking, "We are
passing by in this life.

222
00:19:27,280 --> 00:19:30,640
"We should suffer. This is
a valley of the tears.

223
00:19:30,640 --> 00:19:35,400
"Our day will be in the next
life where we will see God.

224
00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:38,000
"We will be in Heaven, in paradise.

225
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,000
"We should suffer here
to deserve the other one."

226
00:19:43,840 --> 00:19:48,320
A clear divide was growing
between East and West.

227
00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:52,720
Even as the Roman Emperor was making
Christianity powerful and wealthy,

228
00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:57,640
here on its Eastern borders,
many preferred a faith which denied
the temptations of the world.

229
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:05,280
Some started to gather in
communities where they could follow
God in purity and simplicity.

230
00:20:07,120 --> 00:20:09,920
They created the very
first monasteries.

231
00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:14,720
The new institution of
monastic life eventually

232
00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:18,320
reshaped Christianity when the
Western Roman Empire fell apart.

233
00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:20,560
Monks turned their
holiness into power,

234
00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:23,000
and power is always a
problem for the Church.

235
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:25,400
People want it, and they'll
fight to get it.

236
00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:29,200
And their fight gets mixed up
with what they believe about God.

237
00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:34,200
Constantine may well have
thought that Christianity would
reunite his vast empire.

238
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:38,080
In fact the opposite happened.
It deepened existing divisions.

239
00:20:44,600 --> 00:20:49,600
Constantine presided over four rival
centres of Christian authority.

240
00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:57,200
Antioch, in modern day Turkey,
was the main focus in the East.

241
00:20:57,200 --> 00:21:01,360
Further south was
Alexandria in Egypt.

242
00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:03,720
The Bishop of Rome was the Pope,

243
00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:08,000
honoured in the West
as successor to the Apostle Peter.

244
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:10,760
And trying to mediate
between these rival centres

245
00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:13,840
was Constantine's new capital,

246
00:21:13,840 --> 00:21:17,280
Constantinople,
present day Istanbul.

247
00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:29,800
From the beginning,
Christians had argued over
passionately held beliefs.

248
00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:34,160
But from here in his new capital,
the Emperor watched in horror

249
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:38,040
as the unity of the faith
was tested to its limits.

250
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:47,320
Matters came to a head
over a question at the heart
of the Christian faith.

251
00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:53,400
Who exactly was Jesus and what
was his relationship to God?

252
00:21:56,200 --> 00:22:00,640
Christians believe that
God is all-powerful,
the creator of the universe,

253
00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:02,360
and Jesus is the son of God,

254
00:22:02,360 --> 00:22:06,240
but he's also a flesh and blood man
who died on the cross.

255
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:10,920
Now a man who died on a cross
surely can't be the same as
the creator of the universe.

256
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:14,080
How then are they both the One God?

257
00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:23,800
According to a thoughtful
but maverick Egyptian priest,
Jesus was not the same as God.

258
00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:27,520
The priest's name was Arius.
He claimed that it
was impossible for God,

259
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:30,560
who is perfect and indivisible,

260
00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:34,280
to have created the human
being Jesus out of himself.

261
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:40,120
But hang on. If Jesus Christ is not
fully God, then is his death

262
00:22:40,120 --> 00:22:43,640
on the cross enough to save you from
your sins and get you to Heaven?

263
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:48,280
If you care about the afterlife
and they did, that's the
biggest question you can ask.

264
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:54,960
The power of Christian belief
lay in its claim to wipe away all

265
00:22:54,960 --> 00:23:00,960
the misery that humans feel about
sin and death, our guilt and shame.

266
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:05,720
Christ died to give us the chance
to have an infinitely better life.

267
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,560
Arius' view could be seen
to undermine all this.

268
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:13,720
And so he was condemned.

269
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:20,240
Yet the fact was many Christians
had said the same over the previous

270
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:25,080
three centuries, here
on the shores of the Bosphorus
as much as anywhere else.

271
00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:31,880
But Constantine couldn't allow this
divisive idea to split the Church
and in the process, his Empire.

272
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:35,680
He had to put a stop to it.

273
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:01,960
Just a few hours out of Istanbul
is one of the most important sites

274
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,600
in Christianity's turbulent history.

275
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:10,200
Bishops from across the Empire
were summoned to solve the crisis

276
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:14,520
in an Imperial Palace now thought
to be submerged beneath this lake.

277
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:19,600
Today the town here is called Iznik.

278
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:26,200
Back in the 4th century it was
the city of Nicaea, the setting
for the famous Council of Nicaea.

279
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:31,720
There had been church councils
before, but this was the first
held in the presence of an Emperor.

280
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:37,600
And it was Constantine, who proposed
the vital statement which he hoped
would send everyone home satisfied.

281
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:42,200
The phrase was that Jesus was
"of one substance" with the Father.

282
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:44,400
In Greek, that's homoousios.

283
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:50,640
# I believe in one God... #

284
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:54,040
After many more arguments
over the next half century,

285
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:56,320
this phrase stayed at the heart

286
00:24:56,320 --> 00:25:00,800
of one of the most important
Christian texts of all time.

287
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:04,400
# ..in one Lord Jesus Christ... #

288
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:08,680
We call it the Nicene Creed,
and it's still recited

289
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:12,000
in everyday worship
throughout the Christian world.

290
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:16,840
 # ..being of one substance
with the Father... #

291
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:23,680
It states that God is
equally the Father,
Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit.

292
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:25,560
They are three in one,

293
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:28,200
the Trinity.

294
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:31,520
# Amen. #

295
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:40,960
The Emperor must have
breathed a sigh of relief.

296
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,960
Emperors longed for unity.

297
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:50,920
Inconveniently for them, Christians
repeatedly valued truth rather more.

298
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:07,520
A hundred years later, in 428,
a clever but tactless scholar

299
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:10,120
was appointed the new
Bishop of Constantinople,

300
00:26:10,120 --> 00:26:11,680
Nestorius.

301
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:17,120
Bishop Nestorius wasted little time
in plunging the Church

302
00:26:17,120 --> 00:26:21,920
into a fresh quarrel
about the nature of Jesus.

303
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:26,240
It would end the unity of the Church
once and for all and in the process

304
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:31,360
consolidate eastern Christianity
as a distinct and formidable force.

305
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:40,880
Now I'll try to get to
the heart of what might seem
a very technical argument.

306
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:46,440
After Nicaea, we know that Jesus
Christ is of one substance with
the Father, so he's divine.

307
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,120
But he's also a man. So he's human.

308
00:26:49,120 --> 00:26:52,880
He has two natures
but he's one person.

309
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:54,560
How does that actually work?

310
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:01,120
Nestorius understood
the two natures in Christ

311
00:27:01,120 --> 00:27:04,360
as being something like oil
and water contained in a glass.

312
00:27:04,360 --> 00:27:08,280
Although they are
in the same container,
they remain quite separate.

313
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:13,440
So in Christ there are two
separate natures - human and divine.

314
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,080
It seemed a neat
and satisfying formula,

315
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:22,040
especially for Christians
seeking salvation.

316
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:28,640
If Jesus was fully human,
people could identify with him

317
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,880
and if he was fully divine, he could
grant the gift of eternal life.

318
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,520
But many thought it too neat.

319
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:42,720
The Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt,
called Cyril, was appalled.

320
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:47,800
Separating out the two natures
of Jesus tore Christ in two.

321
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:53,960
Imagine a glass containing water
and wine. They mix indivisibly.

322
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,360
So, Cyril argued, it is with Christ.

323
00:27:56,360 --> 00:28:00,080
His human and divine
natures come together as one.

324
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,240
Cyril's followers
squared up to Nestorius.

325
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:10,400
This really was a fight to the death
because understanding exactly
how Jesus was God

326
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:14,320
explained how he was powerful
enough to save you from Hell.

327
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,880
At first Cyril seemed
to have the upper hand.

328
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:27,440
He had Nestorius hounded
out of Constantinople

329
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,920
and banished to
a remote Egyptian prison.

330
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:37,200
But Nestorius' supporters remained.

331
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:42,360
And so once again
a Roman Emperor was left fearing
that his state would fracture.

332
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:48,920
He had to call yet more councils.

333
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:55,280
Eventually in 451 the bishops of
the Empire gathered just across
the straits from Constantinople

334
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,440
for another landmark
council in Church history.

335
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:06,600
The Council of Chalcedon
met to define the future
of Christian faith.

336
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,320
The Council met just over there.

337
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:14,720
It tried to do what all Emperors
want, to sign up everyone to a
middle of the road settlement.

338
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,200
When you do that, it always helps
to have a few troops around.

339
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,520
So the Council decreed a compromise.

340
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:30,600
In essence it backed Nestorius'
oil and water emphasis -

341
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:35,920
that whilst here on earth Christ
the divine and human being was

342
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:41,560
"recognised in two natures,
without confusion, without change".

343
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:49,560
But in a nod to Cyril's followers,
it straightaway added "without
division, without separation".

344
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:58,800
And that compromise is how
the Churches which descend
from the Emperor's Christianity,

345
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:01,080
the Catholic,
Protestant and Orthodox,

346
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:05,000
have understood the mystery
of Jesus ever since.

347
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:10,720
But frankly
it was a fairly shabby deal
that left plenty of people unhappy.

348
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:15,720
Cyril's supporters
were naturally angry,

349
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:21,360
but the followers of Nestorius
felt marginalised and insulted too.

350
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:26,040
Nestorius had died
a heretic in exile.

351
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:32,960
And even though Chalcedon used some
of his theological language, it did
nothing to restore his reputation.

352
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:41,360
The losers of the council of
Chalcedon refused to fall into line.

353
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:46,880
It was a watershed. Imperial
and non-imperial Christianity
would never be reconciled.

354
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:48,960
Instead something new happened.

355
00:30:53,960 --> 00:31:00,160
The church split for the first time,
something that would happen
many more times in its history.

356
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:07,000
The imperial Church now found itself
focused solely on the Mediterranean.

357
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:08,960
It had no choice.

358
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:12,480
Eastern Christians were not going
to be pushed around by the Emperor.

359
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:19,880
But unlike their Western cousins,
Christians in the East
would now have to survive

360
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:24,960
in the midst of hostile
and alien religions,
without the backing of an Emperor.

361
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:30,800
You might think it
would be the end of them.

362
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:36,760
But in any religion,
apparent misfortune can be a spur,

363
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:39,440
even stimulate expansion.

364
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:47,120
For Eastern Christians this was
the start of a great adventure,

365
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:54,400
to take what they believed was
the true and First Christianity
to the far ends of Asia.

366
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,640
In the 6th century, on the eastern
fringes of the Roman Empire,

367
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:16,840
Syria was emerging as
an alternative Christian
centre of gravity to the West.

368
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:19,280
HE CHANTS

369
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,080
THEY ANSWER

370
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:33,960
Priests sympathetic to Cyril
of Alexandria's mixed
water and wine view

371
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:38,000
of Christ, were secretly
consecratedas Bishops.

372
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:43,720
A new Eastern Church was born.

373
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,560
It's now called
the Syriac Orthodox Church.

374
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:54,640
Today its priests are trained at its
headquarters just outside Damascus.

375
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:58,800
The seminary offers a glimpse of
what Imperial Western Christianity

376
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:03,640
might have looked like if Chalcedon
had chosen in favour of Cyril.

377
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:10,080
Instead of the rational,
tidy Christianity of the West,

378
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,920
this is a faith
which glories in mystery.

379
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:19,400
It pays meticulous attention
to ritual...

380
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:26,360
..in particular to
the quality of the performance.

381
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:28,400
MEN SING IN UNISON

382
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:39,440
One of the tutors at the seminary,
Father Fady,

383
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:45,160
suggested to me Eastern Christianity
is more in touch with its
origins than the West.

384
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:48,800
What do you think is lacking in
the Western Church tradition?

385
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:53,880
Well, you find the liturgy
in the East to be so much
richer in symbolism.

386
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:57,800
The way people communicate is
not only through words, but through

387
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:03,080
gestures, through the way, you know,
the person is expressing himself

388
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,880
through his body,
or voice, tune or whatever.

389
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:11,360
Now this is very different from how
Western spirituality has developed,

390
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:15,440
which was always through philosophy,
so you always have theologians who

391
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,800
are philosophers, but in the East,
you always have theologians

392
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:24,120
who are either poets, or maybe
icon drawers or whatever.

393
00:34:32,720 --> 00:34:37,600
All Christian worship is drama,
full of sign and symbol.

394
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:42,120
But what Father Fady is claiming is
that Eastern Christianity has made

395
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:45,680
a priority of passing down gestures,

396
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:49,240
which take you right back
to the beginnings of the Church.

397
00:34:54,400 --> 00:35:00,880
When the priest lifts the communion
bread for example, it symbolizes
Jesus rising from the dead.

398
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:07,680
You could say that
the most important assertion

399
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:11,880
of the Syriac Orthodox Church
is its claim to authenticity.

400
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:22,520
Key sections of this service are in
the ancient language called Syriac.

401
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:24,720
It's a dialect of Aramaic,

402
00:35:24,720 --> 00:35:27,320
the actual language
which Jesus spoke.

403
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:46,000
What makes me so enthusiastic
about my Church is that

404
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,160
the Church speaks
the language of Christ,

405
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:51,800
so if you want to read the history
of the Church or the spirituality

406
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:56,080
of the Church, you really need
Syriac in order to access
all the manuscripts

407
00:35:56,080 --> 00:35:58,920
and you know the writings
of the early Church.

408
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,160
Here, on the fringes
of the Roman Empire,

409
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:11,160
was a Christianity now fully
in charge of its own destiny.

410
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,840
These Syrian Christians
honoured the memory of Cyril

411
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:16,640
and other Christians
felt the same way.

412
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:21,360
Go to the ancient Church
of Egypt, the Copts,
or the ancient Church of Ethiopia,

413
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:26,160
and you'll find that they've not
yet forgiven the Roman Emperor
for the Council of Chalcedon.

414
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:46,240
But just as confidence was
growing among Eastern Christians,

415
00:36:46,240 --> 00:36:49,480
in the 7th century
the whole of Christianity,

416
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:52,920
East and West,
found itself in danger.

417
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:56,680
It had to face up to a rival,

418
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:59,960
a new militant faith...

419
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:03,480
Islam.

420
00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:08,960
Followers of the prophet Muhammad
began their push out

421
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:13,080
from the Arabian peninsula in 632,

422
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:16,240
conquering much of the known
world with astonishing speed.

423
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:23,480
Islam brought huge damage
to Imperial Christianity.

424
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:28,920
As it travelled west,
it wiped out much of the southern
provinces of the old Roman Empire,

425
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,840
It reached across north Africa,

426
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:37,920
into Spain, and into
Sicily and Italy.

427
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:42,200
It even threatened
mighty Constantinople.

428
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,760
That fight between Imperial
Christianity and Islam

429
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:50,360
for the soul of Europe
lasted centuries.

430
00:37:57,360 --> 00:38:01,440
But the conflict also
had an Eastern front.

431
00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:10,680
This is one of the world's oldest
mosques, the Great Umayyad Mosque.

432
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:15,240
It was built at the heart
of a new Muslim Empire

433
00:38:15,240 --> 00:38:20,120
ruled by the Umayyad Dynasty
from here in Damascus.

434
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:24,640
Crude modern versions of history
see the coming of Islam

435
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:30,520
as a "clash of civilisations",
in which Islam quickly wiped out
Eastern Christianity.

436
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:33,400
But the truth is rather different.

437
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:37,280
Here there was more of an encounter
of civilisations.

438
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,880
Much like the destruction of
Jerusalem in the 1st century,

439
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:46,360
the arrival of Islam was indeed
a crisis point for Christians.

440
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:52,000
But Christianity
proved it could meet this new
challenge to its survival.

441
00:38:55,000 --> 00:39:00,040
The Umayyads didn't have
the resources or the inclination
to force conversion on Christians.

442
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:02,480
In fact, they did deals
with local leaders.

443
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:06,440
Christians did become second-class
citizens and later rulers

444
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,760
even forced Christians to wear
distinctive yellow clothing.

445
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:13,600
Much later, European Christians
would do that to Jews.

446
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:17,880
Despite all that there is
evidence that Christianity
did influence Islam.

447
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:26,400
Christianity played a part
in shaping Muslim worship.

448
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:29,600
It even affected its doctrine.

449
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:36,240
The Umayyad Mosque stands on
the site of a Christian Church

450
00:39:36,240 --> 00:39:40,600
and still contains a shrine said to
be the tomb of John the Baptist,

451
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:44,680
this Christian saint
is honoured as a prophet in Islam.

452
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:52,320
But perhaps most remarkable
is the likelihood that the act of
prostration during Muslim prayer

453
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,680
was originally inspired by
Eastern Christian tradition.

454
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:03,760
I discussed all this with Islamic
scholar and Syrian politician
Mouhammad Habash.

455
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:07,720
According to our faith in Islam.

456
00:40:07,720 --> 00:40:09,600
we believe all prophets,

457
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:14,760
as prophet of God and as messengers
of God, but Jesus Christ has more.

458
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:19,240
In our faith, we believe him
as a spirit of God

459
00:40:19,240 --> 00:40:23,920
and we believe he is coming back
exactly in this white minaret.

460
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:26,440
Oh, this white minaret.
This white minaret -

461
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:30,800
it's named Jesus Minaret, because
Prophet Mohammad he said.

462
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,360
"By God Jesus Christ
is coming back to you

463
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:38,200
"exactly in white
minaret in Damascus."

464
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:43,560
And here we are in this great
courtyard and it's really quite
natural to take our shoes off

465
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:48,720
but I have also seen the same thing
in the sanctuary of a Christian
church during the Holy Eucharist,

466
00:40:48,720 --> 00:40:51,400
so do you think it's
possible that such customs

467
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:55,960
are actually borrowed by Islam in
its first days from Christianity?

468
00:40:55,960 --> 00:41:00,720
My colleagues in parliament, he
mentioned this one to leave off your

469
00:41:00,720 --> 00:41:04,480
shoes and how to pray.
He said in all the churches,

470
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:11,040
in all Christian sects,
you can find the same praying as
Islam, five times every day,

471
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:17,920
and you can find people who pray
on the land, not on church. 
Believe me there is

472
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,720
more in common than you think
between Islam and Christianity.

473
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:33,720
As Christians here learned how
to live side-by-side with Islam,

474
00:41:33,720 --> 00:41:38,720
one group of Eastern
Christians was about to get an
unexpected new lease of life.

475
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:47,880
Remember Nestorius, the
Bishop who won the day at Chalcedon,
but still came off the loser?

476
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:52,520
Well, adapting to
the challenge of Islam

477
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:58,640
provided just the spur his followers
needed to embark on their own great
Christian venture in the East.

478
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:06,080
Nestorius died in exile in Egypt,
but his supporters

479
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:10,480
helped build a church independent
of both Imperial Christianity

480
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:13,480
and the Syriac Orthodox Church.

481
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:18,600
They based their headquarters
further east, in modern Iraq.

482
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:20,200
They called themselves,

483
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,640
appropriately,
the Church of the East.

484
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:34,520
THEY CHANT

485
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:40,720
This is one of the Church's
Iraqi congregations.

486
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:51,240
It's had a presence in what is
now Iraq for over 15,000 years.

487
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:58,960
Only recent wars have forced this
congregation to worship in exile
across the Syrian border.

488
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:04,720
It's naturally proud
of its ancient lineage.

489
00:43:04,720 --> 00:43:09,760
But in fact it has a much
bigger significance
in the history of Christianity.

490
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:17,040
That's because these Eastern
Christians persuaded their
Muslim rulers that they

491
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:19,280
had unique skills to offer.

492
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:24,880
Skills gained during
the time they spent

493
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,600
arguing about the nature of Christ.

494
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:35,800
They turned Greek theology,
literature and philosophy into their
native Syriac to argue the case.

495
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:38,240
They became the think tank
of the middle east.

496
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:51,600
So when the new Muslim Empire
wanted to translate Greek science
and philosophy into Arabic

497
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:55,640
it was to the ancestors of these
Christians that it naturally turned.

498
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:03,120
We in the West owe the
Church of the East a huge debt.

499
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:06,880
Much of what we know about
Greek learning,

500
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:11,480
from medicine to astronomy
and even the system of Arabic
numerals in use today,

501
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:15,440
all come to us courtesy of
those Christian translators.

502
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:31,840
The value of the scholars
to their Muslim rulers
ensured that the Church thrived.

503
00:44:36,240 --> 00:44:42,080
Within 200 years of the rise
of Islam, Patriarch Timothy I
of the Church of the East

504
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:45,320
presided from the Abbasid
capital of Baghdad

505
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:50,480
over an area that extended
from Jerusalem to Central Asia

506
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:55,480
even to India,
which was home to a thriving Church.

507
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:57,480
Its descendants are still there.

508
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,960
Everywhere in this vast area,
Timothy was known by the ancient

509
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:08,080
Syriac title of respect for
a religious leader, "Mar".

510
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:13,640
Maybe a quarter of all
Christians saw Mar Timothy
as their spiritual leader -

511
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:16,840
probably as many as the Bishop
who was Pope in Rome.

512
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:28,800
So here in Syria and Central Asia,
Christianity had passed
a crucial test.

513
00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:33,120
In contrast to the West, it was
unable to rely on military strength

514
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:36,960
and so had learned to make
the most of persuasion,

515
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:38,640
negotiation.

516
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:42,840
But Christianity is at
heart a missionary faith,

517
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:47,480
and in the Abbasid Empire,
conversion from Islam was forbidden.

518
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:52,160
So the Eastern Church
had to find other ways to expand.

519
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:59,240
The solution was as radical as
the later expansion of Western
Christianity in the Americas.

520
00:45:59,240 --> 00:46:03,800
The Church of the Middle East
decided to spread to the Far East.

521
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:35,120
Christianity is now so identified
with the West that we've forgotten

522
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:41,800
that long ago the belief that
God became man in Jesus found
fertile ground in the Far East.

523
00:46:44,240 --> 00:46:48,240
But that's exactly what
happened in 7th century China.

524
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:58,440
And we're beginning to understand
how Christianity may have managed to
survive in such an alien culture.

525
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:11,560
I met Martin Palmer, a writer on
early Chinese Christianity who
believes he's found the smoking gun.

526
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:18,120
The missing evidence from
the Christian presence in
China in the 7th century.

527
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:24,160
That's around the same time
as Christianity was beginning to
convert Anglo-Saxons in England.

528
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:32,360
Martin came across a map of
modern day Shaanxi Province,

529
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:39,760
where there was thought to be a long
lost 7th century Christian monastery
called Da Qin.

530
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:45,600
To find it he needed to pinpoint
an identifiable traditional
Chinese landmark.

531
00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:49,920
This map was a very faded
pencil map, so I got out

532
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:53,040
a huge magnifying glass,
put a whopping great light on it,

533
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:58,320
looked at this, read the characters
and then suddenly realising I knew
exactly where it was... Wow.

534
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:03,360
..because the next temple up
on this map was Lao Guan Dai

535
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:05,720
and that's the temple over there.

536
00:48:05,720 --> 00:48:10,080
OK. Right on that hill,
that wooded hill over there.

537
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:18,440
Lao Guan Dai was the most important
Daoist Temple in Tang Dynasty China.

538
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:21,680
GONG RESONATES

539
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:25,800
And now on a hillside,
just across from that Temple,

540
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:29,120
Martin was looking for evidence
of a Christian monastery.

541
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:37,800
The monastery seemed to have a tall
typically Chinese feature,

542
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:39,800
a pagoda.

543
00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:47,360
And that's exactly what Martin
found, only a mile away.

544
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:52,560
It was in a terrible state then.

545
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:55,440
Now the Chinese have given it
a good deal of TLC,

546
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:59,280
because it is such
an extraordinary survival.

547
00:49:00,240 --> 00:49:04,520
We arrived to find a 115-year-old
nun and I know this is beginning

548
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:07,200
to sound like Indiana Jones,
but she made tea for us

549
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:11,440
and I was desperately looking to
see if I could find something
with a cross on it,

550
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:14,120
so I went up the hill
just to look down on it

551
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:17,680
and that's when I realised
this was a Christian site.

552
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:19,360
How?

553
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:23,200
All Daoist, Buddhist
and Confucianist temples
face south,

554
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:27,080
that's the geomantic, the feng shui
direction of Chinese temples. Yep.

555
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:31,640
All historical Christian churches
face east as you know...
Yep, east, west, yep.

556
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:37,480
..better than anybody else.
This terrace cut into the side
of the hill runs east, west.

557
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:43,440
So I ran down the hill going,
"Yes, yes, I know it's true,
I know it's true!"

558
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:47,880
And the Buddhist nun kind of drew
herself up to her full height of
five feet and stared me

559
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:50,720
in the knee caps and went,
"What's going on?" So I said,

560
00:49:50,720 --> 00:49:53,880
"Well, we think that this might
once upon a time have been

561
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:58,040
"a very ancient Christian church",
and she drew herself up
even more and she went,

562
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:02,640
"Well, of course, it was
the most famous Christian church
in China. Didn't you know that?"

563
00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:04,160
THEY LAUGH

564
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:08,520
There are moments, Diarmaid,
when you just sort of think,
"Thank you, God!"

565
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:17,000
The Christian monastery
seems to have adopted
typical Chinese architecture.

566
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:21,440
Inside the building there are
sculptures, which Martin believes

567
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:28,120
survive from the Pagoda's
Christian days. But when we tried
to take a look, we hit a problem.

568
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:30,000
SHE SHOUTS

569
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:31,280
HE SHOUTS

570
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:38,680
Today the ground floor of the pagoda
is a Buddhist Temple.

571
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:42,080
And some locals have had enough
of world interest in the building

572
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:44,320
as an historical Christian site.

573
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:50,840
In spite of lengthy negotiations,
I was not going to get inside.

574
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:58,400
I've a certain sympathy
for the angry villagers.

575
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:03,880
When my sort of Western Christian
culture bludgeoned its way
by force into China

576
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:07,520
in the 19th century,
it humiliated the Chinese.

577
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:09,800
They've not forgotten that.

578
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:15,680
But when long before,
the Church of the East

579
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:18,800
arrived on the scene,
it was very different.

580
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:23,240
And Martin was keen to show me
more about the differences.

581
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:35,240
An hour's drive away is the capital
of the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an,
modern day Xi'an.

582
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:42,440
It is home to a remarkable museum
of ancient stone-carved records
known as stelae.

583
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:48,000
The so-called Forest of Stelae
is really an ancient library

584
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:53,280
of classic Confucian writings,
Chinese poetry and history.

585
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:58,960
And there are other stelae gathered
from around this imperial capital.

586
00:52:01,240 --> 00:52:07,320
One of these great stones is quite
breathtaking when you
realise what it is,

587
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:09,840
nothing less than
an ancient commemoration

588
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:14,280
of the Church of the East
in China dating back to 781.

589
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:21,080
And this is it. This is the Da Qin
Stone. There's the words "Da Qin".

590
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:26,200
Now Da Qin means
a big empire in the West.

591
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:30,440
The Chinese knew that there was
a whopping great Empire,
somewhere to the West.

592
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:33,720
Now, whether they were referring
to Rome or the Byzantine Empire

593
00:52:33,720 --> 00:52:37,200
or the Syrian Empire, we're not
sure, but what they're saying is,

594
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:41,200
"This is the Western Empire's
religion of brightness".

595
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:44,000
There's the word for religion,
there's brightness,

596
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:46,960
and that was the name that
the Chinese Christians gave

597
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:49,680
to their own religion,
the religion of light.

598
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:54,800
But can I show you one other thing
which will link you back to Syria
where you've just been... Right.

599
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:59,600
..with China, because round here,
on the walls here,

600
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:04,040
can you see how we've got
some Syriac texts...

601
00:53:04,040 --> 00:53:05,840
Oh, yes.

602
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:08,960
..and then underneath
the Chinese names. Yeah.

603
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:12,560
And each one of the Chinese names
starts with the same character

604
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:14,920
and that's the character
for Mar meaning...

605
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:18,080
Oh, Priest! Exactly. Yes, yes.

606
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:21,200
Now what strikes me
standing by all these

607
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:25,160
great stones is that this Christian
one is just like all the others.

608
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:29,720
Exactly, exactly. So here
we are in the year 781

609
00:53:29,720 --> 00:53:33,360
in the greatest empire
in the greatest period

610
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:35,920
of Chinese Civilisation
that there has ever been

611
00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:40,920
and we have Christianity
coming, proud of its roots,

612
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:44,400
but also able to mix and move
amongst the Chinese

613
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:45,920
with great ease.

614
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:56,680
Indeed, wherever they went, Eastern
Christians seemed to find sympathy

615
00:53:56,680 --> 00:54:00,520
in societies
very different from theirs.

616
00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:04,760
So the mystery is what happened
to the Church of the East?

617
00:54:08,240 --> 00:54:14,400
We know that in the 9th Century
a new Chinese Emperor turned
against all foreign religion.

618
00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:17,760
The Church seemed to disappear.

619
00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:21,280
This was the examination hall, but
it also had a religious function.

620
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:26,920
But Martin has an intriguing theory
that rather than vanish, the Church
may have gone underground.

621
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:31,880
We have a record. Marco Polo,
who comes in the late 13th century

622
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:36,400
loathed the Church of the East. He
was a good Catholic, hated them.

623
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:41,920
He says that 700,000 hidden
Christians re-emerged.

624
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:45,720
Now he probably underestimates,
because he didn't like them.

625
00:54:45,720 --> 00:54:48,480
Yes, he's talking about
a huge number. Huge number.

626
00:54:49,240 --> 00:54:53,320
So if Chinese people were prepared
to put that much effort
into Christianity,

627
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:56,080
what is it that has made
Christianity Chinese?

628
00:54:56,080 --> 00:55:01,600
Well, I think whereas the Church in 
the West, once it had conquered the 
Roman Empire, doesn't meet another

629
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:07,760
literate culture, other than Islam
with which it has a few problems,
until the 15th century,

630
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:14,360
the Church of the East is
engaging with the greatest
intellectual centres the world has.

631
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:19,480
And therefore the kind of
Christianity they developed was
a Christianity of dialogue,

632
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:24,480
not of conquest. They never... Never
was the Church of the East imperial.

633
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:28,320
It was a Church of merchants,
not of the military,

634
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:33,440
and that is a huge
difference, because merchants
like to arrive at a compromise.

635
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:53,400
Eastern Christianity's
ability to adapt and spread
without an army to back it

636
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:58,400
may have helped it survive in China
at least until the 9th century.

637
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:05,920
By then Western Christianity
had only just begun to make inroads
into central and northern Europe.

638
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:08,880
That's a point that's
often been missed.

639
00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:14,440
You might say the Church
of the East failed in China.

640
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:17,160
It never gained permanent
favour from Emperors.

641
00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:21,120
It worshipped in a foreign language,
Syriac. It seemed to fade away.

642
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:24,000
But if Martin's right,
it didn't completely.

643
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:28,560
And maybe the Christianity we know
needs to regain its ancient
ability to listen.

644
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:42,320
Today, Christianity is
seen as a Western faith.

645
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:49,160
Indeed, many in the Muslim world
would see "Western" lifestyles
as "Christian" lifestyles.

646
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:53,920
But Christianity is not
by origin a "Western" religion.

647
00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:57,600
Its beginnings are in the Middle
East, where there still exist

648
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:02,760
Churches which have been Eastern
since the earliest Christian era.

649
00:57:04,800 --> 00:57:08,280
The story of the first Christianity
tells us that the Christian faith

650
00:57:08,280 --> 00:57:14,480
is in fact hugely diverse
with many identities.

651
00:57:16,240 --> 00:57:19,840
And it shows us that far from being
a "clash of civilisations",

652
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:26,160
in the East, the encounter between
Islam and Christianity
enriched both faiths.

653
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:33,000
And yet, for all of Christianity's
ability to re-invent itself,

654
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:36,600
it was ultimately eclipsed
across most of Asia.

655
00:57:36,600 --> 00:57:43,400
It suffered too many
misfortunes - massacre,
plague, persecution.

656
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:48,400
Islam suffered them too,

657
00:57:48,400 --> 00:57:52,240
but Islam had enough
powerful friends to survive.

658
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:04,400
In the next episode of my history
of Christianity, I will follow

659
00:58:04,400 --> 00:58:09,440
the western road out of Jerusalem,
to Rome and beyond.

660
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:15,680
And there we will see what
happens to Christianity when
it has powerful friends.

661
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:20,800
Why not take part in the Open
University's online survey -

662
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:24,080
"What does it mean to
be a Christian today?"

663
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:25,840
At...

664
00:58:28,760 --> 00:58:30,280
..and follow the links.

665
00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:45,600
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

666
00:58:45,600 --> 00:58:48,720
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk