ICC NOTE: Archaeologists in eastern Kazakhstan located Christian gravestones in the ancient city of Ilyn Balik near China. Ilyn Balik was about the size of ancient Jerusalem and was a diverse city, housing multiple religions in a city upon the silk road. The discovery could alter the course of Christianity’s history in the country as the consensus has been the Russian Orthodox Church brought Christianity to the region. Native Kazakh Christians see the finding as evidence of long historical roots with their land.

10/7/2016 Kazakhstan (Christianity Today) – A team of archaeologists uncovered seven Christian gravestones late this summer in the ancient Silk Road city of Ilyn Balik near the Kazakhstan-China border.

The historic find is rare archaeological evidence that eastern Christianity was established along East-West trading routes hundreds of years ago, not brought in by the Russian Orthodox Church as many had believed.

“This discovery supports the understanding of ancient Kazakhstan as a multicultural center between the East and West with Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians living among the local herdsmen and nomadic tribes,” stated Thomas Davis, a member of the field team and archaeology professor at the Tandy Institute for Archeology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) in Fort Worth, Texas.

“[It] reinforces so much of what we already knew about the church of the East in central and eastern Asia,” said Philip Jenkins, author of The Lost History of Christianity.

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