Study of the Symbols of Confession, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper Nestorius Church, on the basis of the Selected Sogdian-Christian Texts Discovered in Archaeological Site of Turfan, China

abstract More than two thousand years after the vanguard of Christianity, the monotheistic religion, by the efforts of the Christian missioners, have spread from west to east of the world. After separation of Nestorius church from Catholic church of Rome, the eastern Christian missioners went over the silk road, despite of the harm and torture of opposed governments, they could spread the realm of Christianity to China. Inside the region, the Sogdian people pledged to the Nestorius church and published the instruction of Christian’s education in Sogdian language. The Sogdian language was the language of Sogdian people. The center of Sogd, is Samarqand and most important city was Bokhara (in republic of Uzbekistan). Furthermore the sogdian language is the official, commercial and cultural language in other territory like Turfan in eastern Turkistan. The importance of discovering the traces of eastern Christianity from Iran to China along the silk road, made the researchers to study the left traces and documents in this commercial and cultural road, in order to obtain the new information. The historical documents of eastern Christianity had been destroyed by the pursuance and persecution of Christian missioners and the new followers. According to some historical reports, Sogdian tried actively to spread the Christianity, but there were no sign of any religious manuscript of this Iranian people. Different European missions always intended to discover and study the left religious traces in the region. Finally, in 1904-1908, a mission from Germany discovered a collection of Sogdian texts in the ruins of a Nestorius church in “Bulayiq” of Turfan in north China. this collection contained Christian- Sogdian manuscripts concerning the customs and education of eastern Christianity. In this essay some pieces of the text sixth (C2), which Henning has transliterated them, have been chosen and after transcription and translation into Persian, some Christian symbols will be analyzed. Key Words: Christianity, Symbol, Sogd, Nestorian, Silk road, Turfan More than two thousand years after the vanguard of Christianity, the monotheistic religion, by the efforts of the Christian missioners, have spread from west to east of the world. After separation of Nestorius church from Catholic church of Rome, the eastern Christian missioners went over the silk road, despite of the harm and torture of opposed governments, they could spread the realm of Christianity to China. Inside the region, the Sogdian people pledged to the Nestorius church and published the instruction of Christian’s education in Sogdian language. The Sogdian language was the language of Sogdian people. The center of Sogd, is Samarqand and most important city was Bokhara (in republic of Uzbekistan). Furthermore the sogdian language is the official, commercial and cultural language in other territory like Turfan in eastern Turkistan. The importance of discovering the traces of eastern Christianity from Iran to China along the silk road, made the researchers to study the left traces and documents in this commercial and cultural road, in order to obtain the new information. The historical documents of eastern Christianity had been destroyed by the pursuance and persecution of Christian missioners and the new followers. According to some historical reports, Sogdian tried actively to spread the Christianity, but there were no sign of any religious manuscript of this Iranian people. Different European missions always intended to discover and study the left religious traces in the region. Finally, in 1904-1908, a mission from Germany discovered a collection of Sogdian texts in the ruins of a Nestorius church in “Bulayiq” of Turfan in north China. this collection contained Christian- Sogdian manuscripts concerning the customs and education of eastern Christianity. In this essay some pieces of the text sixth (C2), which Henning has transliterated them, have been chosen and after transcription and translation into Persian, some Christian symbols will be analyzed. Key Words: Christianity, Symbol, Sogd, Nestorian, Silk road, Turfan