This episode of CS is titled, Back in the East – Part 1In our last foray into the Church in the East, we stopped our review with the Mongols. You may remember while the Mongols started out generally favorable to Christianity, when later Mongol Khans became Muslims, they embarked on a campaign to eradicate the Gospel from their lands. That rang the death knell to The Church in the East, which for centuries boasted far more members and covered a wider area than the Western Church.And again, let me be clear to define our terms, when I speak of the Church in the East, I’m not referring to the Eastern Orthodox Church HQ’d in Constantinople; not the Greek Orthodox Church or it’s close cousin, the Russian Orthodox Church. The Church in the East was also known as the Nestorian Church and looked to the one-time Bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius who was officially labeled a heretic, but who became the patriarch of a wide-ranging church movement that reached all the way to Japan.While today, Nestorianism is officially labelled a heresy in its view of the nature of Christ, it’s doubtful Nestorius taught that. Nor did The Church in the East believe it. The Nestorianism that bears the label “Heresy” is more a thing found in books than in the hearts and minds of the people who made up The Church in the East.In any case, the once vibrant Church in the East came to a virtual end with the Mongols. It wasn’t till the 16th C that the Faith began a renewed mission to the East, and this time it was by a concerted effort of Europeans. It came because of the expansion of the Portuguese and Spanish empires in the 16th and 17th Cs, then to Dutch, English, French and Danish traders in the 18th and 19th.Even before the Jesuit order was recognized by Rome, Ignatius Loyola was aware of the need for an able overseer of missions to the East. Though loath to lose his assistant, in 1540 Loyola sent his ablest lieutenant and close friend, Francis Xavier to the Portuguese colony of Goa in India. Xavier remains one of the greatest of all Christian missionaries. He possessed an immensely attractive personality and a Paul-like determination to preach the Gospel where Christ had not been named.Xavier moved from Goa to the fishermen of the Coromandel coast of India, where he baptized thousands and engaged in discipleship, though by his own admission his command of the language was marginal. He visited Sri Lanka from 1541–45, and Indonesia for 2 years before entering Japan in 1549. He established a Jesuit mission there and had a couple Christian books translated into the language. Exposure to Japan, with its, at that time, deep respect for all things Chinese, convinced him to do whatever it took to enter China. He was poised to do so when he died in 1552.Allesandro Valignano was born to Italian nobility and obtained a Doctor of Law degree at the University of Padua. But a profound religious experience we’d have to call a dramatic and genuine conversion, hijacked his previous career path and set him on mission. He became a Jesuit in 1566 because they were about the only ones doing missions at the time. He was appointed Visitor to Eastern Missions in 1573 and sailed to Goa from Lisbon in 1574.After a period of study in Macau, he came to the conclusion the Church was going about the task of spreading the faith to new people all wrong. He was determined to take the Gospel into China, but realized that meant he’d need to learn the language and customs. The Chinese were an ancient and proud race. They weren’t going to be wowed by relatively uneducated and backward Europeans, regardless of how superior they might think they were. Valignano knew learning Chinese would open a door for the Gospel.He vehemently opposed the conquistador approach to China and Japan both Portugal and Spain used in their conquest of the Philippines. He made 3 trips to Japan from 1578 to 1603. Like Francis Xavier, Valignano was convinced of China’s importance as