Chapter 10

Something that I found in the reading is that Nestorian Christians were found in the Middle East and China. People that followed the ways of this practice in Iraq and Persia, did not preach to Muslims to accommodate Islamic leaders. In China, these particular Christians adapted to Chinese culture, but was then diminished when the dynasty at the time moved to remove all foreign faiths. At the time, Western Europe was in an intense competition between political and religious authority. In the east, the Byzantine emperor was in charge of the church and state. The Roman Empire was falling apart due to it getting too big. Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire. When Christianity was being controlled by the Empire, some problems arose. One was told what to think by the government of the time. The Western Roman Empire was falling apart, while the eastern part was thriving for about one thousand years. The Roman Empire in the west "moved" to Constantinople. As the Roman Empire was fell, the Vatican became the unifying entity and a strong and influential force. The term "Christendom" became common because the religion became an empirical force.