This book solves the long-standing mystery of a Christian monastery near Samarkand, seen and described by two Arab travellers in the tenth century. Despite several attempts made since the 1890s, its precise location had never been established. The first part covers the quest, the find, and the archaeological excavations’ results. Then the author proceeds to search for a mediaeval Christian enclave near modern Tashkent, which appears to have been washed away by a river that changed its course over centuries. Apart from the Christians, the book also touches upon the Manichaeans, Buddhists,...

No one mentions Syriac, – a dialect of the Aramaic language Jesus spoke –, without referring to Sebastian P. Brock, the Oxford scholar and teacher who has written and taught about everything Syriac, even reorienting the field as The Third Lung of early Christianity (along with Greek and Latin). In 2018, Syriac scholars world-wide gathered in Sigtuna, Sweden, to celebrate with Sebastian his accomplishments and share new directions. Through essays showing what Syriac studies have attained, where they are going, as well as some arenas and connections previously not imagined, flavors of the...

In 1946 the ‘Lviv Sobor’ voted to liquidate the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church. The Moscow Patriarchate considers it a ‘triumph of Orthodoxy,’ while the Catholic Church condemns it as an illegitimate council convened by Soviet authorities. What is the truth? This volume presents the contexts of the ‘Lviv Sobor,’ its aftermath, and reception from various perspectives. Although there is no common narrative, scholars have concluded that the decisions of the ‘Lviv Sobor’ were coerced by Soviet authorities, the Russian Orthodox Church was forced to collaborate, and that...