Page 87 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

The Nile Corridor Churches

Perhaps a student reading this book will be inspired to address
this challenge.

Earlier I described the growth of the church in Egypt, which goes
back as far as Pentecost. In Abyssinia, the church was planted in the
fourth century. At some point in the third century, the kingdom of
Meroë (Northern Sudan) was conquered by warriors from Abyssinia.
The excavations conducted by UNESCO suggest the following:

From the ruins of Meroë, the three kingdoms were shaped:
Nobatia in the North with its capital Faras, Makuria in the center
with its capital Dongola, and Alodia in the South with its capital
Soba. Nobatia, Makuria, and Alodia are Greek names. Anderson
and Kalu in African Christianity use the Arab names: Nuba,
Maqurra, and Alwa. (Paas, 36)

Thus, Keener notes, “Christianity spread southward into Nubia in
the 300s and 400s, from Egypt, until Nubia became largely Christian”
(113). Then, in approximately A.D. 543, the Coptic priest Julian was sent
to Nubia by the Byzantine Empress Theodora. In A.D. 527 Justinian
had married the beautiful Theodora. She had been a prostitute in
Alexandria, but then was brought to Christ by Coptic monks and
therefore influenced by the Monophysite doctrine. Even so, her husband
remained true to Chalcedonian Christology. In terms of their doctrinal
views, it seemed that their house was divided. When Theodora had
heard that her husband, the Emperor, intended to send ambassadors to
Nubia, she responded by sending Julian, who “baptized a Nobatian king
and his nobles, nominated a bishop, and converted a pagan temple into
a church” (Paas, 37).

Not long after Julian, another group of missionaries was sent by
Theodora’s husband, Emperor Justinian I. They were opposed by Julian and
forced to move south to work in the kingdom of Makuria. So Nubia was
caught in the conflict between the Monophysites and the Chalcedonian
missionaries. I will draw a lesson from this in the conclusion of the chapter.

Julian was succeeded by another missionary by the name of
Longinus who was sent from Alexandria about A.D. 568. “Longinus
was successful in building churches, training and ordaining clergy,

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