The Baptist in Burma 1813 - 1976

Abstract

Burma, situated in South-East Asia, lies between India, China, Thailand, and Malaysia. I t has a population of over twenty-eight million and consists of more than a hundred ethnic and racial groups. These groups have their own culture and dialects, but use Burmese in communicating with each other； Burmese being the official language of the country. Among them, five major racial groups -- the Burmese, Karens, Shans, Chins and Kachins constitute the majority.

Today, Christianity has won and continues to win converts from these groups meeting with success particularly among the Karens, Chins, and Kachins; but with meagre success among the Burmans, Shans, Mons, and the Arakanese, who are staunch Buddhists and deeply tradition-minded.

The Roman Catholics believe that Christianity was first introduced into Burma, about the thirteenth century by Armenian traders who intermarried with the Burmese and imparted their religion to their progeny. In a booklet, Old Burma, it is narrated that in the year 1496, two Italian traders, Hieronimo de Santo Stefano and a companion, visited Pegu where they did business with the Burmese. While business transactions were taking place, Stefano's companion died and was buried "in a ruined church, frequented by none".1 this evidence points to the fact that there were Christians even earlier than 1496.

According to Burmese History, Burma was invaded in the thirteenth century by the Mongols (Tartars) who were ruled by Kublai Khan. The Burmese king, Narathihapate (1254-1287) commanded the Burmese armies to repel the invaders. A fierce battle was fought between the two forces at "Ngasaungyan", in Yunnan. Marco Polo, the famous Venetian traveller, who seemed to have been an eye-witness, or who must have acquired an account from one of the Tartar's, mentions that the victorious Tartars occupied Burma, and that there was intercourse between Kublai Khan and the Burmese rulers by an exchange of envoys.

It is surmised that Nestorian Christians must have visited the Burmese kingdom as members of the Mongol court for again, according to Marco Polo, he himself met some Mohammedans and Nestorian Christians who were high court officials in the Mongol army. Thus knew that Nestorian Christians were the first to set foot in Burma. The Mongols ruled the country t ill the reign of the "Three Shan Brothers, who deposed the royal family at Pagan and fought the Tartars who came to re-instate it. After accepting a large bribe, the Tartars withdrew and never returned. In connection with Nestorian Christians being in the 4 Mongol army, Attwater mentions the following: Nestorian Christians were known to have been in West China about A.D. 635; that a Christian hymn in Chinese dated A.D. 908 was found a thousand years later. In Latourette1 s A History of Christianity, we have the information that in the thirteenth and first-half of the fourteenth centuries, there were Nestorian communities in central Asia and China, and that through intermarriage with the ruling family of the Keraits, who were Nestorian Christians, some of the Mongol princes, who were descendants of Jenghiz Khan, had been baptized in infancy, and that Hulagu, the first of the Mongol conquerors in Western Asia, was believed to have been baptized.