7th century
From Missiopedia
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Overview: History - Epochs - Turnings - Centuries BC - Centuries AD
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While Nestorian believers spread out across Asia and erected church buildings in China, the Celtic church was being subsumed into the Roman Catholic tradition. Numerous missionary bishops with their evangelistic monasteries were rapidly converting Europe. These monasteries established schools supported by the kingly courts of the region which preserved much of Western culture and education. The Rule of St. Columban and the Rule of St. Benedict together set the foundation by which the monasteries functioned. Meanwhile, in Arabia, Mohammad declared he had received a new revelation and, after his death, Muslims began rapidly expanding across the Arab world.
[edit] Of Note
- Notable controveries:
- Notable empires: Byzantine Empire
- Notable peoples: Slavs, Basques, Lombards, Frisians
- Notable individuals: Mohammed
- Notable religious movements: Islam rapidly expands in Asia, Africa
- Notable missionary movements: Celtic, Benedictines
- Notable Christian traditions: Nestorian, Byzantine
- Notable Christians: Willibrod, Alopen
[edit] Events
- Numerous non-Christian nomadic tribals move into the Balkan Peninsula and Greece, causing the "deChristianization" of these regions as they demographically outnumber the Christians.
- 600 - First Christian settlers in Andorra (southwestern Europe, between France and Spain)
- 601 - Gregory the Great gave a principle of accommodation.
- 610 - Mohammad's first visions, in the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
- 618 - End of Sui dynasty and beginning of T'ang dynasty in China.
- 622 - Beginning of Islam, dated with the Hijra or "Emigration" of Mohammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina, which marked the founding of the Umma (community of believers) and the beginning of the Islamic lunar calendar.
- 629 - Amandus of Elnon is consecrated a missionary bishop. He evangelized the region around Ghent and went on missions to Slavs along the Danube and to Basques in Navarre
- 630 - Mohammad and his followers complete the conquest of Mecca and the rededication of the Ka'ba sanctuary from idolatry to the pure monotheistic worship of God (Allah).
- 631 - Conversion of the East Angles (one of the seven kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy)
- 632 - Death of Mohammad. After his death, Abu Bakr (573-634) was elected caliph or leader/successor/deputy of the Prophet (see List of Muslim Caliphs)
- 632 - From 632 to 640 Muslim armies surge east into the Sassanid kingdom of Persia, whom they defeat at Nihawand in 642, completely taking control of the Persian Empire.
- 634 - Islam. Death of Abu Bakr and accession of Umar (634-644).
- 635 - First Christian missionaries (Nestorian monks, including Alopen, from Asia Minor and Persia) arrive in China; Aidan of Lindisfarne begins evangelizing in the heart of Northumbria (England)
- 637 - Lombards, a German people living in northern Italy, become Christians
- 638 - A church building is erected in Ch'ang-an, then perhaps the largest city in the world
- 638 - Fall of Jerusalem to Muslim armies.
- 640 - Fall of Caesarea to Muslim armies, domination of Palestine and Syria.
- 642 - Fall of Alexandria to Muslim armies; soon after, domination of Egypt.
- 644 - Death of Muslim caliph Umar and accession of Uthman (644-656).
- 650 - First church organized in Netherlands
- 650 - Eastern Roman Empire becomes the Byzantine Empire.
- 651 - By this year, Islam had conquered Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia and most of Egypt.
- 651 - Muslims occupied Khurasan and make the city of Merv a center of control of eastern Persia and the base for eastern campaigns.
- 656 - Death by assassination of Muslim caliph Uthman and accession of Ali (656-661). Questions about Ali's role in the murder of Uthman and the growing power base around Mu'awiya, Uthman's cousin, who refused to recognize Ali as caliph, lead to civil war.
- 661 - Muslim caliph Ali assassinated and accession of Mu'awiya, who founds the Ummayyad Dynasty and shifts the capital of Islam from Medina to Damascus in Syria. Meanwhile the followers of Ali become the Shi'ites or Shi'at Ali or simply Shi'a--which means supporters of Ali. Meanwhile other Muslims, adhering to the umma and searching the Qur'an and Sunna for solutions to problems, become called Sunnis.
- 664 - Celtic church comes under the Roman Catholic Church.
- 673 - Irish monk Maol Rubha founds a training center at Aprochrosan that would serve as a base for missionary outreach into Scotland
- 673 - Venerable Bede (c 673-735) would become the historian of the 8th century.
- 680 - First translation of Christian Scriptures into Arabic
- 680 - Bulgars move across the Danube and take territory from what remained of the Western Roman Empire.
- 689 - Pagans kill Irish missionary Kilian near Würzburg in what is now Germany. His remains will be buried in a Benedictine abbey in Würzburg.
- 690 - Empress Wu rules as female emperor of China to 705; persecution of Christians.
- 692 - Willibrord and 11 companions cross the North Sea to become missionaries to the Frisians (modern day Netherlands)
- 697 - Fall of Carthage to Muslim armies, capital of North Africa
