Christian History of Harbin

This lecture by Piotr Adamek at the Forum of Missionary Sinology, Fu Jen University, 13 November 2018, reconstructed the multi-denominational Christian history of Harbin, where about 50 Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches were built. These different life worlds where reconstructed according to accessible documents, magazines, and works written about foreign diaspora in Harbin.

“Christian History of Harbin”
Forum of Missionary Sinology, Fu Jen University, 13 November 2018

The lecture introduces the Christian history of Harbin, which is a quite extensive and important part of its overall history. About 50 Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches are or were located in Harbin in the North-East China, as witnesses of the splendorous past and rather modest contemporary presence of Christianity in this region. Russians, Jews, Poles, Germans and other foreigners constituted a large part of the population of Harbin and played a very important role in its history, especially in the first half of the 20th century, including the religious life of the city. The lecture analyzes accessible documents, magazines, and works written about foreign diaspora in Harbin and describes the life of various Christian groups.

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A Polish Catholic in Karakorum, a Nestorian Pekinger in Rome, a Muslim Moroccan in Quanzhou. Three Travelers of 13–14 Century and Their Experiences of the Other

In this lecture at the Academia Catholica, Fu Jen University, on 15 November 2018, Piotr Adamek analyzed experiences of religious and other alterities in the works of three very different travelers of the time of the Mongolian Empire (13–14 century) – Benedictus Polonus, Rabban Bar Sauma, and Abū Abdallāh Muhammad Ibn Battūta.

“A Polish Catholic in Karakorum, a Nestorian Pekinger in Rome, a Muslim Moroccan in Quanzhou. Three Travelers of 13–14 Century and Their Experiences of the Other”

Academia Catholica, Fu Jen University, 15 November 2018

Three very different travelers made their voyages in the 13–14 century: a Catholic from Poland, Benedictus Polonus, who traveled to Karakorum in 1246, a Nestorian from Khanbaliq (what is now Beijing), Rabban Bar Sauma, who travelled to Europe forty years later in 1288, and a Muslim from Morocco (in North-West Africa), Abū Abdallāh Muhammad Ibn Battūta, who travelled to Quanzhou in 1345. The lecture will explain the political and religious context of their travels, their differences and similarities. With the help of manuscripts left by these three travelers, written down mostly after their trips – De Itinere Fratrum Minorum ad Tartaros (On the Travel of Franciscan Friars to the Tartars) and Hystoria Tartarorum by Benedictus (both 1247), The History of Yaballaha III (about 1292) by Rabban Bar Sauma, and A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling, 1354, by Ibn Batutta – their perception of that what is familiar, their own, and what is different, the other, is analyzed and compared.

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