All about the ancient tribes
Why did Christianity die out in Nubia?
Christianity spread South from the North of Egypt to Nubia (modern day Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan) some two hundred years after the collapse of the powerful Nile Valley kingdom of Meroe in the 4th century AD. It was brought by traders from Egypt and by travelers from Aksum.
Ancient Nubia was reached by Coptic Christianity by the 2nd century. The Coptic Church was later influenced by Greek Christianity, particularly during the Byzantine era.
Nubian sovereign religion in the fifth century CE was an amalgamation of Classical Sudanese and Egyptian traditions, Meroitic imperial culture, Christian traditions indigenous to Coptic Egypt, and Roman military piety.
The Nubian Churches were Monophysite, and bishops were appointed by the Patr. of Alexandria. In 1172 the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt, which had been tolerant of Christianity and on good terms with Nubia, was overthrown. Both Church and State in Nubia declined.
Christianity affected the Kingdom of Aksum by opening up new avenues for trade and territorial expansion.
Nubia is described as a region rich in gold, bdellium and onyx in Genesis 2:11. This marks the southwestern boundary of Eden, a vast well-watered region that was bounded on the northeast by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The red area is the likely extent of Biblical Eden.
Christians in Sudan have endured hate speech and some reported forced conversions. Also, it was illegal for Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men while churches were vandalized and burned down. Today, Sudan is still overwhelmingly Muslim, but there is a substantial Christian minority.
The Nubians regarded themselves as strong Muslims, though they were converted to the Islamic faith relatively late in comparison with the Egyptians. The syncretism of Nubian ceremonial practices contains three major categories of customs and beliefs: Non-Islamic, Popular Islamic, and Orthodox Islamic.
Christianity was introduced to Sudan through European missionary programs throughout East Africa. Catholic missionaries arrived first in 1842, and were followed by members of the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches roughly 50 years later.
Polytheism was widespreaded in most of ancient African and other regions of the world, before the introduction of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. An exception was the short-lived monotheistic religion created by Pharaoh Akhenaten, who made it mandatory to pray to his personal god Aton (see Atenism).
Christianity in Ethiopia is the largest religion in the country, the Ethiopian community at large, and dates back to the early medieval Kingdom of Aksum, when the King Ezana first adopted the faith in 330 AD. This makes Ethiopia one of the first regions in the world to officially adopt Christianity.
Nubia is a region along the Nile river located in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt.
Scholars have suggested a number of reasons for this decline, including desertification and loss of trade routes. People in the Roman Empire converted to Christianity on a large scale during the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., and Christianity also began to make its way into Nubia.
“According to Ethiopian tradition, Christianity first came to the Aksum Empire in the fourth century A.D. when a Greek-speaking missionary named Frumentius converted King Ezana.
Islam spread to Sudan from the north, after the Islamic conquest of Egypt under the government of Amr ibn al-Aas. Nubia had already been Christianized, also from Egypt, hence the old Nubian church followed Coptic Christianity.