Mission and Expansion

68 eventsShow on the timeline

How a movement that began in Galilee reached every continent: Paul’s journeys, the conversion of kingdoms, monks and friars, and the modern missionary movement.

From the commission given by the risen Jesus, the faith moved along trade routes east to Persia, India and China as early as it moved west to Rome. This thread follows that spread, the methods used and argued over, and the growth of churches led by the peoples who received the message.

The thread from start to finish

about 760 BC, traditional date
Jonah Sent to Nineveh
The book of Jonah tells of a prophet of Israel who is sent to preach against Nineveh, flees by sea, is swallowed by a great fish and then sees the Assyrian city repent and be spared. Jesus later speaks of “the sign of Jonah”.
c. AD 28–29, estimated date
Jesus Appoints the Twelve
From his wider following Jesus chooses twelve men to be with him and to be sent out to preach and heal. Mark, Matthew and Luke list their names from Simon Peter to Judas Iscariot; Acts lists the eleven who remained.
AD 30 or 33, estimated date
The Appearances and the Great Commission
The Gospels and Paul report that the risen Jesus appeared to his followers, in Jerusalem, on the road to Emmaus and in Galilee, and sent them to make disciples of all nations. The accounts differ on where and in what order.
AD 30 or 33, estimated date
Pentecost
At the feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem, Acts says, the Holy Spirit comes on the followers of Jesus, Peter preaches that God has raised Jesus and made him Lord and Christ, and about three thousand people are baptised.
about AD 34, estimated date
The Gospel Reaches Samaria and an Ethiopian Official
Acts tells how Philip, driven from Jerusalem by persecution, preaches in Samaria, where Peter and John follow him, and then baptises an official of the Ethiopian queen on the road to Gaza. In Acts the message here first passes beyond Judea.
c. AD 31–36, estimated date
The Conversion of Paul
Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who is persecuting the followers of Jesus, becomes one of them near Damascus. Acts tells the story three times, and Paul’s own letters speak of it as a revelation of God’s Son and a call to preach to the Gentiles.
about AD 40, estimated date
The Baptism of the Gentile Cornelius
Acts tells how Peter, after a vision at Joppa, enters the house of the Roman centurion Cornelius at Caesarea, preaches there, and has him and his household baptised without circumcision, and how the church in Jerusalem accepts what he has done.
about AD 43, estimated date
The Church at Antioch, Where Believers Were First Called Christians
Acts tells how believers scattered from Jerusalem begin to preach to non-Jews at Antioch in Syria. Barnabas is sent to them and brings Saul from Tarsus. Acts says that the disciples were first called Christians there and that the church sent famine relief to Judea.
about AD 46 to AD 48, estimated date
Paul’s First Missionary Journey
Acts tells how Barnabas and Paul, sent out by the church at Antioch, preach in Cyprus and in the cities of southern Asia Minor, first in the synagogues and then to Gentiles, and found churches there before returning to Antioch.
about AD 49, estimated date
The Council of Jerusalem
Acts tells how Paul and Barnabas go up from Antioch to Jerusalem to settle whether Gentile believers must be circumcised, and how the apostles and elders decide that they need not be. Whether the meeting Paul describes in Galatians is the same one is disputed.
about AD 49, estimated date
Paul Opposes Peter at Antioch
Paul tells the Galatians how Cephas, who had been eating with Gentile believers at Antioch, withdrew when people came from James, and how he rebuked him in front of everyone. Whether this came before or after the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 is disputed.
about AD 49 to AD 52, estimated date
Paul Carries the Gospel into Europe
With Silas and Timothy, Paul crosses from Asia Minor to Macedonia and founds churches at Philippi, Thessalonica and Corinth. Acts brings him before the proconsul Gallio at Corinth, whose year of office an inscription at Delphi puts at about AD 51–52.
AD 52, traditional date
The Apostle Thomas and the Christians of India
Tradition holds that the apostle Thomas preached in India and died there. The oldest account cited, the Acts of Thomas, sets him at the court of a King Gundaphoros; the tradition of Kerala and Mylapore is attested later. Cosmas reports churches in India about AD 547.
about AD 53 to AD 57, estimated date
Paul in Ephesus and the Collection for Jerusalem
Paul works for some three years at Ephesus, then travels through Macedonia and Greece gathering money from his Gentile churches for the poor of Jerusalem, and sets out to deliver it in spite of warnings.
about AD 59 to AD 62, estimated date
Paul’s Voyage to Rome
Sent to Italy as a prisoner, Paul is shipwrecked on Malta, winters there and reaches Rome, where he lives for two years under guard and teaches all who come to him. There the book of Acts ends.
about AD 201, estimated date
Christianity Takes Root in Edessa
A flood report of November 201, kept in the archives of Edessa, lists a church of the Christians among the buildings destroyed. It is dated evidence of a church in the Syriac-speaking East, where a later tradition traced the church back to a letter from Jesus.
AD 301 (traditional) or c. 314, traditional date
Armenia Adopts Christianity
King Tiridates of Armenia, by the account of the Armenian church, is converted by Gregory the Illuminator and brings his court and people to baptism. The Armenian church dates this to 301; the story was written down more than a century later.
c. AD 326–337, estimated date
The Conversion of Georgia
Rufinus, about 402, tells how a captive Christian woman brought the king and queen of the Iberians to the faith and how they asked Constantine for clergy. Georgian tradition names her Nino and the king Mirian and sets the story at Mtskheta.
c. AD 330–356, estimated date
King Ezana of Aksum Becomes Christian
Ezana, king of Aksum in the Ethiopian highlands, sets up an inscription that opens in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A letter of the emperor Constantius II names Frumentius, ordained by Athanasius of Alexandria, as bishop of Aksum.
about AD 341, estimated date
Ulfilas Translates the Bible for the Goths
Ulfilas, bishop of the Christian Goths for forty years, is credited by ancient historians with an alphabet for Gothic and a translation of the Scriptures. He held the Homoian creed, which Nicene writers called Arian. A sixth-century copy of the Gothic Gospels survives at Uppsala.
1 February AD 410, firm date
The Church of the East Organises at Seleucia-Ctesiphon
With the leave of the Persian king Yazdegerd I, forty bishops of his empire meet in the capital under Isaac, bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. They accept the creed and canons of Nicaea and set their church in order under one head, the catholicos.
c. AD 432–461 or 493 (traditional), traditional date
Patrick’s Mission to Ireland
Patrick, a Briton once enslaved in Ireland, returns there as a bishop and stays for life, baptising and ordaining clergy. Almost all that is known of him comes from his own two writings; his dates rest on annals compiled much later.
c. AD 496–508, estimated date
The Baptism of Clovis
Clovis, king of the Franks, is baptised a Catholic Christian by Bishop Remigius of Reims, with many of his warriors. Unlike the Burgundian and Visigothic kings, who were Arians, he shares the faith of his Gallo-Roman subjects and their bishops.
AD 523 (or 518), estimated date
The Martyrs of Najran
Yusuf, the Jewish king of Himyar in south Arabia, makes war on the Christian town of Najran. Syriac writers report that he put its leading men, with their chief Harith (Arethas), and many women to death. Kaleb, king of Aksum, then crosses the sea and overthrows him.
about AD 543 to AD 580, estimated date
The Conversion of the Nubian Kingdoms
John of Ephesus tells how the empress Theodora sent the priest Julian to the Nobadae on the Nile south of Egypt ahead of her husband’s envoys, so that they were baptised into the church that rejected Chalcedon, and how the bishop Longinus later baptised the king of Alodia.
AD 563, estimated date
Columba Founds Iona
The Irish priest and abbot Columba crosses to Britain and founds a monastery on the island of Iona. From it he preaches among the Picts, and it becomes the mother house of a family of monasteries in Ireland and Britain.
AD 590 to AD 604, firm date
Gregory the Great and the Mission to the English
Gregory I, a monk made pope against his will, governs the Roman church from 590 to 604, writes the Pastoral Rule, refuses the title of universal bishop and sends the monk Augustine to convert the English of Kent.
AD 635, estimated date
The Church of the East Reaches China
A monk named Aluoben (Alopen) brings Christian scriptures to the Tang capital Chang’an. In 638 the emperor Taizong licenses the teaching and has a monastery built. A stele of 781 tells the story.
AD 719–754, estimated date
Boniface, Apostle to the Germans
The English monk Winfrid, renamed Boniface, is sent by Pope Gregory II to preach east of the Rhine. He fells the sacred oak at Geismar, founds bishoprics and the abbey of Fulda, reforms the Frankish church under Roman authority, and is killed in Frisia.
AD 829 to AD 831, estimated date
Ansgar’s Mission to Scandinavia
The monk Ansgar is sent from the Frankish court to the Danes and then to the Swedish trading town of Birka, and becomes the first archbishop of Hamburg. His churches are few and fragile, and depend on the leave of kings.
AD 863 to AD 885, estimated date
Cyril and Methodius among the Slavs
Two brothers from Thessalonica, sent from Constantinople to Moravia, give the Slavs an alphabet, the Scriptures and the liturgy in their own language. Rome’s attitude to the Slavonic liturgy shifts from approval to prohibition and back, and ends in a ban.
AD 864–866, estimated date
The Baptism of Boris and the Conversion of Bulgaria
Boris, ruler of the Bulgars, accepts baptism from Constantinople and takes the name Michael. He puts down a revolt of his nobles, then asks the pope for bishops, and his country becomes a prize in the quarrel between Rome and Constantinople.
AD 966, estimated date
The Baptism of Mieszko I of Poland
Mieszko, duke of the Poles, marries the Bohemian princess Dobrawa and is baptized, and his people follow him. The annals of the Kraków chapter date the baptism to 966. In 1000 the emperor Otto III founds an archbishopric at Gniezno.
AD 988/989, estimated date
The Baptism of Rus’
Vladimir, prince of Kyiv, accepts baptism from Constantinople and marries the emperor’s sister. The chronicle of Kyiv tells of a choice among faiths and of his people baptized in the Dnieper; Greek and Arabic writers tell of an alliance.
AD 999/1000, estimated date
Iceland Adopts Christianity by Law
At the Althing the pagan lawspeaker Thorgeir, asked to settle the dispute between Christians and heathens, rules that all Icelanders shall be baptized and live under one law, with a few old customs allowed for a time.
AD 1000 or 1001, estimated date
Stephen I and the Christian Kingdom of Hungary
Stephen, ruler of the Hungarians, defeats pagan rebels, founds bishoprics with Esztergom at their head, and is crowned king. A writer of his own day credits the emperor Otto III; a Life written a century later says that the pope sent the crown.
1245 to 1307, firm date
Franciscan Envoys to the Mongols and the Church of Khanbaliq
Innocent IV sends Franciscans to the Mongol khan in 1245 and is told in reply to come and submit. William of Rubruck debates before the khan’s umpires at the Mongol court in 1254. By 1305 John of Montecorvino has a church and a choir in Khanbaliq.
1287 to 1288, firm date
Rabban Sauma, a Monk from Beijing, Visits Rome and Paris
Rabban Sauma, a monk of the Church of the East born in Khanbaliq, comes west as envoy of the Mongol king Arghun. He recites his creed to the cardinals in Rome, meets the kings of France and England, and in 1288 receives communion from Pope Nicholas IV.
3 May 1491, firm date
The King of Kongo Is Baptised
On 3 May 1491 the king of Kongo is baptised at his court by Portuguese friars and takes the name João. The account is Portuguese. A generation later his son Afonso I writes as a Christian king, asking Lisbon for priests and protesting against the trade in his people.
1493, firm date
Christianity Crosses the Atlantic
In 1493 Pope Alexander VI grants the lands Columbus has found to the crown of Castile and charges it to convert their peoples. A second fleet carries priests to Hispaniola, where mass is said in January 1494 and a friar, Ramón Pané, records the first baptisms.
1531, traditional date
Our Lady of Guadalupe
A Nahuatl account printed in 1649 tells how the Virgin Mary appeared in December 1531 to Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac and left her image on his cloak. The Catholic Church has approved the devotion and in 2002 declared Juan Diego a saint.
2 June 1537, firm date
Rome Declares the Peoples of the Americas Free
In the bull Sublimis Deus Pope Paul III declares that the peoples of the Americas are truly human, capable of the Christian faith, and not to be enslaved or deprived of their property. Las Casas and the Crown’s own laws show that enslavement went on.
27 September 1540, firm date
The Society of Jesus Is Founded
Pope Paul III approves the Society of Jesus, a company of ten priests, masters of the University of Paris, led by Ignatius of Loyola. Its members vow poverty, chastity and obedience, with a special vow to go wherever the pope sends them.
1542 to 1552, firm date
Francis Xavier in India and Japan
The Jesuit Francis Xavier lands at Goa in 1542, teaches and baptizes among the Christians of Cape Comorin, and in 1549 carries the Christian message to Japan with the Japanese convert Anjiro. He dies in 1552 on an island off China.
1597 to 1614, firm date
The Martyrs of Nagasaki and the Ban on Christianity in Japan
In 1597 the Japanese ruler Hideyoshi has twenty-six Christians, foreign friars and Japanese converts, crucified at Nagasaki. In 1614 the Tokugawa government orders Christianity suppressed throughout Japan as a threat to the country of the gods and of Buddha.
1599 to 1653, firm date
The Synod of Diamper and the Coonan Cross Oath
In June 1599 the archbishop of Goa holds a synod at Diamper that binds the Thomas Christians of Malabar to Rome and cuts their tie to the patriarch of Babylon. In 1653 many of them swear to obey their Jesuit archbishop no longer, and the community divides.
24 January 1601, firm date
Matteo Ricci at the Court of Beijing
The Jesuit Matteo Ricci reaches Beijing in January 1601 with gifts for the Wanli emperor and is allowed to stay. He writes a catechism that argues from reason and the Chinese classics, and scholars such as Xu Guangqi are baptized and work with him.
1620, firm date
The Pilgrims Land at Plymouth
Part of an English Separatist congregation that had lived in exile at Leiden sails to New England in 1620, forms itself into a civil body by a written covenant, and founds Plymouth. Half die in the first winter; a peace is made with the sachem Massasoit.
1622 to 1632, firm date
Susenyos, the Jesuits and the Ethiopian Church
Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia professes the Roman faith under Jesuit guidance and in 1626 swears obedience to the pope. After years of revolt he restores the faith of Alexandria in 1632, and under his son Fasilides the Jesuits are sent out of the country.
1704 to 1742, firm date
The Chinese Rites Controversy
Jesuit missionaries let Chinese converts honour Confucius and their ancestors as civil customs; others call the rites superstitious. Rome forbids them in 1704, 1715 and 1742, the Kangxi emperor says Westerners should no longer preach, and in 1939 Rome allows them as civil acts.
9 July 1706, firm date
The Tranquebar Mission
Two German Lutherans trained at Halle, sent under the protection of the king of Denmark, land at Tranquebar in South India in July 1706. They learn Tamil and Portuguese, baptize converts, build a church, open schools and begin to translate and print the New Testament in Tamil.
13 August 1727, firm date
The Moravians at Herrnhut
Emigrants from Moravia settle on Count Zinzendorf’s estate at Herrnhut. In 1727 they pledge themselves to common statutes, and their church dates its renewal from a communion service on 13 August of that year. In 1732 Herrnhut sends two men to the slaves of St Thomas.
1784, firm date
Korean Scholars Found a Church
Korean scholars who had read Christian books from Beijing send one of their own with an embassy; Yi Seung-hun is baptized there in 1784, returns to Seoul and baptizes his friends. A church grows with no priest in the country, and meets persecution.
2 October 1792, firm date
William Carey and the Modern Missionary Movement
The English Baptist minister William Carey argues in 1792 that Christ’s command to teach all nations still binds the churches. A missionary society is formed at Kettering that October, and in 1793 Carey sails for India. In 1805 the Serampore mission sets down its principles.
24 September 1794, firm date
Orthodox Monks Reach Alaska
Ten missionaries, most of them monks of Valaam, cross Siberia and reach Kodiak Island in September 1794. Their letters report thousands of baptisms. The monk Herman stays for life, and the priest John Veniaminov, later Bishop Innocent, writes for the Aleuts in their own language.
7 March 1804, firm date
The British and Foreign Bible Society
Moved by the want of Bibles in Wales, Christians of several denominations meet in London on 7 March 1804 and found a society with one object, the wider circulation of the Scriptures without note or comment, at home and abroad.
1851 to 1864, firm date
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
Hong Xiuquan, a village teacher who read Christian tracts in the light of his own visions, is proclaimed ruler of a new dynasty in 1851 and holds Nanjing from 1853. The missionary who once taught him later denounces his religion; Qing armies take the city in 1864.
29 June 1864, firm date
Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the First African Anglican Bishop
Samuel Ajayi Crowther, enslaved as a boy and freed at Sierra Leone, is consecrated at Canterbury as bishop for the Niger, to lead a mission planned as purely African. By the mission society’s own account, English missionaries sent in 1890 override him; he dies the next year.
25 June 1865, firm date
Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission
Hudson Taylor, a missionary invalided home from China, resolves on Brighton beach to lead a new mission to the inland provinces. The China Inland Mission accepts workers without restriction as to denomination, guarantees no income and makes no personal appeals for money.
17 March 1865, firm date
The Hidden Christians of Japan Come Forward
On 17 March 1865 villagers from Urakami tell the French missionary Bernard Petitjean, in his new church at Nagasaki, that their hearts are the same as his. They had kept baptism in secret under the ban. Deported from 1868, the survivors come home in 1873.
1885 to 1886, firm date
The Martyrs of Uganda
In 1885 and 1886 King Mwanga of Buganda has Christian converts killed, Anglicans and Catholics alike, many of them burned together in 1886, and an Anglican bishop put to death. Both churches honour them as martyrs.
9 April 1906, firm date
The Azusa Street Revival
In April 1906 a prayer meeting in Los Angeles led by the Black preacher William Seymour begins to speak in tongues. The mission it opens at 312 Azusa Street meets daily, draws people of many races and sends the Pentecostal message abroad.
14 January 1907, firm date
The Pyongyang Revival
At a winter Bible class in Pyongyang in January 1907, hundreds of Korean Presbyterian men pray aloud together and confess their sins in public through two nights. Those who were there carry the revival to churches across Korea.
14–23 June 1910, firm date
The World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh
About 1,200 delegates of missionary societies, most of them from Britain, North America and continental Europe, meet at Edinburgh in June 1910 to consider the evangelisation of the non-Christian world, and appoint a Continuation Committee to carry the work on.
1921, firm date
Simon Kimbangu and the Kimbanguist Church
In 1921 Simon Kimbangu, a Baptist of the Lower Congo, begins to preach and to pray over the sick at Nkamba, and crowds come to him. A Belgian military court sentences him to death; reprieved, he dies in prison thirty years later, and a church grows from his followers.
27 September 1947, firm date
The Church of South India Unites Four Traditions
Anglican dioceses, the Methodist Church and the South India United Church, itself a union of Presbyterians and Congregationalists, become one church with bishops in a service at Madras. Anglican bishops elsewhere are divided about its ministry.
25 September 1949, firm date
Billy Graham and Postwar Evangelicalism
An eight-week tent campaign in Los Angeles in the autumn of 1949 makes the evangelist Billy Graham known across the United States. In 1956 he and the theologian Carl Henry launch the magazine Christianity Today as a voice for evangelical Christianity.
16–25 July 1974, firm date
The Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization
In July 1974 some 2,700 evangelical Christians from more than 150 nations meet at Lausanne. Their covenant, drafted under John Stott, commits them to world evangelization and affirms that evangelism and social responsibility are both Christian duties.