Early history: Buddhist use According to a
Liao dynasty (916–1125) stele at the temple site, a
Buddhist monk named Huijing () began building the temple in 317—the first year of the reign of
Emperor Yuan, founder of the
Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420). In 639, during the
Tang dynasty (618–907), a monk named Yiduan () re-furnished the temple. The scholar Wang Xiaojing proposed that the author of the Liao stele was mistaken, and the temple was actually built during the
Later Jin dynasty (936–947). The monastery's name during the Jin and Tang periods is not known.
Context of early Chinese Christianity After the
Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned
Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, his followers went into the
Sasanian Empire and joined the
Church of the East. The Church of the East later sent missionaries into Central Asia, Arabia, and India, and established
metropolitan bishoprics along important cities along the
Silk Road leading to China. In 635, the Christian monk
Alopen reached
Chang'an (modern
Xi'an), the Tang capital. According to the scholar Nicolas Standaert, Nestorian Christian communities were "relatively numerous" during the Tang dynasty, particularly in cities with much foreign trade, but these communities were "probably not extremely important". In 845,
Emperor Wuzong of Tang initiated the
Huichang persecution of Buddhism. Although the emperor mainly intended to suppress Buddhism, he ordered monks of all foreign religions, including Nestorian Christianity, to return to laity. Around the same time, the Tang lost control over modern northwestern China and the routes between China and Central Asia were severed. Although Buddhism rebounded from the persecution, the Church of the East in China disappeared from China along with most other foreign religions. One of the primary sources of Nestorian Christianity in the Tang dynasty is the
Xi'an Stele. It was made around 781 with its text written by the Nestorian monk
Adam. The text contains Christian doctrines, a history of the Church of the East in China since 635, various praises, and a list of members of the clergy in China. It was discovered near Xi'an in the 1620s. Central Asian Nestorian Christians moved to northern China during the 12th and 13th centuries, although it is unlikely that they had any connection with the Tang dynasty Nestorian Christians. In the early 13th century, when the Mongols conquered northern China, some of these Nestorian Christians took administrative positions. In the same time period, the Church of the East also established new metropolitan provinces along the trade routes to China. The Mongol-ruled
Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) put Nestorian churches and hierarchy under its governmental administration: the office of
Chongfu Si () was established in 1289 to oversee Nestorian clergy and practices, and its inaugural administrator was a Nestorian Arab named Isa. Christianity in China declined again after the fall of the Yuan dynasty. The Nestorian missionaries in China probably departed together with the former Mongol rulers, converted foreigners and foreign traders, when they were expelled from China. The records of the following
Ming dynasty (1368–1644) do not mention any descendants of Yuan Christians. According to the scholar Qiu Shusen, most Yuan-era Nestorians were Central Asians of the
Semu caste, who later assimilated into the dominant Han culture during the Ming and no longer practised their western religions. This ultimately led to the disappearance of Nestorian Christianity in China.
Tang dynasty: possible Christian use Some scholars suggested that the Cross Temple may have belonged to the Church of the East in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907). The Japanese scholar
P. Y. Saeki speculated that believers fleeing from the Tang capital of Chang'an (modern Xi'an) to
Youzhou and
Liaodong during the 9th-century Huichang persecution began using the temple. Tang Xiaofeng pointed to inscriptions on the Liao stele as an indication that Christian crosses were present at the temple prior to the Liao dynasty. In addition, Tang claimed that another text written by in 987 indicated a Nestorian presence in Youzhou. However, British sinologist
Arthur Christopher Moule believed that there was insufficient evidence to show that the Church of the East in China reached Beijing before the 13th century.
Liao dynasty: Buddhist use During the
Liao dynasty (916–1125), the Cross Temple was called "Chongsheng Yuan" (). Buddhists rebuilt it during the reign of
Emperor Muzong of Liao, but the exact date of rebuilding is unclear. The Liao stele on site refers to the tenth year of Emperor Yuan's reign, which corresponds to 960. However, it also states "Bingzi" () as the year's
sexagenary cycle—an ancient Chinese system of recording years. These two statements do not align, differing by a span of 16 years. The Liao stele does not indicate any relationship between the site and Christianity, and it is believed that Chongsheng Yuan was a Buddhist temple. The scholar held that Nestorian activities at the site commenced only after Buddhist activity had ended. Xu also believed that the errors in the stele text were not likely made by the original authors, but by Ming people who re-carved the steles.
Yuan dynasty: Christian use Nestorian Christianity spread throughout the area after the
Mongol capture of the
Jurchen Jin capital of
Zhongdu (near modern Beijing) in 1215. Under the Mongol-Yuan regime, Beijing had a metropolitan bishop. There are several theories on how the Cross Temple, located outside of Beijing, came into Christian use during the Yuan dynasty. Wang hypothesized that a Nestorian passed by Fangshan, discovered the abandoned temple, and turned it into a monastic retreat. Tang Xiaofeng and Zhang Yingying suggested it is also possible that the Cross Temple was rebuilt during this period.
Rabban Sauma (1294) was a
Uyghur Nestorian Christian monk born in Beijing during the Yuan, who travelled from China to
Baghdad. According to a contemporary record, the young Sauma became an
ascetic for seven years on a mountain a day's journey outside of Beijing. Moule conjectured that the Cross Temple was probably near Sauma's hermitage. Shi Mingpei argued that the description of Rabban Sauma's hermitage is "extremely similar" to the Cross Temple and its surrounding terrain "according to records", and in 2011 Tang Li asserted that Rabban Sauma came from the site. Wang estimated that Nestorian Christians had abandoned the site before 1358. This was the date when Buddhist monks began rebuilding the temple, a project which was completed in 1365. According to the Yuan stele, a Buddhist monk named Jingshan () initiated the reconstruction because he dreamed of a deity in his meditation, and then saw a shining cross on top of an ancient
dhvaja at the temple site. The stele gives the names of the temple's major benefactors as the prince of Huai , the eunuch-official Zhao Bayan Bukha (趙伯顏不花), and the minister , with the inscription itself being made by . In 1992, Xu Pingfang suggested that Temür Bukha would have been familiar with Nestorian practices because his grandmother
Sorghaghtani Beki was a Nestorian. He might have requested that the Buddhist temple continue to use the name "Cross Temple" when it was rebuilt, and that its Nestorian artefacts be preserved. However, modern scholars generally consider that the inscription on the Yuan stele is a forgery done during the Ming dynasty, and that the information regarding the Yuan benefactors is false. Wang suggested that the official name of the temple during the Yuan period was "Chongsheng Yuan". She further argued that the
Han Chinese population at the time used the term "cross temple" to refer to Nestorian churches in general, and that Nestorians at the time would not have called it "Cross Temple". However, because the name "Cross Temple" was simple and direct, local residents began to use it after the arrival of the Nestorians.
Ming and Qing dynasties: Buddhist use Nestorian Christians continued to have a presence in northern China during the early
Ming dynasty. Around 1437, some Nestorian monks visited the
Yunju Temple, which is also in Fangshan, and left a record. The
Jesuit missionary
Matteo Ricci () was told by a Jewish informant that there was a Nestorian population in northern China during the early Ming. Ricci was told that the Chinese Nestorians were keeping their religious identity a secret, but they still referred to a former Nestorian church as the "Cross Church". In 1535, the site was rebuilt by a Buddhist monk named Dejing (), supported by local villagers and the family of Gao Rong (), a nephew of the powerful Ming eunuch official . During reconstruction, the inscriptions of the Liao and Yuan steles were altered—with the building officially known as the "Cross Temple" by this time. During the
Qing dynasty (1644–1912), in the
History of Fangshan County () compiled around 1664, the Cross Temple was briefly mentioned. It was listed along with other Buddhist temples in the county. In his
Yifengtang Jinshi Wenzi Mu () written in 1897,
Miao Quansun included the text of the Liao stele. Around 1911, the Buddhist monks sold the temple and the surrounding lands.
Modern rediscovery and development rediscovered the Cross Temple in the summer of 1919. An early mention of the Cross Temple in Western academic context appeared in
The New China Review in July 1919, where H. I. Harding noted the temple's existence near Beijing and that its name could have potential links with Christianity. In the same year, the Scottish diplomat
Reginald Johnston discovered the site while seeking shelter from a thunderstorm. In October 1919, Johnston published an article about the site entitled "A Chinese Temple of the Cross", writing under the pseudonym "Christopher Irving". The scholar P. Y. Saeki visited the site in 1931, and recorded that most of the site's buildings still existed at that time. Saeki noted that there was a
Shanmen entry (a type of entry hall of Buddhist temples), followed by the
Hall of Four Heavenly Kings. Beyond the hall, there was a courtyard with two
ginkgo trees, and the Liao and Yuan steles were next to each tree. The courtyard had a kitchen and a dormitory for the monks to its right and another dormitory to its left. The
Main Hall of the temple was at the end of the courtyard, and it contained three
statues of the Buddha. A 21st-century study stated that the Shanmen building was south of the Main Hall, with dimensions . . During the
Cultural Revolution, the two steles were knocked down and broken into pieces. In the 1990s, the Beijing branches of the
China Christian Council (CCC) and the
Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) rebuilt the site's walls. In 2006, its ruins were designated as a
Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level. == Current state ==