Editing Xi'an (section)

===Christianity===
{{see also|Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Xi'an}}
The first recorded Christian missionary in China was [[Alopen]], a [[Syriac language|Syriac]]-speaker, who arrived in Xi'an (then known as Chang'an) in 635 along the [[Silk Road]]. The [[Nestorian Stele]], now located in Xi'an's [[Stele Forest|Beilin Museum]], is a [[Tang dynasty|Tang Chinese]] [[stele]] erected in 781 that documents the 150 years of early [[Christianity in China]] following Alopen.<ref name="hill-108"/> It is a {{convert|279|cm|inch|lk=out|adj=mid|abbr=off|-tall|sp=us}} [[limestone]] block with text in both [[Chinese language|Chinese]] and [[Syriac language|Syriac]] describing the existence of Christian communities in several cities in northern China. The [[Daqin Pagoda]], a Buddhist pagoda in [[Zhouzhi County]] of Xi'an, has been suggested to have originally been a [[Nestorian]] Christian church from the [[Tang dynasty]].<ref name="ReferenceA">Martin Palmer, The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Religion of Taoist Christianity, {{ISBN|0-7499-2250-8}}, 2001</ref>

Baptist missionaries from England ran a hospital in Xi'an.<ref>[[Peter Fleming (writer)|Fleming, Peter]] (1936) ''[[News from Tartary]]''. London: Jonathan Cape; pp. 46–48</ref> In 1892, [[Arthur Gostick Shorrock]]<ref name="Shorrock1926">{{cite book |last=Shorrock |first=Arthur Gostick |title=Shensi in Sunshine and Shade |publisher=Presbyterian Mission Press |year=1926 |location=Shanghai}}</ref> and Moir Duncan<ref name="DuncanPapers">{{cite web |title=Duncan Papers (Mundus Gateway to missionary collections in the United Kingdom) |publisher=Angus Library, Regents Park College |url=http://www.mundus.ac.uk/cats/10/1004.htm  |access-date = August 14, 2013  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131011225707/http://www.mundus.ac.uk/cats/10/1004.htm  |archive-date = October 11, 2013  |url-status = dead |df=mdy-all}}</ref> founded the ''Sianfu Mission'', in present-day Xi'an.<ref name="Burt1925">{{cite book |last=Burt |first=Ernest Whitby |title=Fifty Years in China: The Story of the Baptist Mission in Shantung, Shansi, and Shensi, 1875–1925 |publisher=The Carey Press |year=1925 |location=London}}</ref><ref name="Glover1914">{{Cite book |year=1914 |title=Herbert Stanley Jenkins, medical missionary, Shensi, China: with some notices of the work of the Baptist Missionary Society in that country (1914) |location=London |publisher=Carey Press |page=155 |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924023085982 |author=Glover, Richard |isbn=978-0-524-07100-7  |access-date = November 15, 2015  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160307011738/https://archive.org/details/cu31924023085982  |archive-date = March 7, 2016  |url-status = live |df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref name="Duncan1900">{{Cite book |year=1900 |title=The missionary mail to faithful friends and candid critics (the substance of letters written from Shên His) |location=London |publisher=Elliot Stock |url=https://archive.org/details/pts_missionarymailto_3721-1233 |author=Duncan, Moir Black |isbn=9780524102336}}</ref>