Samarkand Episcopal See

Samarkand, the Sogdian city on the Silk Road, met Christianity early: some of its quarters were Christian by the fourth century, a Nestorian see was created in the fifth, and early in the eighth century it was raised to a metropolitanate of the Church of the East.

The Arab conquest of about 712 under Qutayba ibn Muslim brought persecution, and many believers fled or converted to Islam. A vision of Mar Sergius of Samarkand, a saint of the Church of the East, was credited with the conversion of the Kerait Turks around 1007.

Under Mongol rule after 1220 Christian bishoprics were again permitted, and between 1329 and 1359 a Catholic eparchy served believers after the Chagatai khan Eljigidey accepted baptism. Islam soon reasserted itself, and as Timur made Samarkand his capital in 1370 the old East Syriac congregations had dwindled to isolated remnants that died out in the following centuries.