7th International Conference on the Church of the East in China and Central Asia 2023
The 2023 meeting, held in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) from September 21 to 27, also marked the 20th anniversary of the Salzburg conference series, which has become a leading international platform for the study of Christianity along the Silk Roads.
Organized by ZECO in cooperation with the International Institute of Central Asian Studies within the framework of the UNESCO Silk Road Programme, and in close collaboration with regional partners, the conference enabled the active participation of scholars from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Mongolia. In doing so, it significantly strengthened the integration of Central Asian expertise into the field. The conference provided an interdisciplinary forum for the presentation and discussion of the latest research on the Church of the East. Contributions spanned a wide range of disciplines—including theology, religious studies, history, archaeology, philology, manuscript studies, and epigraphy—and engaged with sources in Syriac, Uyghur, Sogdian, Old Iranian, Arabic, and Chinese.
The location in Uzbekistan also made it possible to visit recent archaeological excavations in Urgut, the site of a medieval Christian monastery in the mountains near the border with Tajikistan, where the monastery cemetery has recently been rediscovered and partially excavated.
Conference Proceedings (forthcoming 2026)
