Christianisation of Nubia (543): Nobadia, Makuria and Alodia

The Christianisation of Nubia was the conversion of the three kingdoms of the middle Nile, Nobadia, Makuria and Alodia, to Christianity between about 543 and 580. Sent by rival factions at the court of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, missionaries baptised Nubian kings and their courts within a single generation. The result was a Christian African civilisation of churches, monasteries and painted cathedrals that endured for some 900 years.

Background: Nubia after Kush

For more than a thousand years the middle Nile had been dominated by the Kingdom of Kush, with its capital at Meroë. When Kush broke up in the 4th century AD, new rulers emerged along the river. By the 6th century three kingdoms had taken shape: Nobadia in the north, with its centre at Faras (ancient Pachoras); Makuria in the middle, ruled from Dongola; and Alodia, or Alwa, in the south, with its capital at Soba near modern Khartoum.

These kingdoms traded with Roman Egypt and knew its religion well. Christian lamps, pottery and a few burials show that some Nubians had met Christianity before the official conversions. Yet the royal courts still honoured older gods, including Isis, whose temple at Philae, on the Egyptian frontier, was a pilgrimage centre for Nubians. Around 535–537 Justinian ordered his general Narses to close the Philae temple, according to the historian Procopius, removing one of the last great sanctuaries of the old religion.

The wider Christian world was itself divided. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 had defined Christ as having two natures, divine and human. Most Christians in Egypt rejected this formula and held that Christ had one united nature; they are now usually called Miaphysites, though their opponents called them Monophysites. Justinian backed the Chalcedonian church, while his wife, Empress Theodora, openly protected the Miaphysites.

The race to Nobadia

The main account of the missions comes from John of Ephesus, a Miaphysite bishop who knew several of the people involved and wrote his Ecclesiastical History in the 580s. According to John, a Miaphysite priest named Julian, who served at the court in Constantinople, longed to convert the people of Nobadia. Theodora supported him and arranged his journey around 543.

When Justinian learned of the plan, he sent his own Chalcedonian envoys with gifts. John reports that Theodora wrote to the governor of the Thebaid, the Roman province of Upper Egypt, telling him to delay the emperor’s mission. Julian arrived first, was well received, and baptised the king of Nobadia and his nobles. When the emperor’s envoys finally arrived, the Nobadian king is said to have replied that his people would accept the faith of those who had come to them first.

John’s story is told from a Miaphysite point of view and its details cannot be checked, but its main outcome is confirmed by later evidence: the Nobadian church followed the Miaphysite patriarchs of Alexandria. Julian stayed in Nobadia for about two years, reportedly sheltering from the heat in caves filled with water during the hottest hours, before returning north. Theodore, bishop of Philae, continued the work. A Greek inscription records that in 559, during the reign of the Nobadian king Eirpanome, the old temple at Dendur was converted into a church on Theodore’s authority.

Makuria and the mission of Longinus

Makuria followed a different path. The Spanish chronicler John of Biclaro, writing in the late 6th century, records that the Makurians (whom he calls the Maccuritae) received Christianity around 568–570, and that a Makurian embassy came to Emperor Justin II in Constantinople in 573 bringing ivory and a giraffe. Because this conversion was linked to the imperial court, many historians think Makuria was at first Chalcedonian, although the evidence is thin.

The Nobadian church needed a bishop. In about 566 the exiled Miaphysite patriarch Theodosius of Alexandria consecrated Longinus, a monk in Constantinople, for Nobadia. The imperial authorities, now under Justin II, tried to stop him, and Longinus had to leave the capital in disguise. He reached Nobadia around 569 and spent some six years building up its church, ordaining clergy and building a church at the royal centre.

Alodia and the journey of 580

Around 578 envoys from Alodia, the southernmost kingdom, asked for a bishop. Longinus set out in 580. John of Ephesus says the king of Makuria, hostile to the Miaphysite mission, tried to block his route, so Longinus travelled through the desert with the help of the Beja and other guides. He reached Alodia, baptised its king, his family and nobles, and wrote back describing his welcome.

By about 580, therefore, all three Nubian kingdoms had Christian rulers. Mass conversion of ordinary people took longer, but within a few generations the old temples had been abandoned or turned into churches, and Christian burial customs had replaced the rich royal tombs of earlier centuries.

Key people

• Julian: a Miaphysite priest at Theodora’s court who led the first mission to Nobadia around 543.
• Empress Theodora (died 548): Justinian’s wife, patron of the Miaphysites and sponsor of Julian’s mission.
• Justinian I (reigned 527–565): the emperor who sent a rival Chalcedonian embassy and closed the temple at Philae.
• Theodore of Philae: bishop on the Egyptian frontier who continued the work in Nobadia for many years.
• Longinus: bishop of Nobadia from about 566, who later baptised the king of Alodia in 580.

What Christian Nubia became

Conversion shaped Nubian life for the next nine centuries. Nobadia and Makuria were united into one kingdom by the early 8th century, under rulers such as King Merkurios around 710, with Dongola as capital. This united state soon followed the Miaphysite church of Alexandria, whose patriarchs consecrated Nubian bishops.

Nubians built large churches of mud brick, stone and fired brick, with a distinctive mix of Byzantine and local styles. The cathedral at Faras, rebuilt by Bishop Paulos in 707, was decorated over the centuries with hundreds of square metres of paintings, now preserved as the Faras Cathedral frescoes. Greek served as the language of liturgy, alongside Coptic, and from at least the late 8th century Nubians also wrote their own language, Old Nubian.

Christian Nubia also proved remarkably durable. When Arab armies conquered Egypt in the 640s, Makuria resisted them and in 652 agreed the Baqt, an arrangement that kept the kingdom independent for some six centuries.

Decline and end

Pressure from Mamluk Egypt grew in the late 13th century. In 1317 the royal throne hall at Dongola was converted into a mosque, and soon afterwards a Muslim ruler took the throne. Christianity faded gradually as Arab groups settled along the Nile and church links to Egypt weakened. Alodia lasted longer, but its capital Soba fell around 1504, and by the later 16th century the Christian kingdoms had disappeared.

Timeline

• c. 535–537: Justinian orders the closure of the temple of Isis at Philae.
• c. 543: Julian reaches Nobadia and baptises its king and nobles.
• 559: The temple at Dendur is dedicated as a church under King Eirpanome and Bishop Theodore.
• c. 566: Longinus is consecrated bishop of Nobadia.
• c. 568–570: Makuria adopts Christianity, according to John of Biclaro.
• 573: A Makurian embassy reaches Emperor Justin II in Constantinople.
• 580: Longinus travels to Alodia and baptises its king.
• 707: Bishop Paulos rebuilds the cathedral at Faras.

Why it matters

The conversion of Nubia created one of the longest-lived Christian civilisations in Africa, comparable to Christian Ethiopia. It shows how religious rivalries in Constantinople reached deep into Africa, and it laid the foundations for the art, literacy and diplomacy of medieval Nubia, whose remains archaeologists are still uncovering along the Nile.