Sociological Aspects of Christian Church's Penetration in the Confucian Regions of Asia.

The article explores the sociological aspects of Christian Church's penetration in the Confucian regions in Asia. The contacts between Christianity and the zones of influence of Confucianism in Asia have been quite different according to epochs and to countries. The main characteristic of those contacts has been the fact that they were made by a religious system highly institutionalized with a great number of specialized agents and being exogenous to the social and cultural universe of Asia. The first Christian to have come to China were Syrian merchants of Persia. They had established important roads of trade between Asia and Europe, by land or by sea. In some places they established themselves in harbor-cities, like Musiris or Quilon in Kerala, South India. Franciscans and Dominican missionaries established missions in China during less than one century. One diocese was erected at Khambalick, Pekin in 1308, with an Italian Franciscan at the head, a certain Montecorvino. This was not linked with political enterprises, but more with the great explorations of the time, made by some European travelers. It did not leave any durable traces in China. The leading powers in Europe of the 16th and 17th centuries were Portugal and Spain and the division of the world between them was operated by Pope Alexander VI in 1943. Catholicism was not only the predominant religion in those countries, but it also furnished the ideology of the political enterprise. In the Asian countries of Confucianist influence, such as an introduction of Christianity took place at slightly different moments: in Japan from 1549, with action of Francis Xavier, a Jesuit in Vietnam, in 1580 with the Franciscans coming from the Philippines and later on, in 1615 with the Jesuits, in China, during the Ming's Dynasty, with the Jesuits also, during the second half of the 16th century.