{"id":1536,"date":"2020-07-16T17:06:46","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T21:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=1536"},"modified":"2023-10-19T10:50:01","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T14:50:01","slug":"1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html","title":{"rendered":"1,200-Year-Old Cross Discovered in Pakistan, May Be Proof Christianity Was There \u2018Before Islam Came\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nPDRT8qp4Yo\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nA giant cross recently discovered in the mountains of Pakistan implies that Christianity existed before many researchers knew.<\/p>\n<p>The 1,200-year-old cross, made of marble weighs three to four tons and span seven feet from top to bottom, was discovered by a team from the University of Baltistan, Skardu in Himalayan mountains near Baltistan, the Union of Catholic Asian News reports.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan, which is bordered by Afghanistan, Iran, India, and China, is a majority Muslim country, with more than 96 percent of its citizen practicing Islam. Those who practice Christianity in Pakistan face a great deal of persecution for their faith.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Watchdog group, Open Doors USA, Pakistan is one of the top 5 most dangerous countries for Christians. All Christians there suffer from institutionalized discrimination where they are marginalized and persecuted.<\/p>\n<p>Beatrice Caseau, a Byzantine history expert, told Barnabus Fund, told Barnabus Fund that the cross could be evidence that Middle East merchants brought the gospel to the region.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven if we lack the sources to know with certainty where they passed, we know that Christians from the Persian world, using the Syriac language, came to the Indus region between the fifth and eighth centuries, until the arrival of Islam,\u201d Caseau said.<\/p>\n<p>A Pakistani leader told Barnabus Fund, \u201cPraise the Lord, this makes me very joyful. It will be a great encouragement to Christians in Pakistan to show that our faith was here many generations before Islam came. This is amazing news! I am looking forward to what the research outcome will reveal about Christianity in Pakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Caritas Pakistan, a Catholic organization, praises the find.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is indeed great news for all of us that an ancient cross was found in Skardu,\u201d said Mansha Noor, executive director of Caritas Pakistan. \u201cIt shows that Christianity existed in this area, and there must be a church and houses of Christians. There are currently no Christian families in that area, but they were once present.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI request the authorities invite international historians to find out more about the cross&#8217;s accurate history.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A giant cross recently discovered in the mountains of Pakistan implies that Christianity existed before many researchers knew. The 1,200-year-old cross, made of marble weighs three to four tons and span seven feet from top to bottom, was discovered by a team from the University of Baltistan, Skardu in Himalayan mountains near Baltistan, the Union&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":565,"featured_media":8066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[92,888,885,879,882],"class_list":["post-1536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeological-finds","tag-discovery","tag-giant-cross","tag-pakistan","tag-pakistan-cross"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>1,200-Year-Old Cross Discovered in Pakistan, May Be Proof Christianity Was There \u2018Before Islam Came\u2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"1,200-Year-Old Cross Discovered in Pakistan, May Be Proof Christianity Was There \u2018Before Islam Came\u2019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A giant cross recently discovered in the mountains of Pakistan implies that Christianity existed before many researchers knew. The 1,200-year-old cross, made of marble weighs three to four tons and span seven feet from top to bottom, was discovered by a team from the University of Baltistan, Skardu in Himalayan mountains near Baltistan, the Union&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-07-16T21:06:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-19T14:50:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross_credit-b.tech_gamer-Youtube-1-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lesli White\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"1,200-Year-Old Cross Discovered in Pakistan, May Be Proof Christianity Was There \u2018Before Islam Came\u2019","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"1,200-Year-Old Cross Discovered in Pakistan, May Be Proof Christianity Was There \u2018Before Islam Came\u2019","og_description":"A giant cross recently discovered in the mountains of Pakistan implies that Christianity existed before many researchers knew. The 1,200-year-old cross, made of marble weighs three to four tons and span seven feet from top to bottom, was discovered by a team from the University of Baltistan, Skardu in Himalayan mountains near Baltistan, the Union&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2020-07-16T21:06:46+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-10-19T14:50:01+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross_credit-b.tech_gamer-Youtube-1-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Lesli White","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html","name":"1,200-Year-Old Cross Discovered in Pakistan, May Be Proof Christianity Was There \u2018Before Islam Came\u2019","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross_credit-b.tech_gamer-Youtube-1-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2020-07-16T21:06:46+00:00","dateModified":"2023-10-19T14:50:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/4f72f240cbc397de345b4a72c0109413"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross_credit-b.tech_gamer-Youtube-1-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross_credit-b.tech_gamer-Youtube-1-scaled.jpg","width":768,"height":576,"caption":"b.tech_gamer \/ Youtube"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2020\/07\/1200-year-old-cross-discovered-in-pakistan-may-be-proof-christianity-was-there-before-islam-came.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"1,200-Year-Old Cross Discovered in Pakistan, May Be Proof Christianity Was There \u2018Before Islam Came\u2019"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/","name":"Christ News Today","description":"Christian News From Around the Globe","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/4f72f240cbc397de345b4a72c0109413","name":"Lesli White","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/author\/lwhite"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/565"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1548,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions\/1548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}