Study of the Symbols of Confession, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper Nestorius Church, on the Basis of the Selected Sogdian-Christian Texts Discovered in Archaeological Site of Turfan, China

Sogdian language has been the language of people of Sogdian land.The Sogd center Samarkand and the most important their city of Bukhara has been in the present Republic of Uzbekistan.The Sogdian language as one of the Iranian languages in Central Asia has been widely used in expressing and reflecting the religious orders of some Pre-Islamic religions.In addition,the Sogdian language has been the as administrative, commercial and cultural language in other areas, such as Turfan oases in the Turkestan. In 1904-1907 a mission from Germany discovered a collection of Sogdian texts in the ruins of Church Nestorian Christians Bulayiq in located in oasis China’s Turfan, these texts include symbols of confession, baptism and lord’s supper in Christianity in the East. The main question in this research is how the Sogdian language played a role in the development and spread of Christianity in the Silk Road and how are the symbols of Western Christianity preserved in Eastern Christianity and finally, Eastern Christianity has innovated in the foundation and teachings of Christianity? The hypothesis of this paper is that the symbols in Eastern Christianity are almost identical with the symbols of Christianity in Rome, and the Nestorian Church’s view of the existential nature of Jesus does not match the Roman Catholic Church. This research has been conducted with a historical –analytical method based on sources, texte and library documentations and the outcome of the research indicates that the confession was held at the beginning of the group, but in the next few years, confessions were carried out privately and in secret. The symbol of baptism has changed in both Eastern and Western Christianity and lord’supper is held in all sects of Christianity in the tradition of the Bible.         
Keywords: Sogdian Language, Christianity, Confession Symbols, Silk Road, Turfan.
 
Introduction & Method   
Sogdian merchants, most of Christian, Manichean and Buddhist, transmitted goods, Culture and art among the tribes of Central Asia and China. Presence along the Silk Road that has been a cultural, commercial and religious road has exposed them to new followers and perhaps with a little laxity and the use of the cultural influence of Sogdian language, they have been able to invited many followers to Christianity. Sogdians have long influenced other cultures. They were familiar with the writing of the Achaemenid period, which was a composure line ahead of the Sogdian line common to the Imperial Kingdom, therefore, they had great cultural influence, on their sovereigns, as a result of this cultural influence, the Sogdian line has been used to write the ancient Turkish language, the uighar line.
The name of Sogd has come to the references of Chinese “Sotah”, it maybe that the name of the mountain originated in ancient Chinese texts for the designation of the Kosh region and the old pronunciation  of that is Suogit and originally derived from the same name Sogd.In the Gobe Desert in Central Asia,Several cities were hit by a storm and the people of those cities abandoned their land and left, and their homes fell under the sand, from the late nineteenth century some travelers noticed that pieces of paper sometimes came out of the sand and the natives use some of them instead of glass, door and windows,and there are lines on it.
The geographic association of St.Petersburg from 1893 to 1895 there excavated science, the result was the excavation of a cave appearance in Dong Huang,Chaina among which the documents were obtained.These texts were about confession and baptism.By transmitting these documents to the museums of Berlin, Paris, London, St.Petersburg, European and American scientists studied these ancient manuscripts. One of these important manuscripts in this paper is that in two pages of paper probably Chinese is Sogdian language. These two pages the document are important in this regard, referring to topics that have not been taken up so far by them. Therefore, the present paper, while fully studying these two pages, has been translated and analyzed. The research method in this article is an analytical-historical method based on library resources. So after selecting a several Sogdian Christian texts from texts discovered in Turfan, the texts have been translated into Persian.
 
Conclusion
The study of Sogdian texts shows that the teachings of the Eastern Orthodox Church, such as Central Asia and Sogd, along the Silk Road have been identical with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on the Symbols such as confession the demands of forgiveness and baptism. Today, these Symbols are held at the ceremony with a slight difference in Eastern and Western Christianity. The confession at the beginning of the genesis was held in a collective manner, but in the following times it was carried out personally and in secret, thus the dignity of people was preserved. The confession tradition, in turn, reduced the general crimes of the Christian community. The baptism Symbol has also been transformed in both Eastern and Western Christianity. Another Symbol that had changed in the Nestorian Church was austerity. The Roman Catholic Church condemned and rejected it’s as a deviation in religion. The priests of the Nestorian Church, unlike the Catholic Church, believed in Jesus for the earthly body, and abandoned themselves from the austerity that the catholic priests paved themselves, thus the Christian bishops of Nestorian obtained the right to marry.
In this way, Sogdian speaking Christians, despite the persecution and prosecution of governments and followers of other religions, always pioneered the promotion of Christianity and discovery of the Sogdian manuscripts of the Nestorian Church in Turfan of China illustrates the great sacrifices and cultural service of this people.