Chechens and Ingush were Once Christians, Among the First within Current Russian Borders

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 6 – The complexity of the ethnic and religious situation in the Caucasus is so great even now that few beyond the scholarly community are inclined to explore its past, one that was even more complicated and in which peoples at odds today on religious grounds were once members of the same faith.

            “The Caucasus became one of the first places in the world” where Christianity was widely accepted, the editors of Russkaya Semerka says. Indeed, it was the first place where Christianity became a state religion (weekend.rambler.ru/read/42304379-vaynahi-hristiane-kogda-ingushi-i-chechentsy-byli-pravoslavnymi/).

                By tradition, Christianity was brought to the region by St. Bartholemew, one of the original apostles, whose martyrdom there was commemorated as late as 1937 by a church named for him in Baku.  He is said to have converted the Albanian state, and its priests spread Christianity northward into the Caucasus, including the Vaynakh and Avar regions.

            That influence is confirmed by the existence of churches built as early as the seventh century in what is now Ingushetia.  And it appears likely, Russkaya semerka says, that most of those who are now Ingush and Chechens became Christian at that time, often retreating into the mountains as wars raged below, wars that were ultimately won by Muslim forces.

            Georgia somewhat later influenced the region in religious terms and sent Christian missionaries to the Vaynakhs and Daghestanis in the 14^th century. But the situation became even more complicated when Genoese merchants colonized the eastern shores of the Black Sea and sent Roman Catholic missionaries into the area.

            It appears, the Russian historical site says, that the conflict between Orthodox and Catholic Christianity undercut the claims of both and opened the way to the expansion of Islam, although Islam did not spread as rapidly as many believe. Indeed, many in the North Caucasus remained Christian until the middle of the 19^th century.

            Services in churches there were conducted on the basis of religious works written in ancient Georgian.  And “the complete elimination of Christianity (and also of paganism) among the Vainakhs [Chechens and Ingush] was realized by Imam Shamil in order to achieve the moral-political unity of his state” which was at war with Russia.