The Mysterious Socotra Island (Indian Ocean) Welcome to the Alien lands of Socotra, with strange trees like the Dragon Blood Tree!
The Mysterious Socotra Island (Indian Ocean) Welcome to the Alien lands of Socotra, with strange trees like the Dragon Blood Tree! You would be inclined to think you were transported to another planet – or traveled to another era of Earth’s history. Socotra Island, which is part of a group of four islands, has been geographically isolated from mainland Africa for the last 6 or 7 million years. The archipelago features narrow coastal plains, a limestone plateau with caves, and mountains which rise to 1,525 meters above sea level.
SOCOTRA ISLAND
“The famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo (1254-1324) accuses the Socotrans of having the supernatural ability to control the weather and to cause shipwrecks. He wrote of Socotra saying:
“The inhabitants [of Socotra] are baptized Christians and have an archbishop…I should explain that the archbishop of Socotra has nothing to do with the Pope at Rome, but is subject to an archbishop who lives at Baghdad [meaning the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East]. The archbishop of Baghdad sends out the archbishop of this island; and he also sends out many others to different parts of the world, just as the Pope does…I give you my word that the Christians of this island are the most expert enchanters in the world. It is true that the archbishop does not approve of these enchantments and rebukes them for the practice. But this has no effect, because they say that their forefathers did these things of old and they are resolved to go on doing them. And the archbishop cannot override their resolve.”
For centuries all the inhabitants of the islands of Socotra belonged the Ancient Assyrian Church of the East, which was known as the Nestorian Church. The Ancient Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East was a missionary church that founded Christian communities in Mongolia, China, and India
“Saint Thomas is held by tradition to be the founder of the churches in Assyria, Chaldea, Babylonia, India and Socotra. On his way to India, Thomas was shipwrecked on the isle of Socotra and he used the wreckage of the ship to build a church.”The missionary endeavor of St. Thomas to Socotra and India is believed to have taken place in 52 AD.”
Nestorian Church of the Island of Socotra endured for over a thousand years.”
CHRISTIANS OF ANCIENT ARABIA:
Near Jubail are the ruins of what was unearthed in the mid 1980s by a group of people attempting to dig their vehicle out of the sand. The ruins are known as the Jubail church
Church records show that Bahrain was the seat of two of the five Nestorian bishoprics existing on the Arabian side of the Gulf at the time of the arrival of Islam. It is uncertain when the two bishoprics were dissolved though they are known to have survived until at least 835A.D.
Discovery of a Christian church at al-Qusur, Failaka (Kuwait)-1989 the French mission discovered and excavated a church in the centre of the village [1]. This formed the focal part of a Nestorian Christian community which lived on the island.
Theophilos the Indian, (d. 364) originally from the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean gives as one of the earliest account with respect to Christian doctrine practiced in Malabar. He mentions that nothing relating to doctrine needs correction in Malabar coast. He was an Arian bishop sent by the Roman Emperor Constantius. He visited many parts of India and reformed many things relating to custom but nothing relating to doctrine.
