Easter in China: rebirth in a Tibetan Catholic village

The Western image of Tibet is largely one of a vast plateau cradled between snow-capped mountains where peaceful Buddhists devote their lives to prayer and meditation.

Yet this vision of the region does not do justice to the rich, diverse cultures of those who live there. This week as the Christian world celebrates Easter, a sizeable Tibetan community in China's far-flung west is also celebrating the resurrection of Christ.

Nestorian Christianity arrived in the Tibetan region more than a thousand years ago. The love-hate relations of its faithful with Buddhism and the central government in Beijing reflect the complexity of lives that gives its people in this area a unique identity.

Christianity spread to Tibet and Yunnan province via the trade routes linking Europe and East Asia a millennium ago. As early as the 16th century, the Vatican sent missionaries to evangelise to the local community. By the 19th century, Pope Gregory XVI had created the Vicariate Apostolic of Lhasa and assigned French missionaries the task of converting the Tibetan people.

But for all the myths about peaceful Tibetan Buddhists, the introduction of Catholicism to the region proved violent. Tibetan Buddhist monasteries regularly waged wars against the Catholic followers, killing priests and converts and razing churches and villages.

Worried the clashes would destabilise their rule in the region, the Qing dynasty central government resettled Tibetan Catholics from central Tibet to the neighbouring provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan where many Tibetans live.