David Wilmshurst
David Wilmshurst is a British historian and polyglot who specializes in the history of Syriac Christianity. He took his doctorate in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford.[1]
Wilmshurst is known throughout Hong Kong for his decades of leadership as Squire of the Hong Kong Morris.
Wilmshurst is known for his ability to read Syriac, Arabic, and Chinese. His research and works regarding the history of the Church of the East have significantly reshaped the modern academic understanding of East Syrian ecclesiastical topography and history.[2][3][4]
Career
[edit]Wilmshurst graduated with first-class honours in Classics from Worcester College, Oxford in 1979. His academic interest in the Church of the East led him to pursue a PhD in Oriental Studies from Oxford University in 1998 under Sebastian Brock. He spent over a decade working as an administrative officer for the Hong Kong Government and later transitioned into a long-standing role as an Academic Editor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.[5][6][7][8]
Wilmshurst was a former editor on Wikipedia. Part of his motivation for writing The Martyred Church was alleged to be frustration by conflicts due to the Assyrian naming dispute, in which he stated:
"I have outflanked these miserable insects – as the Nestorian patriarch Elisha (524-39) amiably termed his opponents – by writing my own book on the subject, in the hope that after it is published I can bludgeon them into submission by citing it as an authority."[9]
Major Publications
[edit]- The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318–1913. 2000.
- The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. 2011.
- Bar Hebraeus: The Ecclesiastical Chronicle. 2016.
References
[edit]- ↑ "Gorgias Press". www.gorgiaspress.com. Retrieved 2026-07-21.
- ↑ Dickens, Mark (2013). "The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. By David Wilmshurst. pp. xxi, 522. London, East & West Publishing, 2011". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 23 (4): 583–587. doi:10.1017/S1356186313000485. ISSN 1356-1863.
- ↑ Scripta Classica Israelica. Jerusalem Academic Press. 2004.
- ↑ Thompson, Glen L. (2024-02-15). Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-1-4674-6713-1.
- ↑ "The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the Eas…". Goodreads. Retrieved 2026-07-22.
- ↑ Mengozzi, Alessandro; Giorgio, Pier. "Book review: The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318–1913". Retrieved 2026-07-28.
- ↑ den Berg, Heleen Murre-van (2013). "Book review: The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318–1913". Church History and Religious Culture. Brill. pp. 107–109. Retrieved 2026-07-28.
- ↑ Zeini, Arash (2016-06-21). "Book review: Bar Hebraeus The Ecclesiastical Chronicle". Bibliographia Iranica. Retrieved 2026-07-28.
- ↑ Pearse, Roger (2011-06-09). ""I have outflanked these miserable insects…"". Roger Pearse. Retrieved 2026-08-01.