St. Louis, Mo., Aug 28, 2023 / 10:30 am
Mongolia is one of the world’s largest landlocked nations, sandwiched between its much larger and more powerful neighbors, China and Russia. It has one of the smallest Christian communities in the world — a community nevertheless galvanized by Pope Francis’ upcoming trip, which is scheduled to take place Aug. 31–Sept. 4.
Ahead of the pope’s historic trip, here are a few key facts to know about Mongolia.
1) Mongolia has only a few thousand Christians.
Officially, Mongolia is home to just 1,450 Catholics, significantly less than 1% of the country’s 3.3 million people. That’s small, but in the early 1990s, the country had virtually zero native Catholics. This is mainly because of the nation’s communist regime, which lasted from the 1920s until 1990 and repressed all forms of religion, especially the dominant Tibetan Buddhism.