Protests and uprisings in Tibet since 1950 The minor kingdoms and tribal states of the region were first united under Songtsen Gampo to form the Tibetan Empire in the seventh century CE Under the influence of his Chinese bride and first Nepali wife Bhrikuti, the Emperor converted to Buddhism and established it as the religion of Tibet. An influx of Chinese culture, the Indian alphabet, and Buddhist monks followed, combining with the native customs and animistic religion Bön to give birth to what has become today's ethnic Tibetan people and Tibetan Buddhism, also known as Lamaism, After the break-up of the Tibetan Empire in the mid-9th century,
History of the Eastern Orthodox Church of "religia-illicitata". Several Orthodox congregations continue to meet in Beijing and northeast China (in Heilongjiang and elsewhere), with, apparently, the tacit consent of the government. There are also Orthodox parishes in Shanghai, Province of Guangdong, as well as in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where the church operates relatively freely. Although many of them have adopted Lamaism – which is the mainstream form of Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism – the Evenks of both the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China are a nominally Orthodox Christian people. Along with their Evenks cousins and a few other tribes in Siberia or in