Turkmenistan is the southernmost of the countries in Central Asia that were formerly Soviet republics. It borders the Caspian Sea to the west, Iran and Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the north-east and Kazakhstan to the north-west. It is mostly desert. Turkmenistan is the second-largest country in Central Asia but has the smallest population. Although the ancient population consisted of Iranian ethnic groups, the modern indigenous population is largely Turkmen and the principal language is Turkmen. Due to its geopolitical situation it was one of the first areas in Central Asia to which Islam spread, from the 650s. Today, the majority of the country's population professes Sunni Islam.

The earliest material evidence of the Christian presence in Central Asia, from the third and fourth centuries, derives from Turkmenistan. The city of Mary (ancient Merv and earlier Achaemenid Satrapy of Margiana) was the missionary gateway of the Church of the East. The literary evidence of the evangelisation of Merv is known from the ‘Life of Baršabbā’, extant in two manuscripts unearthed at Turfan, in the Sogdian and Syriac languages. In particular, the Sogdian fragment credits the pioneering bishop Baršabbā with the foundation of monasteries in the areas of Fārs, Gorgān, Tūs, Abaršahr, Saraks, Marvrud, Balkh, Herat and Sīstān, which indicates the cultural significance and strategic influence of Christianity in the region. The activity of Baršabbā is also known from the accounts of the Muslim polymath al-Bīrūnī in the eleventh century, who, in his text on the calendars of Christians, mentions the commemoration day of Baršabbā as a founder of Christianity in the region and indicates that Christianity was spreading in the area 200 years after Christ.

In modern Turkmenistan, Christianity is a minority religion. The largest non-Muslim minority faith is Russian Orthodox Christianity, professed mainly by ethnic Russians and a very small number of other Slavonic peoples (Ukrainians and Belarusians). There is also a small Armenian community belonging to the Armenian Apostolic Church. As regards Protestants, the main denominations are Evangelical Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists and Evangelical Lutherans. There are also smaller denominations such as Greater Grace Church, which is part of the Greater Grace World Outreach and is found in Ashgabat and Mary cities.