Most people don't know much about what the church was actually like. Not to say it was some beacon of progress, but it certainly wasn't as backwards as movies often make it seem. Witch hunts are a great example of that. While they certainly did happen, they were basically always done without church support since the official church stance on witches is that they don't exist(Though pagan rituals and heresy were sometimes viewed as witchcraft in a spiritual sense even when the use of actual magic was denied). The worst witch hunts in European history, as well as American history, happened during the early modern age and usually within protestant countries.

China collapses a lot, they probably forgot more knowledge than most civilizations ever got to know. Thrice.