Roman Malek S.V.D. is a Sinologist (Ph.D., University of Bonn, 1984; postdoctoral thesis, ibid., 2003) and an expert of religions in China, in particular Daoism and Christianity. He is professor emeritus of history of religions at the Philosophical-Theological Faculty S.V.D. at Sankt Augustin, Germany, and the former director and editor-in-chief of the Monumenta Serica Institute, Sankt Augustin, an academic institution maintained by the Society of the Divine Word. Under his editorship from 1992 to 2012, 20 volumes of the Sinological journal Monumenta Serica and 75 volumes of the Institute's book series were published, among them many titles on the history of Christianity in China., e.g., on important China missionaries such as Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Ferdinand Verbiest, and Giulio Aleni.