Steyler Missionare im Dienst des intellektuellen Apostolats: 90 Jahre des Beitrags zur China-Forschung durch die sinologische Zeitschrift Monumenta Serica

Lecture by

Prof. Zbigniew Wesołowski S.V.D.:
Monumenta Serica Institute

27. November 2025, 5 p.m.

S.V.D. Missionary Seminary
Arnold-Janssen-Str. 30, 53757 Sankt Augustin

The year 2025 marks not only the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Society of the Divine Word (Societas Verbi Divini, SVD), but also the 90th anniversary of the Sinological journal Monumenta Serica. From the very beginning, the Divine Word Missionaries placed emphasis on the intellectual apostolate. At that time, this apostolate encompassed all forms of missionary-theological, biblical, pastoral, and popular scientific writings.

The Divine Word Missionaries’ involvement in Chinese studies began in their first mission area in southern Shandong Province and intensified significantly after they took over the Catholic Fu Jen University in Beijing in 1933. More than 400 titles of these publications from China are documented in the 2025 catalog Bibliotheca Sinica Christiana: Annotated Catalog of the Divine Word Missionaries’ (SVD) Publications in Shandong (1882–1950), compiled by Roman Malek SVD.

The journal Monumenta Serica (“Chinese Cultural Monuments”; Chinese title Huayi xuezhi 華裔學志, i.e., “Journal on China and Its Neighboring Countries”) was founded in 1935 at Fu Jen University by the Sinologist and Divine Word missionary Franz Xaver Biallas and has been published almost continuously by the Society of the Divine Word ever since. It is dedicated to the comprehensive study of Chinese culture and the cultural exchange between China and its neighboring peoples. 

The history of our Sinological journal can be divided into four periods according to its various locations: 1) the Chinese period in Beijing from 1935 to 1948, 2) the Japanese period in Tokyo and Nagoya between 1953 and 1962, 3) the American period in Los Angeles from 1962 to 1971, and 4) the German period in Sankt Augustin since 1972. To date, more than thirty missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word have been directly or indirectly involved in the work and mission of the Monumenta Serica Institute. Father Zbigniew Wesołowski S.V.D., the current director of the institute and editor-in-chief of the journal, presents fourteen of these SVD missionaries in chronological order, including Eugen Feifel, Heinrich Busch, Gerhard Schreiber, and Roman Malek. (The founder of Monumenta Serica, Franz Xaver Biallas, was presented in a separate lecture by Dr. Barbara Hoster on 24 October 2024.)