The Hong Kong Institute of Jingjiao Studies gratefully acknowledges scholars, researchers, and friends whose work, support, and collaboration have contributed to the advancement of Jingjiao and Syriac Christian studies in East Asia. The following individuals have participated in conversations, interviews, exchanges, and conferences connected with the mission of HKIJS.
Mark Dickens
Mark Dickens is a scholar of Syriac Christianity who specializes in the history of the Church of the East in Central Asia, with particular expertise in Christian manuscript fragments and inscriptions from Turfan and the wider Inner Asian world. He studied Applied Linguistics at the University of Victoria before pursuing Syriac Studies at the University of Cambridge, where he completed both an MPhil and a Ph.D. His doctoral dissertation, “Turkāyē: Turkic Peoples in Syriac Literature prior to the Seljüks,” examined the representation of Turkic peoples in Syriac literary traditions before the Seljük period. He has held academic positions and research appointments in Canada and the UK, including at SOAS, University of London and the University of Alberta.
His scholarship has been especially important for the study of Christian materials from Turfan. Through studies such as “Multilingual Christian Manuscripts from Turfan,” “Biblical Fragments from the Christian Library of Turfan,” “Scribal Practices in the Turfan Christian Community,” and his collaborative work on Christian calendrical and liturgical fragments, Dickens has helped illuminate the multilingual, liturgical, biblical, and scribal dimensions of East Syriac Christian life along the Silk Road network. His research also extends to Syriac gravestones and other inscriptions from Central Asia, as well as the transmission of Syriac traditions across Persian, Turkic, Sogdian, and Chinese cultural worlds. His collected volume, Echoes of a Forgotten Presence: Reconstructing the History of the Church of the East in Central Asia (2020), brings together a series of studies on the history of Christianity in Central Asia, including Turfan manuscript fragments, Semirechye gravestone inscriptions, and the wider historical networks of the Church of the East. More recent studies continue to explore the textual and historical legacy of Syriac Christianity across Inner Asia and China. HKIJS is pleased to include Mark Dickens among its friends and collaborators. His work has been of particular importance for understanding the relationship between Central Asia and Chinese Jingjiao materials, along with texts from later periods, particularly the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and it continues to provide an important foundation for the Institute’s interest in Syriac Christianity, manuscript culture, and the history of the Church of the East along the Silk Road network.
Alexis Balmont (鮑樂民)
Alexis Balmont (鮑樂民) is a researcher at the Faculty of Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a scholar of Syriac Christianity and medieval Chinese Christianity, with particular expertise in Christian texts from the Tang period. He first studied engineering at École Centrale Paris, before pursuing religious studies at the Collège des Bernardins and biblical exegesis at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. Since 2019, he has lived in China, where he has studied Cantonese, Mandarin, and Chinese literature in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Beijing. Alexis is a co-founder of the Hong Kong Institute of Jingjiao Studies.
He holds a Ph.D. in Oriental Studies from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. His doctoral research, supervised by Pierre Marsone and Dietmar Winkler, focused on Tang-period Christian texts and was undertaken in connection with the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris (EPHE-PSL) and the Pontifical Oriental Institute. His current research concerns the religious manuscripts of Dunhuang and Turfan, the cultural and religious exchanges of the Silk Roads, the history of Christianity, Chinese religions, and the application of Digital Humanities methods to Chinese and Christian lexicography. His recent publications include Syriac Christians in Tang China: Chinese Texts and Theologies, published in Orientalia Patristica Oecumenica 23 by Lit Verlag, Zürich, in 2025; Textes chrétiens chinois du haut Moyen Âge, published as Sources Chrétiennes 658 in 2025; and Le christianisme chinois du haut Moyen Âge (2025). HKIJS is grateful for Alexis Balmont’s friendship, scholarly exchange, and participation in conversations connected with the Institute’s mission and the wider advancement of Jingjiao studies.
Tianyi Yuan (袁天一)
Tianyi Yuan (袁天一) is a graduate student in the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH) at the University of Chicago Division of the Humanities. He is also an MA alumnus of the University of Chicago Divinity School and an MDiv alumnus of Harvard Divinity School. In February 2026, he was admitted to Harvard University as a Ph.D. student in religion. Tianyi is a co-founder of the Hong Kong Institute of Jingjiao Studies.
His emerging research interests lie in comparative studies of Christianity, Buddhism, and Daoism, with particular attention to sacred space, religious geography, and cosmology. This direction is reflected in his HKIJS presentation, “Transforming Chinese Religious Geography: A Revisit of the Name Change from Persian Classic Religion to Daqin Luminous Religion,” which situates the Jingjiao Monument in dialogue with Buddhist and Daoist thought in eighth-century China. Through the lens of comparative religious geography, he reads the Monument not only as evidence of Christian presence, but also as a source for understanding how sacred geography, distant lands, and claims to legitimacy were reimagined within medieval China’s religious landscape. HKIJS is pleased to include Tianyi Yuan among its friends and collaborators, and is grateful for his participation in conversations connected with the Institute’s mission and the wider study of Christianity and religious traditions in the Chinese world.
Jacob Chengwei Feng (馮成偉)
Jacob Chengwei Feng (馮成偉) is a theologian and scholar of Chinese Christianity, with particular interests in Jingjiao, constructive theology, science and religion, Daoism, and the history of the Church of the East in China. He holds a Ph.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary and is a postdoctoral scholar at the same institution. His work brings early Chinese Christian materials into conversation with Chinese religious thought, especially questions of qi, spirit, creation, and contextual theology.
His major monograph, Science, Religion(s), and Spirit(s) in China: A Constructive Chinese Theology of Creation Based on Jingjiao’s Qi-tological Theology, with a New English Translation of the Entire Tang Jingjiao Corpus, was published by Brill in 2025. In this work, Feng reads Tang Jingjiao texts through the lenses of qi, metaphor, Daoist comparison, and theology–science–religion dialogue, proposing a constructive account of Jingjiao’s theology of creation. His article “The Wind of the Spirit Is Blowing East: Ancestors, Deities, and the Holy Spirit in the Earliest Mission to China” further explores how early Chinese Christian texts, especially Xuting Mishisuo jing, contextualized the Gospel within a world shaped by filial piety, ancestral reverence, and multiple spiritual powers. HKIJS is pleased to include Jacob Chengwei Feng among its friends and collaborators. His participation reflects the Institute’s interest in fostering conversations that connect Jingjiao studies with broader questions in Chinese theology, interreligious comparison, and the intellectual history of Christianity in the Chinese world.
BAI Yu 白宇
Dr. Bai Yu is a scholar of medieval Chinese religions whose research focuses on Buddhism, intellectual history, and the interaction between religious traditions and political culture in medieval China. His work is particularly relevant to Jingjiao studies through its exploration of the shared historical and cultural environment in which Buddhism and Christianity developed in Tang China. He is currently a member of the teaching faculty at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou).
Dr. Bai received his Ph.D. from Leiden University in 2026. He previously studied Transcultural Studies with a focus on Buddhist Studies at Heidelberg University, graduating with distinction, and was a visiting student in the Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies at Hamburg University. He has also been a Visiting Assistant in Research at Yale University. His doctoral research examines imperial Buddhist prefaces (xu 序) as a religious and political phenomenon in the history of Buddhist thought and Chinese religions.
His research also engages directly with Jingjiao and the wider religious landscape of Tang China. His article “On the Jingjiao Text Zhixuan anle jing: Its Date and Use of Imagery,” published in Monumenta Serica 71, no. 1 (2023): 43–71, examines the dating and imagery of this important Jingjiao text. His doctoral dissertation, Thus We Have Heard: Imperial Buddhist Prefaces and Ideology in Tang China (Leiden University, 2026), further contributes to understanding the religious and political contexts within which different traditions operated in medieval China.
In an HKIJS interview, Dr. Bai discusses his recent research on imperial Buddhist prefaces and reflects on how the study of Buddhism can illuminate points of contact and comparison in the study of medieval Chinese Christianity.
Jason Lam 林子淳
Dr Jason Lam (林子淳) is Senior Lecturer in Christian Thought at Melbourne School of Theology and Senior Research Fellow at the Australian University of Theology. His research interests span Christian doctrine, ethics, and Chinese Christianity. He has long been involved in the Sino-Christian Theology (漢語神學) movement, with a particular interest in theological developments in the Chinese context, including Jingjiao (the Church of the East in China) and its broader religio-cultural traditions.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Jason initially studied electronic engineering before pursuing theological studies. He obtained his B.Eng. and M.Div. from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, specialising in hermeneutics and theology. Before relocating to Australia, he served as Academic Officer at the Institute of Sino-Christian Studies for fourteen years.
Jason has researched and published on early Christian thought, including an investigation of the Adam Christology reflected in Yishenlun (一神論, “On One God”), an early Jingjiao text (“Jesus Bhagavat? Exploring Indigenous Adam Christology in the Seventh Century Jingjiao Document ‘On One God’,” Monumenta Serica 74 (2026): 27–42).
Wang Lanping 王蘭平
Wang Lanping is a scholar of Dunhuang studies specialising in Jingjiao (the Church of the East in China) manuscripts. His research has focused particularly on questions surrounding the authenticity of The Discourse on Monotheism and The Jesus Messiah Sutra, two manuscripts preserved in the Kyō-U Library (杏雨書屋) in Japan. In reassessing the principal arguments concerning transliteration, terminology, textual irregularities and Chinese character forms, he has argued that these features do not necessarily establish the manuscripts as modern forgeries. Instead, he has drawn attention to Syriac phonetic transcriptions, terminological correspondences and palaeographic features that find parallels in other Dunhuang manuscripts.
Wang holds a Ph.D. from Lanzhou University, China, specialising in excavated texts and manuscripts, with a particular focus on Dunhuang studies and Chinese palaeography. He is currently a postdoctoral scholar at Shanghai Normal University. His doctoral research, supervised by Professors Zheng Binglin and Lauren F. Pfister, examined Chinese Jingjiao manuscripts from Dunhuang dating to the Tang dynasty. His research interests encompass Dunhuang manuscripts, Jingjiao texts, and the religious and cultural exchanges that took place along the Silk Roads.
His publications include “Review of the Studies on the Research History of Authenticity of The Discourse on Monotheism and The Jesus Messiah Sutra in Kyou-shooku,” Yearbook of Chinese Theology (2018): 155–162 (Leiden: Brill); “Reassessing on the Authenticity of Two Jingjiao Manuscripts Possessed by Kyou-shooku in Japan: An Investigation from the Perspective of Syrian-Chinese Translation,” Ching Feng 16 (2017): 25–45; A Study of Tang-Dynasty Dunhuang Chinese Jingjiao Manuscripts (Beijing: Minzu Chubanshe, 2016); “A Textual Analysis of Chinese Characters with Their Variants in Two Dunhuang Jingjiao Manuscripts,” Ching Feng 14 (2015): 23–31; and “Analysis on the Relationship Between Tang-Dynasty Jingjiao and Buddhism and Taoism: A Case Study of ‘Ten Vows’ and ‘Ten Meditations’ Mentioned in the Jingjiao Manuscripts from Dunhuang Cave,” in East Meets West: Essays Celebrating the Bicentennial of Protestant Christianity in China (Hong Kong: Chinese Christian Literature Council, 2009), 145–159.
Hidemi Takahashi 高橋英海
Hidemi Takahashi is Professor of Syriac Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo. He received his academic training in classical philology at the University of St Andrews and the University of Tokyo, before obtaining his doctorate (Dr. phil.) in Oriental Studies from Goethe University Frankfurt in 2002. His research specialises in Syriac language and literature, medieval Arabic intellectual traditions, and the transmission of Greek philosophy and science through Syriac and Arabic scholarship.
Professor Takahashi has made substantial contributions to the study of Syriac Christianity and its intellectual and cultural history, particularly through his research on Gregory Barhebraeus (Bar ʿEbroyo), the thirteenth-century Syriac scholar and ecclesiastical figure. Combining philological analysis with the study of manuscript traditions and intellectual history, his scholarship explores the transmission and transformation of philosophical and scientific knowledge across Greek, Syriac and Arabic literary cultures. His research also extends to Syriac Christianity in Central Asia, China and India, including the study of Jingjiao manuscripts and inscriptions.
His major publications include Aristotelian Meteorology in Syriac: Barhebraeus, Butyrum sapientiae, Books of Mineralogy and Meteorology (Brill, 2004) and Barhebraeus: A Bio-Bibliography (Gorgias Press, 2005). His articles and book chapters include “Reception of Ibn Sīnā in Syriac: The Case of Gregory Barhebraeus” (2003), “The Mathematical Sciences in Syriac: From Sergius of Resh’aina and Severus Sebokt to Barhebraeus and Patriarch Ni’matallah” (2011), “Syriac as the Intermediary in Scientific Graeco-Arabica: Some Historical and Philological Observations” (2015), “Armenian Garshuni (Armenian in Syriac Script) and Its Users” (2016), and “Representation of the Syriac Language in Jingjiao and Yelikewen Documents” (2020). Together, these studies illuminate the linguistic, literary and intellectual traditions of Syriac Christianity and its connections with neighbouring cultures across Asia and the Mediterranean world.
Niu Ruji 牛汝極
Niu Ruji is a professor and doctoral supervisor specialising in the history, languages and religious cultures of the Silk Roads, particularly the historical and textual traditions of the Western Regions (Xiyu). He holds a doctorate from the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Paris, and previously served as Vice-President of Xinjiang Normal University. His research encompasses Old Turkic and Old Uyghur languages and manuscripts, historical linguistics, epigraphy, and the religious and cultural exchanges of China and Central Asia, with particular emphasis on Syriac and Old Uyghur Christian inscriptions and documents.
Professor Niu has made significant contributions to the study of Jingjiao (the Church of the East in China), especially through his research on Syriac and Old Uyghur inscriptions dating to the Mongol-Yuan period. Combining philological, linguistic and epigraphic approaches, his scholarship examines the transmission of East Syriac Christianity across Central Asia and China, including its interactions with Turkic-speaking communities. His major monograph, The Cross-Lotus: A Study on Nestorian Inscriptions and Documents from Yuan Dynasty in China (《十字蓮花：中國元代敘利亞文景教碑銘文獻研究》; Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2008), provides a systematic study of Christian inscriptions discovered in China, incorporating transcription, translation, annotation and historical analysis.
His other publications include La croix-lotus: Inscriptions et manuscrits nestoriens en écriture syriaque découverts en Chine (XIIIe–XIVe siècles) (2010); “Nestorian Inscriptions from China (13th–14th Centuries)” (2006); and “History Is a Mirror: On the Spread of Nestorianism in China from the Newly Discovered Bronze Mirror with Cross-Lotus and Syriac Inscriptions,” published in The Church of the East in Central Asia and China (2020). Together, these studies illuminate the multilingual and multicultural dimensions of the Church of the East in China and Central Asia and contribute to a broader understanding of religious exchange along the Silk Roads.
TAM Tai Wai David 譚大衛
David (genealogical name: Shumo 樹模) is a researcher at the Institute for Ethics and Religions Studies, Tsinghua University. His work focuses especially on the textual, theological, and historical study of Jingjiao materials, with particular attention to manuscript transmission, philology, theology, and the Chinese literary and religious contexts in which these texts were received. David is the founder and director of the Hong Kong Institute of Jingjiao Studies.
He studied theology, philosophy and city planning in Canada, worked as a city planner in Vancouver and Hong Kong, before pursuing Jingjiao study at Tsinghua University. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy (Religious Studies) from Tsinghua University. His doctoral research, supervised by Profs. Wang Xaiochao (adviser: Zhu Donghua), focused on the study of Yishen Lun, the longest of all “Jingjiao” manuscript. His current research concerns the Yishen Lun, the Jingjiao Stele, Dunhuang and Turfan Christian materials, manuscript authenticity, Chinese Christian terminology, and the broader history of the Church of the East in the Chinese world.
His publications include studies on Yishen Lun, the Jingjiao Stele, Tangchaodun, Jewish elements in Chinese Christian manuscripts, and the place of authorship of Yishen Lun. Recent works include “Authenticity Doubt on the Tomioka (Yishen Lun) Manuscript: A Discourse Analysis,” published in HTS Teologiese Studies 80, no. 3 (2024): 1–7; “The Parable of Wise and Foolish Builders in Yishen Lun and Rabbinic Literature,” published in Religions 15, no. 1 (2024): 107; “From ‘Here’ to Persia: The Place of Authorship of the Ancient Chinese Christian Manuscript Yishen Lun (Discourse on God),” published in Journal of Chinese Theology 8, no. 1 (2022): 9–34; and “A Perfect Church on Earth: The New Discovery of an Ancient Church Site in Tangchao Dun, China,” published in International Journal of Sino-Western Studies 21 (2021): 207–19, which received the Annual Excellent Article Award in 2021. Through HKIJS, he promotes research, translation, public scholarship, and international exchange in the study of ancient Chinese Christianity, Syriac traditions in East Asia, and related manuscript and archaeological materials.