From August 24^th to August 27^th 2021, the 14^th International Conference of the Verbiest Institute KU Leuven took place. Due to the corona pandemic, scholars met online. This book gathers the papers presented during the conference, related to missionary history.

Central in this conference was the idea that the term Mission contains much more than missionaries preaching the Gospel and baptizing. It includes exchange of values in the field of religion, culture, art,  … It is about people enriching each other mutually with human values, people living together and growing in dialogue with each other: Encounter. This Vatican II vision is richer, deeper, broader than the traditional one, and fits the story of CICM (Scheut) and other congregations who worked in China.

Half of the papers presented in this volume cover a topic that is directly related to the history of CICM, each illustrating the encounter with China: in good, but also in turbulent and difficult times.

Verbiest Institute’s research has always included the fascinating history of other congregations as well. We feel it is our duty to do so, since we are well aware that the history of the Church in China is the work of many hands. VF does not neglect its tradition of study of the “old mission”, and in this volume we have again included several articles on the 16^th-17^th century Jesuit mission to China.

Despite the majority of papers taken up in this volume covering historical topics, we find it important to also look at today’s situation of the Chinese Church. The volume is therefore closed by papers on the contemporary dialogue between Church and Society, as well as inculturation of the local Church with other cultures. Integration of Church into Society will become a vital part of Verbiest Institute’s research program in the future.

https://www.kuleuven.be/verbiest/publications/lcs/lcs46