There is no lack of books on Christian missions in China, however, a book on Christian monastic missions in China can lend a fresh perspective to the topic. Matteo Niconili-Zani has given such a fresh perspective in his book, Christian Monks on Chinese Soil: A History of Monastic Missions to China. Using archival sources of various Catholic orders, in Rome and in the Vatican Library, as well as missionary bulletins published in Europe and China between the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, the author succeeded in “taking up the challenge of compiling a history of Christian monasticism in China” (1) with emphasis on the Carmelite, Trappist, and Benedictine missions.

After introductory remarks on monastic life and mission and the impact of Christian monasticism on society and culture, the book begins with a sketch of Syriac Christian monks in China during the Tang and the Yuan dynasties. However, the main theme of the book focuses on Catholic monastic missions in China. The author first recounts the mission pioneered by French Carmelite nuns from their first presence in Shanghai in 1869 to their ejection from China by the Chinese government in 1956. The Carmelite sisters commissioned to witness Christ “by the example of contemplative life” (58) and “to support Christian mission through prayers and penance” (93) founded monasteries and communities in Shanghai, Chongqing, Jiaxing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Kunming, and Macau. Accepting Chinese women as novices was part of the intercultural formation for mission. As a way of cultural accommodation, European nuns also learned Chinese. Carmelite friars from Italy founded a male Carmelite community in China in 1947, but the community was short-lived. In 1950, the friars were either imprisoned or expelled from China.

The Trappists, a branch of the Cistercian Order of Strict Observance, set foot in China in 1883. Although they built a couple of monasteries in China, their presence in China seemed to center around the Yangjiaping Monastery, located fifty kilometers northwest of Peking. Founded by European Trappist monks in 1883, the monastery reached its zenith in the first three decades of the twentieth century with one hundred twenty Chinese and European monks in residence. Postulants studied Chinese, Latin, Philosophy, theology, and related sciences. During the anti-Christian Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901), the monastery offered shelter to many local Christians who escaped the violence of the rebels. However, this monumental abbey, surrounded by “colonnades of trees with dense foliage, gurgling waters, foamy cascades” and blessed with “the whiff of the breeze, the coolness of the mountaintop and the scent of the wood” (132), was soon to experience its “terrible yet glorious holocaust” (138). From 1938 to 1947, the monastic community suffered during the Japanese occupation of the region and was devastated by repeated looting and damage by revolutionary troops, whose leaders burned the monastery in order to prevent the communist army from using it as a base. Monks were arrested and physically tortured. In 1953, the Communist government seized the monastic property, and monks were sent back to their places of origin.

The fourth chapter traces three branches of Benedictine missions in China undertaken during the 1920s and the 1930s by the American Cassinese Congregation, the Belgian Congregation of the Annunciation, and the German Congregation of Saint Ottilien. The founding of the Catholic University of Peking in 1925, which was decreed by the Holy See and sponsored by Pope Pius XI personally, was due to the monumental work of the American Benedictines. Although the archabbot of Saint Vincent Abbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, who was entrusted to establish the pontifical university in Peking, was confident that the monks sent to China would “preserve and Christianize Chinese literature, art and philosophy” and “place before the eyes of the Chinese people an ideal exemplar of truly Christian civilization” (175), although this statement can  and will be challenged today, the envisaged university with the Chinese name “Fu Jen” ended up focusing on furnishing “what China lacks most: leaders able to assume positions of responsibility in Chinese society” (177). The university gained accreditation from the Chinese government and had five faculties (theology, philosophy, arts and letters, sciences, and Chinese Studies). The Benedictine missions encountered great challenges of inculturation (199), dealing with issues concerning liturgical languages, vestment, ordination of Chinese priests with no knowledge of Latin, and others. A reform of inculturation took place when European monks began to learn Chinese and Chinese monks were allowed to wear Chinese dress and to chant prayers in Chinese except for the Holy Mass.

The last chapter highlights a key figure from the Congregation of the Mission in Belgium, Friar Vincet Lebbe, a Belgian priest who founded the indigenous community of “Little Brothers of John the Baptist” in 1928 for Chinese Catholics and propagated a different form of monasticism that emphasized not only on spiritual life but also on action, community building, and ordination of Chinese clergy.

The author, being a Catholic monk himself, reconstructed this history of Christian monasticism in China with passion and expertise. The book is a careful and well-documented study of archival materials furnished with historical photographs and sketches of monasteries. It ends with useful appendixes listing several monastic rules. This is a new contribution to the field of mission studies, which will broaden the knowledge of scholars and students in the field of theology and missiology, particularly related to Christian missions in China. However, the book, being a recounting of historical events with ample examples, lacks theological reflections from the author's perspective. Although the book does cite examples of discussions on comparing Christian teaching with Confucian ethics and Christian monastic practice adopting Buddhist and Taoist meditation techniques, several crucial questions are not explored in depth, such as the appeal of western Christian monasticism to the local Chinese against the background of Buddhist and Taoist monastic traditions and the effect of monastic life on Christian missions in China. A few words of introduction to the monastic orders at the beginning of each chapter would benefit those readers who are unfamiliar with the names of the orders, let alone some extra pages on Orthodox monasticism in China, which would make the book more complete.