For westerners, contemporary China is as exotic and mysterious as it was to the first European traders on the Great Silk Road a millennium ago. In July 2002, editors and friends of Road to Emmaus attended a three-week international theological conference in Volos, Greece, where we met two Chinese Orthodox Christians, Ioasaph Yaokum and Ioannis Chen. Each evening, to escape the sweltering heat, we retired to the roof of our lodgings where conversations about world Orthodoxy went on until early morning. Ioannis captivated us with insights into the mind and soul of contemporary China.