Rev. Elias D. Mallon, a native New Yorker, is an ordained member of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement (Graymoor). He obtained a licentiate degree (STL) in Old Testament studies and a PhD in Middle Eastern languages from the Catholic University of America. He researched and wrote his dissertation at Eberhard Karls Universität in Tübingen, Germany. He taught at the Washington Theological Union and American University in the Washington, DC.  He taught ancient Near Eastern languages the University of Washington in Seattle, WA.  He also worked for the then Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (now Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity) as its faculty representative at the Institut Œcuménique of the World Council of Churches in Bossey, Switzerland.  From 1989-2001 he was Director of the Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute in New York City.

He has been involved in the Roman Catholic/Christian-Muslim dialogue on the local, national and international level since 1985 and has published several articles and two books on Islam. His most recent book is the Second expanded edition of Islam: What Catholics Need to Know (Arlington, VA: National Catholic Education Association, 2018). He has worked as an NGO representative at the United Nations for twelve years, the last six of which as representative for Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA). He is member of the UN Israel-Palestine Working Group and is engaged with the UN Working Group for Freedom of Religion or Belief.

At present Elias is the External Affairs Officer for the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) which supports charitable, educational, health and development projects in the Middle East, Ethiopia, eastern Europe and southern India. Here he is responsible for representing CNEWA at the UN, for research and interreligious dialogue. He is a member of the East Coast Catholic-Muslim Dialogue and is a regular contributor to One to One, the blog site of CNEWA.