The Romanian Village in the Writings and Theology of Dumitru Staniloae
By Rev. Fr. Nicu Liuță
Introduction
Father Dumitru Staniloae (1903-1993) was a renowned Orthodox priest, academic theologian, professor, dogmatic scholar. His most masterworks include a translation and commentaries of Philokalia, and his Dogmatic Orthodox theology which established him as one of the most prominent Romanian theologians of the twenty century. There are other writings and works that I would like to mention besides the “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” (1978) and “Philokalia” (1946-1980) as such : “The Victory of the Cross”, “a Talk on Given Suffering”, “Orthodoxy and Romanianism”, “Jesus Christ or Man’s Restoration”, ‘Catholicism after the War”, “Life and Teachings of Gregorius Palamas”, “Theology and the Church”, “The Holy Trinity: In the Beginning There was Love”,” Eternity and Time”, “Prayer and Holiness”, “The Icon of God Renewed in Man”, “The Prayer of Jesus and the Experience of Holy Spirit”,” Life and Teachings of Gregory Palamas”, “St. Gregory of Nyssa” .
Father Staniloae was born on November 17th 1903 in a small village in Transylvania, Vlădeni to peasant parents, Irimie and Rebeca. In this small community surrounded by the beautiful Carpathian Mountains, Father Dumitru discovered and experienced a typical liturgical life specific to simple people rooted in the Orthodox Tradition. He wrote towards the end of his life: “The whole of our village life was organized around the church ... social life was embedded with religious life. Since then I have not been able to imagine social life without the Church. The church was very close to people and the people were completely devoted to the worship life of the church… I grew up in this environment…A church that was very important and lay at the heart of everyone lives. The people’s lives were moulded around the church…Even today I am inspired by the life that my family, the village, and the people generally led…”
Father Stăniloae through his origin, upbringing, and childhood felt very attached and closer to the spirituality of Romanian people. His thoughts and reflections regarding main features of our Romanian spirituality are mostly illustrated in his activity as a publicist and director at Romanian Telegraph (1934-1947), and also towards the end of his life. He wrote a book named “Reflections on Spirituality of Romanian People”.
Father Stăniloae in polemic with Lucian Blaga
In the speech from the Romanian Academy, 1937, the poet Lucian Blaga brings praise to the Romanian Village and launches the most famous metaphor, “Eternity was born in the Village”. This metaphor meant not only that the Romanian peasant lived in a timeless and infinite Universe, in which the content is reversed in the “mystery of the mystery”, but especially because in the village’s life, the Laws of God and the Liturgical Rituals are organically combined with the Laws of the Cosmos. Therefore, the pace of life in the village allowed deepening this feeling of Eternal God’s Presence. Father Dumitru Stăniloae, although in this respect he was in agreement with the poet of the Wondering Corolla, entered into a direct controversy in 1942 with the poet from Cluj and published a book entitled “The Position of Mr. Blaga towards Christianity and Orthodoxy”.
Lucian Blaga defines Romanian space as an undulating space, a succession of reliefs that can be summarized in the word Mioritic Space. In his vision, the Romanians lived in a crystallized matrix space, and they lived unconsciously the spiritual substance that flourishes unto this undulating space. The Transcendent and the Sofian descend on this space and the Romanian is a passive unconscious receptacle of this transcendental and sophistry that translates from popular ballads like Miorița, Meșterul Manole, to the elements of architecture, decoration of houses, harbor, etc.
Father Stăniloae reproached to Blaga for being given to the notion of dogma an unorthodox acceptance. For Blaga, in his philosophical agnosticism, the Great Anonymous discourages one to know and discover excluding possibilities of revelation. He considers Blaga's philosophy as anti-Christian, starting from the gnoseological theory and the vision of the Great Anonymous. According to Father Stăniloae, the religious dogma possesses the particularity of being a synthesis of logical belief because it is based on faith in the word of God. The theologian combats also Blaga’s philosophy of the mioritic space, in which he asserts contrary to the philosopher that the Transcendent descends only if man strives through personal efforts to make him apt to receive it. He criticizes the Protestantism that existed in the philosophy of the poet formed at the western schools and in which the Protestant elitism transpires.
In his book Father Dumitru examines the differences between the western polytheistic pantheistic culture, and the Romanian culture which is deeply imprinted by the desire for interpersonal communion and belonging. Father Stăniloae finds specific elements of our culture such as: the playfulness, the longing, the humanity, the irony and sarcasm, the hospitality. He also examines our spirituality by interpreting our most popular ballads as Miorița and Meșterul Manole.
Father Staniloae saw in Blaga’s philosophy the influence of the western school, and of the specific predestination of Calvinism. In his book, The Position of Mr. Lucian Blaga towards Christianity and Orthodoxy, the Romanian theologian highlights the synergy between the descent of the Transcendent and the personal effort of human deification. “It is not through the subconscious that the Easter is faithful as Blaga states, but by a continuous victory over all the passions and thoughts that start from the subconscious, by a victory of the awakening of the spirit over the subconscious.” (Father Dumitru Stăniloae, The position of Mister Lucian Blaga towards Christianity and Orthodoxy).
Topos and Ontology - The Spiritual Features of our Geographical Space.
In the writings of Father Dumitru Stăniloae the Space of our Romanian geography is seen as a spiritual and cultural matrix that generates a specific ethos to our collective national Being. Between the Romanian people and our country’s geography there is an intimate and intricate connection. The space that is inhabited by our people, with hills, mountains, rivers, plains also inhabits our inner soul topography. Topography and ontology of our Romanian soul are mirroring each other as the collective being of our Romanian nation represents a living border between Orient and Occident, and it can’t become in its essence only unilateral occidental or multilateral oriental….
This space is a bridge between east and west, and any alteration of this geography would result in soul loss at the level of our collective being. In his view, we chose to defend the geography of our territory rather than migrating and conquering other spaces as other nations did; the individuals who migrate feel an overwhelming nostalgia when they lived in a foreign territory. Also, the beauty of our landscape is reflected on the faces of the inhabitants. Our rooting in this space implied its defense with heroic despair, and the alienation from this geography created some sort of specific Romanian feelings as such Dorul –The deep longing.
There is an innate correspondence between the smile of the Romanian landscape and the smile of a human face living in this space, Father Stăniloae writes in his book “Reflections on Spirituality of Romanian People”. The Romanian landscape has a human face and is wearing traditional Romanian costumes. The human face is imprinted in surrounding landscape, and the harmony of this landscape is reflected in the human physiognomy. There is something in this theology of Father Stăniloae that gives its specific flavour….there is a transpersonal intimate communion in everything, between nature and humans, between humans, and between humans and entire universe which is a reflection of Trinitarian Divine deep intimate communion.
The Mystery of Village as part of the Universe, and God’s Kingdom
Father Stăniloae dedicated lots of thoughts to the Romanian Nation which is undoubted an Orthodox Nation. He equated Romanian with faithfulness because “Orthodoxy is the part of very heart of the Romanian Culture. Without it, we , the Romanian might lose our identity as a distinct nation and this source has not been exhausted. The Romanian people are bound to Orthodoxy and orthodoxy, is in turn, intertwined our identity and our past”. (Stăniloae, “Orthodoxy and Ethnocracy”). Father Stăniloae considers three important elements in the genesis of our nation: our geto-dacic past, our Latinity, and our apostolic rooted Christianity, which he considers the most specific feature of our identity.
Our apostolic faith has been present since our beginning in the life of our villages…The villages were the living faith communities and some historians are criticizing the lack of any written sources in regard to very ancient Christian life of our villages. Father Stăniloae agrees with the fact that there was a certain anonymity embedded into some sort of obscurity and mystery as we know that Romanian Nation skipped Renaissance European age and avoided some of the medieval traps; yet our spiritual life has been flourishing in this small communities of the faithful which have become the blueprint of our national orthodoxy lived as a Mystery in communion with God, Nature, and one another in thousands of our Romanian villages. While medieval Europe launched a new type of humanity, the Renaissance man, our villages proposed a new model of humanity, the Man seeking communion with Christ, and seeking communion with each other, a higher sense of interpersonal Theosis created by the goodness of heart.
Father Stăniloae, in his book, “Reflections on Spirituality of Romanian People” wrote that all our national manifestations are imprinted by the presence of our Christian faith, a sense of mystery, and in union with it, a sense of clean morality, and a vivid spirit of communion.
The village is the laboratory of the Holy Mystery. In the Romanian obscure village, it is observed how the religious and liturgical act has a cultural, spiritual, and personal influence, and also how it could bring a boost to the quality of life in the village. The village was the higher moral law court of each individual, it was approving, disapproving, or strengthening each member…It also offered cohesion and stability to the whole nation when it was divided in different political territories going through absurd and nightmare days, so it became the cradle of our national moral support and identity.
The experience of Holy Mystery by the Romanian peasant who is contemplative, liturgical, and Christ centered has transformed our Latinity in something more refined enriching our vocabulary with words that are very specific and difficult to translate sometimes. For example, the Latin word Dolorum for pain became our Romanian Dor which means some sort of infinite spiritual pain that originates from longing. Convention which means a social rule became bunacuviință which is more than common sense; it implies some decency in interpersonal relations, and has some sort of gentleness and delicacy flavour.
A very defining moment in the ethno genesis of our national identity was moving of the centre of gravity from the pagan and Latin tribal script to the Christian family placed under the Mystery of Holy Marriage, which meant in poetical terms the genesis of eternity in our Romanian villages. The faithful peasant family was the mystery worker in the visible world capable of transforming the village into a liturgical reflection and cosmic presence of the heavenly Christ Kingdom.
The village thus becomes a garden of the Theotokos to cultivate salvation from generation to generation. Father Stăniloae wrote: ”In that beautifully fenced garden it was pleasing to God to walk with St. Peter as they appear in our wonderful fairy tales and carols which are nothing more than brilliant renderings of the evangelical truths about the incarnation and activity of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Father Ilie Moldovan also strengthens this point of Stăniloae’s thesis: “The marriage proves to be the carrier of some powers of the beginnings for eternity, shaping the ethnic which is in turn, nature and spirit…is a unity of nature and spirit according to the model of teandric Christ union.”
Our myriads of Romanian villages preserved and lived actively the Orthodox faith with pious feeling, and simplicity and kept unchanged the power of grace originated from the One Living God before all ages…Also the village cultivated in daily life this connection between the sacred awe of worshiping the infinite presence of God and the manifestations of uncreated energies in the liturgical, cosmic, agricultural cycles. In village life the cultivation of the earth and participation to the cosmic cycles of nature usually involved prayer, and blessing given by the local priest...
Most of fountains and roads are guarded by the ornamented crosses, Troițe and thus it proves the deep sense of reverence towards God. All these agro-pastoral cycles start with invocation of blessings which highlights the deep connection between prayer and action in the village life. The poetical diction: “Timelessness was born into a village” meant that there is a deep connection between seeds and fruits, between the Sewer and The Ripper, action and contemplation. The Romanian peasant feels and sees the guarding protective presence of Divine Providence in the mystery of nature and its fruitfulness. For him a beautiful landscape becomes a real illustration of celestial paradise as we can see in Romanian popular ballads as Miorița: “Near a low foothill, At heaven doorsill …” and he feels his soul closer to the presence of God, and Theotokos as we can see in popular creations using sometimes nicknames as sweet little god, or Maicuța Domnului my lord little mother …
The Collective Romanian Soul reflected in ballads and folklore
There is a deep intertwined matrix of theology, philosophy, and wisdom of our Romanian Orthodox Soul reflected in anonymous folklore creation. Father Stăniloae (towards the end of his life preferred to change his name to Staniloaie) analyzes old Romanian folklore and ballads. In the Miorița, Father Staniloaie continues the idea of Mircea Eliade that he doesn’t agree with what other philosophers of Romanian culture that have seen in this ballad the passive resignation and hopelessness as features of our culture; conversely he sees in the shepherd some Christological prototype actively assuming the odds of human existence and bringing them to next level of understanding through personal transfiguration.
The shepherd does not lament and abandons despair, nor does he try to nullify the meaning of the world and of existence as other nihilists did but is transforming the existing death into a mystery of cosmic wedding. Mircea Eliade sees in this ballad an answer to the history terror by living a cosmic Christian life and Father Stăniloae agrees with him.
Also, in Meșterul Manole Legend, even the name Manole is derived from Emanuel. Christ is named Manole (God is with us) and the monastery walls are built through the sacrifice of his wife, which is the Image of the Church, as a bride to Christ. The death, the tragic history, the Kafkian absurd is seen as a way to a renewed Cosmic life through Christ’s sacrifice and this spiritual philosophy of life is reflected by peasants in a lighthearted attitude towards these inherent vicissitudes.
In conclusion we can point out that Father Stăniloae in all his writings glorified and idealized the sacredness of Romanian village as a spiritual blueprint for our invisible national soul and a source of vigour, identity, and unity for our Romanian Orthodox spiritual heritage. Unfortunately, Father Stăniloae witnessed how some of this innate village theology was fading away as the repressive Communist regime officially advanced their propaganda and pushed peasants to reject their roots by making them feel ashamed or asking them to decline their faith if they wanted to serve in various public roles. Also, towards the end of his life he sadly witnessed how the Romanian villages became depopulated and morally eroded by the desire of young generation to embrace the glamourous emptiness of western lifestyle and less preoccupied with aspiration to become spiritually fulfilled.
Bibliographic resources:
- Rev. Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Complete Works vol IX, Reflections on the Spirituality of the Romanian People, Basilica Publishing House, Bucharest (in Romanian)
- The Romanian Village today, between suffering and hope - The Word of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel addressed on the occasion of the opening of the Conference “Rural economic and social space. Identity and National Unity” November 12, Patriarchate Palace (in Romanian)
- Rev. Fr. Dr. Mircea Cristian Pricop, Romanian Identity Treasure, An Unpublished Theological Perspective (in Romanian)
- Daniel Munteanu, Dumitru Stăniloae’s Influence on Jurgen Moltmann’s Trinitarian on Ecological Theology
- Florin Grigorescu, With Father Dumitru Stăniloae’s on Father Dumitru Stăniloae.
- Pr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Poziția Domnului Lucian Blaga față de creștinism și ortodoxie
