Sandu Tudor (Brother Agathon, Father Daniil Teodorescu) | |
|---|---|
 Tudor'sSecuritate file photograph | |
| Born | Alexandru Al. Teodorescu December 22/24, 1896 |
| Died | November 17, 1962(1962-11-17) (aged 65) |
| Occupation(s) | poet, journalist, priest, soldier, sailor |
| Theological work | |
| Language | Romanian |
| Tradition or movement | Orthodox theology (Romanian Orthodoxy),Esoteric Christianity,Creationism |
| Main interests | Hesychasm |
| Signature | |
 | |
Sandu Tudor (Romanian pronunciation:[ˈsanduˈtudor]; bornAlexandru Al. Teodorescu, known in church records asBrother Agathon, laterDaniil Teodorescu,Daniil Sandu Tudor,Daniil de la Rarău; December 22 or December 24, 1896 – November 17, 1962) was aRomanian poet, journalist, theologian andOrthodox monk. Having had an adventurous youth, he first became known in the late 1920s, when he contributed to the modern Orthodox revival, rallying with the journalGândirea. Although a traditionalist and a critic ofmaterialism, he was closely associated with themodernist scene, and generally supported left-wing causes. Tudor was also a scandal-prone journalist and newspaper owner, who faced accusations of slander and was avoided by his peers.
From 1927, when he wrote his firstakathist, Tudor made overtures toward Orthodox monasticism. Demanding universalpenance, seeking to revive medievalhesychasm, he joined other mystics and writers in creating the "Burning Bush" religious movement, and took orders in 1948. He was soon branded an enemy of theRomanian communist regime, and twice arrested for supposed political crimes. Tudor died atAiud Prison, a victim of torture and criminal neglect. His body was never recovered.
Sandu Tudor is generally considered an unaccomplished writer, although his fusion of modernism and traditionalism has drawn critical interest. He enjoys a sizable following in the field ofOrthodox theology, and, after thefall of communism, has been considered forcanonization.
The future Sandu Tudor was born Alexandru Teodorescu in the Romanian capital,Bucharest. His birthday, as recorded in reference works, is December 24, 1896,[1][2] even though he himself gave it as December 22, 1896[3] (1886 in some sources).[4] He had many siblings, including a brother who became a painter.[1] Their father, also Alexandru, was a judge, who earned a modest income.[1] Their mother was a Sofia Teodorescu.[3][4]
Tudor had a troubled and adventurous youth. He graduated high school inPloiești city, where his history teacher gave him his first lessons inChristian philosophy.[1] In 1916, as he was about to complete his secondary education, Romania enteredWorld War I. Tudor was drafted into theRomanian Land Forces, fought in thedefensive war of 1917, and reached the rank ofSub-Officer; he was eventually demobilized in 1921.[1]
An aspiring painter, Tudor made his way back to Bucharest, and enlisted at theAcademy of Arts. He lacked the means to support himself, interrupted his studies, and traveled to theBlack Sea port ofConstanța, to live with his family.[1] He then qualified as aseafaring officer, employed by theRomanian Merchant Fleet between 1922 and 1924.[1] Tudor alternated these assignments with work in education, and was a substitute teacher at the high school inPogoanele town.[1]
Once he decided to begin a fifth career, in journalism, Tudor returned to Bucharest. He had acquired a passion for book collecting: he is said to have gathered over 8,000 volumes in one place, making his one of the largest collections in Bucharest.[2] He married and divorced three times, but did not have any children.[2]
Tudor's literary work and worldview were already assuming a Christian Orthodox and neo-traditionalist ethos. He soon rallied with the mystical Orthodox ("Orthodoxist") circles, whose informal leader was poet-theologianNichifor Crainic. Beginning 1924, Tudor was among the writers affiliated withGândirea literary magazine, helping Crainic to divert that publication from itsmodernist and secular agenda.[5] After moving back to Bucharest, Tudor headed the Welfare department of the Association of Christian Students,[1] publishing his first poetry collection,Comornic ("Cellar", or "Cellar-Keeper"), in 1925.[6] It received a poor review from criticGeorge Călinescu, who described Tudor's style as "baroque" and "superficial". According to Călinescu, Tudor imitated the art of pre-OrthodoxistsD. Teleor andMateiu Caragiale, without blossoming into a "real writer."[7]
Tudor's other contributions as a poet and literary theorist were in the extreme of Romanian modernism, and hosted by the avant-garde journalContimporanul. They include the February 1927 essayLogica absurdului ("The Logic of the Absurd"). According to literary historianAdrian Marino, it should be read as a "nihilistic" text, echoing the irrationalism ofDada andFuturism.[8] In March, he contributed theContimporanul editorial, a polemical text about the impact of cultural modernity. ResearcherPaul Cernat sees in it a sample of "rather Futurist" Orthodoxism, noting its attack on the "supersexual" content and "gallantry" of minor modernism, as well as its praise of purity in high modernism. Taking its references from the modern spirituality espoused bySâr Péladan,John Ruskin, andJean Cocteau, the article postulated an essential conflict in modern art, between the "Sons of suicide" and "the warrior Art of immortality".[9]
Tudor's other contributions atContimporanul were short poems, heavily influenced by Futurism andExpressionism, but structured around apocalyptic Orthodoxist visions.[10] As Cernat notes, Tudor the poet surprised critics with his "organic" assimilation of modern "purism", while hisGândirea roots were still on display.[11]
With his synthesis of literary nihilism and Orthodox devotion, Tudor found himself at odds with the modernists' hero, poet-journalistTudor Arghezi. InContimporanul, Tudor had hinted that Arghezi's "pseudo-avant-garde" poetry was vulgar andhedonistic.[12] Arghezi, a defrocked monk, wrote to inform Tudor that he could see no profound link between Orthodoxy and the Romanian psyche. As Arghezi had it, modernized Orthodoxism was only kidding itself by assuming the contrary.[13] Tudor's comments inContimporanul showed that the magazine staff was withdrawing from the revolutionary wing of Romanian modernism. Its conservative stance alarmed the radicals atunu magazine. They soon nominated Tudor as one of the authors who were sabotaging the whole modernist school.[14]
Around 1928, Tudor was in contact with the young religious scholarMircea Eliade, who was becoming an exponent of experimental neo-traditionalism inRomanian philosophy. Both were influenced byNae Ionescu, the theologian and logician, theorist of an eclectic ideology known asTrăirism. Looking back on that period in his 1980s memoirs, Eliade wrote: "I met often with Stelian Mateescu,Paul Sterian,Mircea Vulcănescu, and Sandu Tudor. Together we planned a journal of religious philosophy, for which Tudor had found a title:Duh și Slovă (Spirit and Letter)."[15] The magazine, described by Eliade as a would-be successor of Ionescu's mystical journalLogos, never saw print.[16]
For his part, Tudor still defied classification. According to Cernat, he should be read as more of a "church-goer", facade, writer than a "religious" poet.[17] In a November 1928 interview for the journalTiparnița Literară, Tudor was very critical of the militant Orthodoxist circles. In Tudor's view, Romania's Orthodox literati could find themselves duped by "a spirituality ofthe Dark one, very similar to that of Christ". He proposed that the religious revival needed to focus on "vigorous and harshpenance", with "the signs of a true confession".[18] With Vulcănescu andGheorghe Racoveanu, Tudor wrote the polemical tractInfailibilitatea Bisericii și failibilitatea sinodală ("Church Infallibility and Synodal Fallibility"), published on the front pages of Nae Ionescu's daily,Cuvântul (January 22, 1929). It presented arguments in favor of raisingsacred tradition over theRomanian Synod's authority, and therefore in support of Ionescu's dissident stance on thecomputation of Easter (which the Synod affixed to March 31).[19] In later articles for the same paper, Tudor challenged Church politics to the point of arguing that the Synod wasschismatic.[20]
Reportedly, Sandu Tudor never managed to earn respect the principalTrăirist figures. According to theTrăirist writerMihail Sebastian, Nae Ionescu regarded Tudor as an amusement; moreover, others in the press simply felt that Tudor was a "cretinous journalist".[21] An even more virulent critic was the maverickGândirea editor and left-leaningTrăiristPetre Pandrea, who contends that Tudor was notorious as a blackmailer.[22] Pandrea and Tudor first clashed around 1928, shortly after Pandrea published hisWhite Lily Manifesto of the revolutionary youth. Tudor criticized the document in his articles forContimporanul.[23]
In 1932, however, the young art critic and political thinkerPetru Comarnescu wrote that Tudor, Sterian, Vulcănescu, andPetru Manoliu were four of the leading OrthodoxistTrăirists (or, as he called them, "Experiencialists").[24] For his part, Vulcănescu recognized such a categorization, but noted thatGândirea's Orthodoxism was rather antiquated by the standards of "our generation". In his view, Tudor was one of the few men who could fit in with both Crainic's old Orthodoxists and the Nae Ionescu faction.[25]
In this context, Crainic co-opted Tudor and Eliade on hisGândirea editorial staff. The other new arrivals, reinforcing the magazine's traditionalist editorial policy, were Pandrea,Zaharia Stancu,G. Breazul,Dragoș Protopopescu,Vintilă Ciocâlteu, andSorin Pavel.[26] While this reshuffling took place, Tudor consolidated his reputation as a mystic. His passion for the Orthodox tradition was voiced in his first religious hymn (orakathist), honoringSaint Dimitrie Basarabov, published byGândirea in 1927, and collected in a 1940 volume.[27] Described as a "superb" piece by theologianMarius Vasileanu, it earned Tudor blessings from the Synod.[2] Sterian, who announced that, thanks in part to Tudor, Romanian poetry had entered its age of "religious glory",[28] was directly inspired to write his ownAkathist to the Venerable MotherParascheva the New.[27]
Literary critics were less impressed. The immediate reactions to the reinvention ofakathist verse ranged from the positive (literary columnistPerpessicius) to the derisive (authorAlexandru Sahia).[27] According to comparatist Geo Vasile, Sandu Tudor's hymn is typical of "minor, mimetic, illustrative poetry", strictly in the vein ofGândirea traditionalism.[29] Philologist Elivira Sorohan summarizes critical consensus: Sandu Tudor was a "sub-mediocre poet".[30]
Shortly after receiving the Synod's accolades, Tudor left on pilgrimage toMount Athos, the Orthodox sacred site. In effect, his journey had a mundane subtext: the Romanian writer wanted to testify on the negative aspects of Athonite monasticism.[2][31] For some eight months, he was allowed to follow around, and imitate, a whirling monk who was held in high esteem by the Athonite clergy.[31] Vasileanu suggests that Tudor "was in a position to witness the true face of Orthodox Christianity and uncover secret bits from theprayer of the heart."[2] Tudor detailed his experience in travel notes that were published byGândirea. As Tudor writes (to Călinescu's amusement), his was a serendipitous or divinely-inspired journey, with tiny miracles occurring throughout.[32]
In early 1930, Tudor was involved in a debate about modernist theater, part of a "defense team" for the ExpressionistVilna Troupe. With fellow writerIlarie Voronca and artistM. H. Maxy, he supported the Vilna actors and their mentor,Jacob Sternberg, for having broken up with old-school drama, even when their "lugubrious" productions had scandalized the Romanian public.[33]
Tudor's own journalistic venture was the political and literary magazineFloarea de Foc ("Fire Flower"), published sporadically (1932, 1933, 1936), and having for collaborators some of the leadingTrăirists, modernists or political radicals: Eliade, Manoliu, Sterian,Emil Cioran,Eugène Ionesco,Arșavir Acterian,Haig Acterian,Dan Botta,Ovidiu Papadima,Camil Petrescu,Henri H. Stahl,Horia Stamatu, andOctav Șuluțiu.[30] Theart manifesto, signed by Tudor himself, proclaimed the need for a "nurturing word", "clean thinking", and obedience to "theRedeemer".[30] As Sorohan argues, the text covered its "lack of ideas" with "exultation", with Tudor displaying his "bewilderingly impoverished vocabulary."[30]
Sorohan dividesFloarea de Foc into quality articles (those by Cioran, Eliade, Ionesco, Stahl etc.) and Tudor's "Prolegomenos" column, an "insufferable rigmarole".[30] Another controversial aspect isFloarea de Foc's opposition to the established school of cultural criticism: a Manoliu essay (called "ridiculous" by Sorohan) posthumously attacked literary theoristTitu Maiorescu as a manipulator of the reading public.[30] Maiorescu's modernist disciple,Eugen Lovinescu, was also scolded byFloarea de Foc, in what Sorohan calls a "disgusting" piece, written by one whose name "is forever buried in the pages of that magazine".[30]
More famously, Ionesco used the magazine for his polemical pieces targeting the contemporary literary scene and the mainstream of modernism, with a stern defense ofauthenticity—short essays which were collected in his volumeNo!.[30] Tudor, meanwhile, was attacking the backbone of Romanian modernism. His art chronicles chided modernist artistsMarcel Janco andOlga Greceanu. According to Tudor, contemporary artworks were "inhuman", and modernism itself looked doomed. This critique had less to do with Orthodox conservatism, and more with left-winganti-capitalism—as noted by art criticMihai Rădulescu, Tudor was going through a "leftist drift".[1] In 1932,Floarea de Foc acted as a platform for youngcommunists to explain their revolutionary ideals.[34]
By 1933, Tudor was also putting out a political newspaper,Credința ("The Faith"). Eliade was again in contact with him, but was critical of Tudor's shadier dealings:Credința, he writes, was secretly funded by an anonymous magnate, surviving on "political circumstances" and on "scandals", with Tudor's own columns being "aggressively moralistic".[35] Eliade claims that he himself only agreed to work with Tudor after the latter insisted; he published his subsequent articles under a pseudonym,Ion Plăeșu, explaining that he was thus bypassing the exclusivity rights of Ionescu'sCuvântul.[36]
Although declaring itself neutral in the ideological debate,[37] Tudor's newspaper soon acquired a left-leaning staff: Manoliu, Zaharia Stancu,Eugen Jebeleanu. According to Eliade, they were only employed by Tudor when he realized thatCuvântul men would not join him on the "cheap tabloid".[36] The collaboration between Tudor and his leftist friends was also taken to the field of literature. In 1934, Stancu hosted samples of Tudor's poetry in hisAntologia poeților tineri ("Young Poets Anthology").[11] Cartoonist Neagu Rădulescu, who joined the group at this time, recalls that Tudor, striking the figure of a "Church martyr", was a literary sponsor of the "writing republic".[38]
During that interval, Nae Ionescu and hisCuvântul were moving to thefar right, aligning themselves with thefascistIron Guard. Enlisted in 1932 with the more moderateNational Agrarian Party,[39] Tudor criticized theTrăirists' sympathy for radical solutions, either fascist or communist, defending Romania's young democracy. In a December 1933 issue ofCredința, he reacted: "We say that democracy is not the good thing for us, yet we have never even truly implemented it".[40] Writing from a Christian perspective, Tudor accused Romania's revolutionary youth of "monkeying" foreign experiments intotalitarianism, describingAdolf Hitler as theAntichrist, and equating all revolutionary ideologies with the triumph of "animality".[41] Tudor and Eliade were among the 31 Christian andJewish Romanian intellectuals to have signed a protest againstantisemitism in general and againstNazism in particular. Their appeal to ventilate Romania's "medieval atmosphere" was hotly condemned by the pro-NaziAxa magazine.[42]
Also in December 1933,Credința hosted a plea in favor ofanti-fascist political activism. Signed by Stahl, the opinion piece proposed that political involvement was a civic duty, citing fascism as the enemy of freedom, and also implying that "Bolshevik" communism was "left-wing fascism".[43] Eliade supported that stance, in the name of non-racial "Romanianism", noting that both political extremes advanced "a dictatorship of the brute, of the imbecile, of the incompetent."[42][44] Also inCredința, philosopherConstantin Noica spoke out against the advocates of cultural isolation andnativism. His articles of 1933 and 1934 noted thatRomanian culture was eminently parochial, and openly criticizedGândirea traditionalism.[45] Noica also rejected the political ambitions of his generation colleagues. During the1933 election, he recommendedpassive resistance andabstention, rather than ideological combat, as methods of raising awareness at the top.[46] Four years before his own conversion to fascism, Noica'sCredința texts described Romanian youths as being "diseased with politics".[47]
Floarea de Foc was less categorical in its defense of the democratic state. According to cultural historianZigu Ornea, who wrote an overview ofTrăirism (published 1995), Tudor's other publication remained an "ideologically unaffiliated" magazine, and as such open to all sorts of political opinions.[48] ForPaul Costin Deleanu, the Orthodoxist columnist atFloarea de Foc, the legacy ofRomanian liberalism was suspect, and Orthodox Romania existed outside theWestern world. Deleanu'sFloarea de Foc articles describedmodernization andsecularism as a "betrayal" of "the Eastern cross."[49] Eliade's contributions backed up such claims from anantihumanist point of view. He was suggesting that Romanian liberalism, an "abstract defense of Man", was a "dead, barren, inefficient formula", stifling "our nation's creative forces".[50] Writing forCredința in February 1934, "Plăeșu" explained that he did not mean to defend either fascism, "Hitlerism", or "ridiculous"Marxism, since they trampled on religious freedoms; Eliade idealizeddirect action in support of "civic pride", "social justice" and "the courage to defend liberty".[51]
Early in 1934, after the Guard managed to assassinatePremierIon G. Duca, the authorities shut downCuvântul and prosecuted its editor, whereasCredința continued to appear.[36] Young fascists took their revenge, attacking the editorial offices of left-wing periodicals. In December 1934, an unknown man surprised Tudor at hisCredința office, and gave him a severe beating.[52] However, in February 1935, Sandu Tudor was making his peace with Nae Ionescu, describing his teaching as the "nourishing bread", and Ionescu himself as an "awakener of consciences", "one of the greatest journalists alive."[1]Credința also published an homage piece by a Glicon Monahul, who depicted Ionescu as a guardian of "The True Faith".[53]
Soon after that episode, Tudor and Eliade found themselves in opposite camps. It happened once Eliade's literary and art club,Criterion, opened its doors to several of Tudor's ideological enemies.Credința seized on an opportunity for scandal, accusing severalCriterion people (Comarnescu, Vulcănescu,Alexandru Christian Tell, and dancer Gabriel Negri) of promoting "pederasty". ResearcherRuxandra Cesereanu describes Tudor's allegations as a diversion: "The scandal had erupted for political and cultural reasons, and reflected a series of backstage arrangements that had exploded in dishonorable manner."[54] According to historianLucian Boia, the decisive factor was Stancu, already infamous as a blackmailer; the main victim was Comarnescu, who suffered a nervous breakdown.[55] Art historianBarbu Brezianu, who witnessed the incidents as aCriterion admirer, calls theCredința articles "horrible calumnies aimed at Comarnescu."[56]
The campaign was aggravated when Vulcănescu showed up at theCredința offices and pummeled Stancu, and degenerated further when Tudor himself participated in a brawl at Corso Coffeehouse.[57] Brezianu recalls that Vulcănescu "grabbed Sandu Tudor by the collar", then slapped him.[56] The incidents disgraced both sides. Stancu'sgossip column introduced the infamous homophobic tauntcavaleri de Curlanda ("Knights of Courland", with a pun on the wordcur, "ass").[54][58] With Comarnescu and Negri in mind, Tudor himself wrote: "Only now do we get to see all the pestilent buggery in their unfulfilled, masturbating, inverted souls. I shout for all to hear, I address this thirty-year-some non-generation: avast! thou tricksters, though barren and vicious ones, thou that are rotten to the core, mediocre and neurotic".[59] According to Ornea: "The strange fact is that Sandu Tudor, a religious poet and trained theologian [...], could stoop down to the level of such inurbane attacks".[58]
Credința took its battle to court, in a trial still that was still ongoing during the troubled autumn of 1935. Brezianu recalls that Tudor was the plaintiff, citing Vulcănescu for assault and injury.[56]Criterion's Mihail Sebastian, a practicing attorney, represented Comarnescu and Vulcănescu in court, seconded byIonel Jianu (better known as an art critic).[56] Sebastian'sJournal, discovered and published in the 1990s, documents the hidden aspects of the affair: the Jewish Sebastian writes that, at the time, theCredința journalists and some members ofCriterion were more or less openly antisemitic; Eliade surprised him as an "extreme and categorical" supporter of fascism.[60] He was also upset that, while he stood by his friends and refused to even shake Tudor's hand, Comarnescu made "peace overtures toCredința".[21]
In his entry for November 27, 1935, Sebastian concludes: "I am waiting for the day when [Criterion members] make their peace with Sandu Tudor [...] and discover that the Jews are alone responsible for the quarrel—especially myself, who has aroused discord among the Christian fraternity. It sounds like a joke, but it's plausible enough."[61] Almost a year later, whenCredința focused its attack on Sebastian, the latter noted: "The only thing that surprises me is that the attack came so late."[62] Tudor and Stancu were defeated in court, and were obliged to formally recant. Ornea, who writes thatCredința only published the verdict with much reluctance and discretion ("somewhere deep in the pages of one issue"), concludes that the scandal was a decisive blow forCriterion, causing Eliade's club to dissolve itself.[63]
However, while some former members ofCriterion were attracted into the Iron Guard, theCredința writers were still critical of totalitarianism. Before a fascist government was formed by the minorNational Christian Party,Credința hosted contributions fromAlexandru Mironescu, the physicist and center-nationalist author. These documented the encroachment ofliberal democracy in Europe, defended political freedoms, and honored Romanian peacemakerNicolae Titulescu.[64] Although situated to the left,Credința andFloarea de Foc were largely anti-communistic, and Tudor's own news digests took a highly critical view of theSoviet Union. In one such piece, he expressed alarm about the outcome of theMoscow Trials.[4] However, according to files kept by theSiguranța Statului police force, Tudor still intended to collaborate with communist agentScarlat Callimachi on the anti-fascist reviewMunca ("The Labor").[65]
As noted by Neagu Rădulescu,Credința came to an abrupt "sad end", which Tudor took shame in recounting. An focused on his new passion, aviation, and bragged about having survived a plane crash.[66] He maintained his religious focus duringWorld War II. TheIon Antonescu dictatorship joined inNazi Germany'sattack on the Soviet Union. Romania's war on theEastern Front gave an impetus to Romanian monastic life, by restoring the Romanian church's direct contacts withRussian Orthodoxy. The country witnessed the arrival of Russian monks, including one trained at the prestigiousOptina Monastery. He was Ivan Kulygin (known to Romanians asIvan Kulîghin,Ivan Kulâghin, orIvan Străinul, lit. "Ivan the Foreigner"), a victim of the Soviet regime, who took refuge to Romania after theBattle of Stalingrad.[67][68][69][70]
At around that time, Tudor and his friends organized a pilgrimage toCernăuți, in newly reattachedBukovina. There, he began writing about the possibility of more regular "spiritual retreats",[71] and adopted theTransfiguration of Jesus as his spiritual symbol.[69] He was soon joined in Bukovina by other figures of the Orthodoxist revival: FathersBenedict Ghiuș and Nicolae M. Popescu, philosophers Noica andAnton Dumitriu, journalist colleagues Manoliu, Mironescu and Sterian.[2][69]
Tudor andAndrei Scrima (later a major figure in Orthodox monasticism) first met Kulygin atCernica Monastery, and were taken aback with his charisma.[72] Kulygin instructed them about performing the "prayer of the heart", and Tudor, an avid student, was soon able to proselytize.[69][73] His target audience included many of those who had joined him on the 1943 retreat, leading some of his biographers to suggest that Kulygin addressed a fully formed community of believers.[71] An additional connection is noted by historiographers of Romanian hesychasm: the "prayer of the heart" was already practiced atCernica, directly based on the instructions of 18th-century elderPaisius Velichkovsky; Kulygin's Romanian disciples were adding intellectualist interpretations to this regular practice.[74]
In August 1944,King Michael's Coup ended Romania's alliance with Germany, and inaugurated a brief period of political liberalism, with communism looming on the horizon. Tudor and other Kulygin-inspired Romanians joined in the "Burning Pyre" (Rugul Aprins), a prayer group which sought to register as a citizens' association. The authorities rejected their first application, in 1944, but Tudor persisted: the Burning Bush received its legal recognition in 1945[75] or 1946.[67] The association's stated purpose was to educate theology students about the moral and spiritual requirements of monastic life.[4] The Burning Bush cell also offered a form of Orthodoxist resistance against the growth of communism in Romania. According to Scrima, it had "resurrected liberty".[68]
The Burning Bush met daily, usually at theAntim Monastery Library, Bucharest. Other than Tudor (Kulygin's trustee), Dumitriu, Mironescu, and Scrima, the group had among its members some high-profile intellectuals of various backgrounds. They include the avant-garde authorMarcel Avramescu and criticVladimir Streinu, poet-scientistIon Barbu, mathematiciansValentin Poénaru andOctav Onicescu, novelistIon Marin Sadoveanu, poet-physicianVasile Voiculescu etc.[68][76] Together with historianVirgil Cândea came a cell of social scientists and classical scholars, among themAlexandru Duțu.[77] They were joined by high-profile Orthodox clergymen: Ghiuș,Dumitru Stăniloae,Sofian Boghiu andArsenie Papacioc.[68][73] Another occasional guest wasBartolomeu Anania, the outspoken anti-communist priest.[78]
TheRugul Aprins title was perhaps inherited fromFloarea de Foc,[75] or could be referencing the biblicalburning bush, a manifestation of God.[69][79] Scrima understood the meetings as "anEucharist of God, brought to us by the angels", noting that the sessions were free, regulated only by "trust".[80] Sandu Tudor would also explain that the incessant prayer is the very "heavenly prayer" of (sinless)Adam, revived byVirgin Mary "when she was taken to theHoly of Holies, where she lived in uninterrupted prayer [...] for 14 years".[81]
Patristic scholar Ioan I. Ică Jr. sees Tudor's neo-hesychasm as a throwback to Paisius, with echoes fromGregory Palamas.[81] However, according to religious anthropologist Radu Drăgan, hesychasm itself is a "prudent" form ofEsoteric Christianity, and Tudor's movement aGnostic revival "in the bosom of Orthodox spirituality", "the only one of its kind."[82] Drăgan also notes that, among the affiliates, Avramescu, Dumitriu, and possibly Scrima, were esotericists of the "Guénonian" variety.[83] In his interpretation, the Burning Pyre blended a Guénonian traditionalism into Kulygin's teachings and "Desert Fathers" monasticism, to the point of resembling a "new religious movement".[84] A particularity of Tudor's movement was its critique ofmaterialism. Opposed to Marxist doctrines and to theatheists, Tudor preached classicalCreationism.[85]
Soviet occupation troops arrested Kulygin in March 1946, and deported him back to Russia in early 1947. The missionary managed to send Tudor a series of farewell letters, appointing him his successor in Romania, the beneficiary of his will, and the representative of Optina rules.[86] In his other briefs, Kulygin protests against being branded a "counter-revolutionary" under Soviet law, writing that his captors "understand nothing of things spiritual in nature", warning his disciples that they should hide all written records of their conversations.[87] Records about what eventually happened to Kulygin are few and disputed. According to an unverified account, he died in the prison ofOdessa,[88] while others propose that he was transported to theGulag.[74]
In 1948, when the Burning Bush association was dissolved by government decree,[67][89] Tudor abandoned his public career and became a monk at Antim, with the monastic nameAgathon. That monastery received his entire estate, including his massive book collection.[2] He also began writing his new religious poem:Imn-Acatist la Rugul Aprins al Născătoarei de Dumnezeu ("Hymn-Akathist to the Burning Pyre of theTheotokos"), with the refrain:Bucură-Te, Mireasă urzitoare de nesfârșită rugăciune! ("Rejoice, Thou Bride, Thou weaver of the eternal prayer!").[81]
The proclamation of aRomanian communist state that year introduced a wave of repression against Orthodox devotees in general, and mystics in particular. Tudor left Bucharest altogether, moving betweenCrasna andGovora monasteries.[4][90] His new project, to establish a monastery home for world-weary intellectuals, was supported by the local bishops.[90] He was arrested in 1948 or 1949, and the Antim meetings, closely supervised by theSecuritate secret police, ceased altogether in 1950.[69][91] Fathers Ghiuș, Boghiu and Papacioc were moved far away from Bucharest, forced to reside atNeamț Monastery.[69]
When he reemerged from prison, in 1952, Brother Agathon decided to enter the priesthood as ahieromonk, and becameFather Daniil. He was originally assigned to Crasna, then moved to more remotessketes. After a stint atSihăstria Monastery,[2] he moved high up in theRarău Mountains, Bukovina. With the help ofIlie Cleopa, the influential Orthodox preacher at Sihăstria, Daniil was appointedStarets.[2] In this new capacity, he resumed the spreading of Kulygin's ideas, forming a prayer group with about a dozen followers,[2][73] and outlined a new plan for a monastery of the intellectual elite.[92]
According to his visitors at Rarău, Daniil was living an exemplary austere life, but was prioritizing the internal prayer over all exterior ritual, and would spend half a working day submerged in meditation.[2] He did provide the occasional sermon, and earned much respect from the Bukovinian peasants he addressed, especially because he would freely express his emotions in front of them.[2]
The communist regime caught eye of Tudor's frequent returns to Bucharest, where he contacted the other Burning Bush people, and continued to preach about the "prayer of the heart".[2][73] Tudor's work was again becoming a kind of religious resistance and, as Drăgan writes, intolerable for the communists. Such activities were evading "the more readily controllable ecclesiastic milieu".[93] The Securitate branded Tudor and Voiculescu as authors of "mystical, enemy-like" poetry, collecting testimonies about how Tudor's prayer group cultivatedfree speech.[94] It is possible that the Burning Bush unwittingly antagonized the communists after its ideas were publicized outside theEastern Bloc. In 1957, inspired by the self-exiled Scrima, theologianOlivier Clément wrote an essay about "Brother Agathon", which saw print in aSwiss Reformed newsletter.[95]
However, according to Daniil's accuserPetre Pandrea, the Burning Bush group was not entirely adverse to collaborating with the communists. In his memoirs, Pandrea claims that Scrima and "the ex-sailor" Tudor were together responsible for slandering the anti-communist and religiously innovative nuns ofVladimirești, eventually rounded up by the Securitate with the tacit approval of Orthodox prelates.[22] The Securitate tried to persuade Scrima to work as an informant on the Burning Bush, but came to the conclusion that "he presents no trust in what concerns our activity."[78]
On the eve of June 14, 1958, Securitate forces descended on the Burning Bush. The group had officially been branded a danger to "the social order" of Communist Romania,[69][89] reflecting the Securitate's fears about the country's monastic revival. The communist apparatus had ordered a full clampdown on the Orthodox Church, masterminded by Securitate chiefAlexandru Drăghici.[89][96]
Sandu Tudor was arrested in the home of his disciple Alexandru Mironescu,[2] and kept in a cell together with a Securitate informant. According to the latter's taps, the Rarău hieromonk resented Scrima and Clément for having blown his cover—neither were aware that the Securitate had for long been intercepting all of Scrima's letters to his Burning Bush colleagues.[97] Subjected to interrogations, Tudor refused to nominate any of his student followers, and was apathetic during the interrogations of supposed witnesses.[4] As noted by researcher Ioana Diaconescu, Tudor's unyielding stance may have even served to inspire the Securitate spy in his cell, whose notes indicate a growing admiration and a shared Orthodox faith.[4]
With an August 4 raid, the Securitate apprehended most of Tudor's disciples.[70] In the end, the Burning Bush was made subject to akangaroo trial for high treason, officially defined as "crime of conspiracy against the social order and crime of intense activity against the working class and the revolutionary movement."[4][98] According to one of the co-defendants, the accusation was incoherent and misleading. It claimed that the prayer group intended to have government members burned at the stake, and that the 4th-century theologians honored at Antim were anti-communists.[89] The sentences, Drăgan notes, "were known in advance".[73]
Cherry-picking the defendants' political files, prosecution determined that the Burning Bush was aneo-fascist cell and a front for the Iron Guard. In doing so, they silenced evidence about Tudor's left-wing anti-fascism, and focused on Arsenie Papacioc's history of contacts with the Guard.[89][99] Tudor cared little about the past activities of his Burning Bush colleagues, but, even in 1947, he had denounced the Iron Guard as an anti-Christian enterprise.[100]
As records of the prosecution show, the authorities were on the verge of admitting that the hieromonk had no criminal connections, and decided instead to focus on his activities as a 1930s anti-communist. They recovered Tudor'sCredința columns, which, they claimed, read as "intense anti-communist propaganda, slandering and defiling the Soviet Union and eulogizing the capitalist order."[4] According to their tendentious interpretation, Tudor had been at once "a faithful defender of the bourgeois-landowning order and a fiery propagator of the fascist ideology."[4] The defense team was also asked to debunk the prosecution's allegations about the fascist nature of Tudor's Creationism. According to one Burning Bush attorney, "that some students were informed about Creationism is, if anything, a matter to be addressed by education, not by punitive measures".[101]
At the height of the anti-religious campaigns, in 1959, the Rarăuskete was one of the establishments that were temporarily shut down by the Securitate.[2] Father Daniil, identified as the ringleader "Teodorescu Alexandru", was sentenced to "25 years in strict confinement and 10 yearsdisfranchisement" for "conspiracy against the social order", and "15 years in rigorous confinement" for "intense activity against the working class."[4] He was originally held atJilava Prison, where he began serving his sentence on January 31, 1959.[4] The Securitate was on the search for his belongings. Tudor proudly indicated that he never carried any personal items. His other belongings, hosted by the monastery, became state property. They include some 600 books, a fountain pen, a lens, and a compass.[4]
As historians would discover decades later, Daniil Sandu Tudor spent the last part of his life in the infamousAiud Prison. He was held there together with other Burning Bush group members, but also reunited with his old rival, Petre Pandrea. Pandrea mentions Tudor's name on his humorous list, the "Writers' Union of Aiud"—an unwitting alternative to the official, communized,Writers' Union of Romania.[102]
At Aiud, Tudor became a victim of repeated torture, and, according to various commentators, suffered amartyr's death.[2][3] Burning Bush inmate Roman Braga attesteded that: "Father Daniil died in the Aiud Hole following four months of tortures and beatings, one of the few prisoners to have worn shackles throughout their detention".[3] Also held in Aiud, Bartolomeu Anania later attested that both he and Tudor went through the process of "reeducation", a communist form ofcoercive persuasion. As a former sympathizer of the Iron Guard, Anania clashed with the hieromonk, who reportedly supported the use of reeducation methods against obdurate fascists.[103]
Officially, Daniil died at 1 AM on November 17, 1962 (1960 in some sources), at the Aiud Prison hospital, having suffered astroke that left himcomatose—afflictions which, in themselves, seem to suggest that he had been severely beaten in confinement.[3][4] Prison records have it that, since 1959, he had been under medical supervision forhypertonia. However, it is unlikely that he was ever administered the medicine specified in his chart, which appears to have been forged and backdated.[3] The hieromonk's body is said to have been dumped at the nearby Trei Plopi burial site, an iron spike driven through his heart by prison guards who meant to certify Tudor's death.[3]
According to Diaconescu: "With Sandu Tudor's death, the world of the spirit and of the faith was extinguished, violently and savagely crushed, at least in its worldly form."[4] However, Orthodoxist philosopherPetre Țuțea implies, the incarceration had the unexpected effect of strengthening hesychasm, since theCernica school and the Kulygin school could still communicate behind the prison doors.[70] Vasileanu also writes that, from among Father Daniil's disciples at Rarău, "most would, strangely enough, becomeStarestses". One of them,Antonie Plămădeală, was even enthroned as an Orthodox Church dignitary.[2] According to Plămădeală, "The pyre of the heart never was extinguished".[3] Already in the period after Tudor's death, the Aiud collective had begun referring to him as "Saint Daniil".[3]
Bartolomeu Anania was among the last people to be sentenced in connection with the Burning Bush movement. Tried separately, and probably drugged onscopolamine, he agreed to become a Securitate informant.[78] Vasile Voiculescu was the first of Tudor's spiritual followers to be granted a reprieve, in 1962. He was severely weakened by repeated torture, terminally ill withPott disease, and only survived into 1963.[3][67][73][89] The other Burning Bush affiliates were all released from prison in 1964, when the communist regime enforced a set ofliberalization measures.[73]
Sandu Tudor's literary work was banned bycommunist censors. His Burning Bush manuscripts were confiscated by the Securitate, and presumably destroyed or lost.[104] Using his contacts abroad, Father Scrima typed and salvaged some of Tudor and Voiculescu's last known texts, including anakathist to theTheotokos. He took them toIndia, where he began a second career inSanskritology,[80] or, in Securitate parlance, "placed himself in the service of imperialists."[78]
TheRomanian Revolution of 1989, which brought down Romanian communism, also signified a recovery of Sandu Tudor's work. Andrei Scrima played a significant part in Burning Bush revivalism, publishing several new introductions to Father Daniil's preachings, including the 1991Timpul Rugului Aprins ("Age of the Burning Bush").[80][105] In 1999, a neo-Orthodoxist publishing house (Editura Anastasia) issued Sandu Tudor's autobiography and other selected works:Ieromonahul Daniil Sandu Tudor.[71][81] Another such venture (Editura Christiana) began putting out installments of his complete works.[71]
Tudor's exact date of death was still a mystery: various post-revolutionary sources have it that he most likely died in 1960, and specify that his place of burial was unknown.[73] Other working theories located that event in 1962 or 1963.[3] The matter was partly solved ca. 2006, when scholars were given clearance for selectively researching Securitate archives.[3] In keeping with his renunciation of earthly possessions, Tudor left behind only a handful of personal belongings: afufaika jacket, a pair of sandals, a brown shirt and a beret. All were marked as "3rd-class quality" goods.[3]
Although the general location of his burial is known, Daniil's grave was never rediscovered. According to one account, Aiud prisoners working on a ditch in the 1960s dug up a shackle-wearing skeleton, and were convinced that it belonged to their spiritual leader.[3] The bodily remains are still judged irretrievable, and he is commemorated together with other prisoners with whom he presumably shares an improvised grave in Aiud.[2]
Several theologians and priests came to suggest that Daniil Sandu Tudor is worthy ofcanonization. This proposal is endorsed by Marius Vasileanu (who otherwise notes that "nonsense and inexactitudes" about the hieromonk still exist in his official biographies)[2] and by Tudor's pupil,Antonie Plămădeală.[3] In December 2006, speaking beforeParliament and outlining hisresolution to condemn communism,PresidentTraian Băsescu paid homage to Sandu Tudor as a "martyr of the Church".[106]
Tudor's other activities, particularly his polemical stances of the 1930s, created enduring controversies, beyond Pandrea's allegations. Published shortly after the Duca assassination, Eliade's novelÎntoarcerea din rai ("Return from Paradise") constructed the character Eleazar by fusing together Comarnescu's "words" and Tudor's "ticks".[107] Tudor's attacks onCriterion, and the homophobic vocabulary he introduced, have been cited as possible influences forRomânia Mare, a modern-day far-right weekly directed byCorneliu Vadim Tudor.[54] According to Barbu Brezianu, Vadim Tudor resembles the Sandu Tudor of 1934, and, like him, is an "aggressive extremist."[56]
After Pandrea, critics have continued to scrutinize some aspects of Tudor's monastic life. Bartolomeu Anania first publicized his claim about Father Daniil's alleged support of communist "reeducation" in hisMemoirs (Polirom, 2008). Historian Cristian Vasile nuances this verdict, suggesting that Anania was "embittered" by his political background:
Sandu Tudor was no Guardsman, not even a Guard sympathizer; in the 1930s he was rather the leftist, criticizing the far right. Therefore, he defined himself as anti-Guard even in his freedom years [...]; he probably thought, in 1935 like in 1962, that Guardsmen ought 'to be dusting off their conscience of the crimes they committed in the name of the Cross'.[103]
