Dumitru Stăniloae

Stăniloae on a 2003 Romanian stamp
Stăniloae on a 2016 Romanian stamp

Dumitru Stăniloae (Romanian: [duˈmitru stəniˈlo̯aje]; 29 November [O.S. 16 November] 1903 – 5 October 1993) was a Romanian Orthodox Christian priest, theologian and professor. He worked for over 45 years on a comprehensive Romanian translation of the Greek Philokalia, a collection of writings on prayer by the Church Fathers, together with the hieromonk, Arsenie Boca, who brought manuscripts from Mount Athos. His book, The Dogmatic Orthodox Theology (1978), made him one of the best-known Christian theologians of the second half of the 20th century. He also produced commentaries on earlier Christian thinkers, such as St Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Maximus the Confessor, and St Athanasius of Alexandria.

Biography

Dumitru Stăniloae was born on 16 November 1903, in Vlădeni, in what is now Braşov County, Romania. He was the last of five children of Rebeca (mother) and Irimie (father). His mother was a priest's niece. On 10 February 1917 he went to Braşov to study at the Andrei Șaguna High School. He received a fellowship from Gojdu Foundation in 1918 and a fellowship from Cernăuţi University in 1922.[1] Disappointed by the quality of the manuals and the teaching methods, he left the University for the University of Bucharest after one year. He was offered a fellowship by metropolitan bishop Nicolae Bălan at the Metropolitan Center in Sibiu in 1924 during Lent. Stăniloae graduated from Cernăuți University in 1927, receiving a fellowship to study theology in Athens. In the fall of 1928 he earned his Ph.D. degree at Cernăuţi[1] (Thesis: Life and work of Dosoftei of Jerusalem and his connections with Romanian Principalities). The Metropolitan Center in Sibiu offered him a fellowship in Byzantology (?) and Dogmatics. He went to Munich to attend the courses of Prof. August Heisenberg (father of physicist Werner Heisenberg), and then went to Berlin, Paris and Istanbul to study the work of Gregory Palamas.

He married on 4 October 1930, and his wife gave birth to twins in 1931, named Dumitru and Maria.

He was ordained a deacon on 8 October 1931 and was ordained priest on 25 September 1932.

He and his wife had another daughter, Lidia, on 8 October of the following year; and that year he became the director of Telegraful Român (Romanian Telegraph) newspaper, meeting and befriending Nichifor Crainic.

In June 1936 he became rector of the Theological Academy in Sibiu. In 1940, at the initiative of poet Sandu Tudor the Rugul aprins (Burning bush) group was founded. It was composed of priest-monk Ivan Kulighin (confessor of Russian Metropolitan bishop of Rostov, refugee at Cernica Monastery), priest-monk Benedict Ghius, priest-monk Sofian Boghiu, Prof. Alex. Mironescu, poet Vasile Voiculescu, architect Constantin Joja, Father Andrei Scrima and Ion Marin Sadoveanu. The group gathered regularly at the Cernica and Antim monasteries, maintaining Christian life in Bucharest.

In 1946 he was asked by metropolitan bishop Nicolae Bălan, under pressure from Petru Groza, first Communist premier of Romania,[2] to resign as rector of the Theological Academy in Sibiu. He remained a professor until 1947, when he was transferred to the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Theology, as the Ascetics and Mystics chair.

Because of political unrest in Romania in 1958, following a split in the Romanian Communist Party, Fr Dumitru was arrested by the Securitate on 5 September. While he was in Aiud prison, his only surviving child, Lidia, gave birth to his grandchild, Dumitru Horia. Lidia was asked to leave the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Physics because of the arrest of her father.

He was freed from prison in 1963, and then began work as a functionary at the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and began teaching again in October. He attended conferences in Freiburg and Heidelberg at the invitation of Prof. Paul Miron, with the permission of the State Department of Cults, who wanted to change the image of Romania.[3] While lecturing at Oxford University, he became friends with the theologian Donald Allchin.

He retired in 1973.

He received honorary doctorates from the University of Thessaloniki in 1976, the Saint-Serge Orthodox Institute in Paris in 1981, the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade in 1982, and the University of Bucharest in 1992. He was awarded the Dr. Leopold Lucas prize of the Faculty of Theology in Tübingen in 1980 and the Cross of St. Augustin in Canterbury in 1982.

He died in Bucharest on 5 October 1993, at the age of 90.

See also

Works

Christogram with Jesus Prayer in Romanian: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner. The image appears on Romanian Philokalia book cover.

In English Translation:

References

  1. 1 2 Cernăuți (Romanian) = Чернівці, Chernivtsi (Ukrainian). This article uses the Romanian form for the name of this city in northern Bukovina.
  2. ↑ First communist Premier of Romania.
  3. ↑ In Communist Romania a trip to Western countries was not possible without approval from the regime structures.

Further reading

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