November 2007

Teodor M. Popescu, "prominent sacerdotal figure of our Orthodox Church"

Teodor M. Popescu, Professor of Theology, and a "prominent sacerdotal figure of our Orthodox Church” – as Patriarch Teoctist used to characterize him – guided during the inter-war period, through his didactic activity at the School of Theology in Bucharest, numerous generations of students; among them, many became priests, and even hierarchs of the Orthodox Church (P.F. Patriarch Teoctist, I.P.S. Metropolitan Bartolomeu Anania). He also distinguished as an important Historian of Christianity. In 1959, he was arrested and threw in jail by the communist regimen.

In his lectures and studies, Professor Teodor M. Popescu tried to clarify the relationship between Church and Culture along centuries, pleading for a relationship of reciprocity that could be achieved by completing and enriching each other, and by serving together both God and man. One of the studies published in 1936, entitled The Church and the Culture, is significant for understanding Tudor M Popescu’s concept regarding the relationship between Church and Culture. It is obvious that both of them serve the man, but by different means and with different purposes. From this point of view, according to Teodor M. Popescu, there is even an opposite relation between them. First of all, the Christian religion does not have cultural purposes. “The religion joins and directs the man with and towards God, respectively. Its goal is not limited to this World only. Therefore, the ultimate goal of a Christian is to live happily in eternity”. By contrast, the culture has different goals related to man’s life, “ limited and in the service of the needs and aspirations of a master of the World”. That’s why the culture differs from religion through “genesis, determination, and aspiration”. Starting from this idea, the author believes that “a conflict of principles and opposite tendencies” has been present between culture and Christianity. Gravely, beginning with the modern era, especially in the Occidental European space, both the religious life and the culture have entered in crisis.

Teodor M. Popescu recognizes the role of science and technology in the improvement of man’s material prosperity, but appreciates that the life, despite its growing complexity, has not become better. Most of the time, a person that succeeds excessively in the material aspects of his/her life, is spiritually dead. Here intervenes the Church that, through its religious mission, must stop the cultural decline.

A religion, in out case the Christian one, is not only the connection of man to God, but also “a concept, an attitude of life, and an answer to the major questions regarding our existence and life”. From this perspective, the Christianity represents a “cultural religion by excellence”. Perhaps the most beautiful and magnificent cultural ideal has been proposed to humanity by the Christian religion, as expressed by the Savior’s words: “Be yourselves faultless as your heavenly Father is”. On the one hand, the ultimate goal of the Church – people salvation by entry in the Kingdom of God – is opposed to the goal proposed by culture, and, on the other hand, this Kingdom could be already present in those people that have dedicated their souls to God even from this World. Therefore, the goal of the culture becomes superior and meets the goal of the Church, creating a harmonious whole. For the higher education professor, the Bible is the soul of the culture, this way only, the culture “becoming really superior, harmonious, and valuable”. Afterwards, the author analyzes the relationships established between Church and culture since the beginning of Christianity. Indeed, the Church was born during a period of “flourishing, but vicious culture, an era of moral and social decline”. The Church did not directly neglected the institutions of this World”, but purified them by pointing out to the model of Christ and the Saints of the Church, through “the belief in the divine origin of humanity and the eternal destiny of the spirit”. That vicious culture, which considered the Christianity its number one enemy, has been salvaged by the Christianity from its decline and raised up to its true value. “This way, «the enemy» of culture becomes the savior of culture”. The Greek-Roman culture was passed on by the Church to the medieval era, and thereafter to the modern World, holding a considerable Christian inheritance; however, certain events – as for example, the Renascence and the Humanism, the revolutions, discoveries, and the general progress of science – “have contributed to the weakening of the religious segment and the moral sense”. Again, as in the early times, the Church has been left apart. The revolutions confiscated many of the Christian concepts, promoting them as their own. The mission of the Church has become more and more difficult, its goal being to “christen the culture in a better way than it did in the Middle Ages”. Once again the Church should make use of its primary “weapon”: the World of God expressed by “the moral power of religion, the rescuing low of Christ, the spirit and virtue of the Bible, the manners, and the Christian institutions”. By this, we should not understand that the Church aims to “create a new culture, but to improve the current one”, because for the contemporary people, the modern culture is the holiest thing that they have, it is the “greatest treasure that they have accumulated on Earth”, and have forgotten about the treasure that they should put aside in Heaven. The Church is not interested “about the exterior aspects of the culture, but about its spirit and sense”.

Assaulted by “the frightful experience of the communism, and by the new savageness and heathen trends”, the Church and the culture should cooperate and help each other for their salvation. The evolution pathway of culture through History has been sinuous with ups and downs, compared to that of the Church that has followed the narrow, but without fail way toward Christ and salvation. The culture wanderings on this way have culminated in the Modern Ages with a “new Babel tower”, as a new defiance of God”. The solution proposed by Church is to “bring again the culture to God, and rescue it in His ship, in order to reach the shore of salvation”.

Regarding the Orthodox Church, Professor Teodor M. Popescu considers that it “thoroughly deserves the name of the mother of the Orthodox nations and their culture”. The medieval culture was mostly created by the Church and the monastic culture, at least until the 19^th century. It is the most conservative Church, and also the most active in ennobling the culture and man’s spirit, taking in consideration the fact that Jesus Christ was, is, and will be the same throughout times. He is always present in the World to raise us up to Heaven and to bring human existence to perpetuity through His eternity.

Professor Teodor Popescu militated, also through other published studies, for bridging the gap between Church and culture. We should cite here the following studies: The History of Christianity as a History of culture, published in 1927; The role of History in understanding the Christianity, 1927; The first Christian teachers, 1932; The need for patristic and History studies in the Orthodox Church, 1941.

The same as Jesus Christ that descended in the World to raise it up from the decadent cultural environment to the spiritual height of His Kingdom, the Church, as an institution that has always followed the Savior, is also invited to raise up the culture from its decline, not through adaptation to the decadent culture, but through promotion, together with those segments of the Christian society who are the people that live their lives in the spirit of God, of culture’s efforts to become divine. This way only, the Church could demonstrate that its mission in this World has been accomplished.

Teodor M. Popescu – biographical facts

- Born on June 9th 1893 in Boteni Village, Contesti Commune - Dambovita County;

- 1905-1913 – Followed the courses of the Central Seminar in Bucharest;

- 1916-1917 – Graduated the Military School of Infantry in Botosani, becoming a second lieutenant; between 1917-1918 served the country during the War of Reunification;

- 1919 – Got licensed in Theology;

- 1922 – Became Doctor in Theology at Athens;

- 1927 – 1959 – Worked as professor at the School of Theology in Bucharest, being the Dean of the same institution between 1942-1944;

- After 1950 – Monitored and interrogated frequently by the Security;

- March 1959 – Arrested, interrogated under torture, and, one moth later, sent in instance with the following accusations: "intensive activity against the labor class and the revolutionary movement, enemy of the nation"; supporter of fascism; legionary, etc;

- June 2nd 1959, Bucharest – Convicted to 15 years of extreme detention;

- January 15th 1963 – Liberated from the jail of Aiud, following the decree of collective reprieve;

- Starting April 1st 1965 – Hired as an inspector at the Patriarchal Administration.  

Cristian Ivanuta

Teodor M. Popescu, in the Security documents

The first documentary mentions, indicating Professor Teodor M. Popescu’s surveillance by the communist political police, are dated with the year 1946. On January 30th 1946, the General Department of Police “ordered the inspection of the antecedents and current political activity of Popescu Teodor, Professor at the School of Theology in Bucharest”[1].

The Professor’s name can be also found in the documents of the political police, two years later, in the context of the verifications effectuated by the communist Security on the potential “enemies of the nation”. The past activities of the professors from the School of Theology were verified in those circumstances in which the Romanian society encountered profound political and economical changes, with negative repercussions on the cultural and theological media. In a report of Security dated June 2nd 1948, personal facts such as carrier data; the relationships with the students, including those with legionary students; data about the brochure “From Nero to Stalin”; remarks about the lack of affiliation to political structures, were briefly listed[2].

Starting from 1949, the Professor was presented in the documents of Security with a biography heavily deformed in order to create the image of a legionary, specialist in Theology, and fascist that activated against the communist movement and the URSS regimen[4], “hostile to our regimen, distinguishing through different articles with a mystical and insulting character against URSS”[5].

From August 1958, the informative notes about Professor Popescu started showing up more and more frequently. The professors from the School of Theology, informers of Security, were asked to monitor and write informative remarks, as complex as possible, against Teodor M. Popescu[15],[17]. The perspective of recruiting also Professor Teodor M. Popescu as an informer of Security showed up in change of “the forgiveness” from the detention that he was threatened with. These facts were mentioned in his biography[23].

The penal investigation and detention

Following an investigation performed in January 1959, Professor Teodor M. Popescu did not accept the Security offer to become an informer in order to escape from the punishment with jail that he was threatened with. Because of this denial, on February 3rd 1959, the Department of Internal Information of the National Security proposed the arrest and investigation of Professor Popescu for the following accusations: 1.Collaboration with the legionaries; 2.Written propaganda against the Soviet Union and labor class; 3.Mysticism, meaning the intensification of the religious expression through writing – publication in reviews and spreading of meditations and lectures given to priests and students; and 4.Help given to some ex-convicts of the democrat-popular regimen, and even encouragement of these manifestations with the support of “some reactionary elements from the institute”[25]. The moment of Professor Teodor M. Popescu arrest was not independent of the political context, because the event took place during the period of the second campaign of priests’ arrest.

After 1944, the professor was characterized not only as a person with a mystical behavior that he used to propagate to the students and priests attending his lectures, but also as one that supported the “enemies of the nation”. In fact, this represented the motivation for his arrest, investigation, and detention.

Even thought he had not been involved in politics, Professor Teodor M. Popescu was accused for spreading materials with “political” character, and even accused for legionary activity (“You are a legionary because you are a theologian, and therefore you are an anti-communist, and to be an anti-communist means that you are a legionary”). Practically, one could invent everything for the purpose of discovery “the enemy of the nation”, if the political regimen asked for it. In consequence, on June 2nd 1959, Professor Teodor M. Popescu was convicted by the Military Court to 15 years of extreme detention[35]. After conviction, on October 23rd 1959, Professor Popescu was transferred from Jilava jail to Aiud jail, where he stayed until his liberation[38].

After liberation

On January 1963, Professor Popescu was liberated from the jail of Aiud[44]. After liberation, the Professor returned home with no financial resources. Therefore, he benefited from a monthly financial remuneration from the Patriarch Justinian, working as a librarian at the Administration of the Patriarchy[46]. In the Theological environment, he was seen as a “plagued person”, being disappointed by “the unfriendly reception within the society where he had been appreciated before”[47].

On April 1st 1965, Professor Popescu will be hired as a patriarchal general inspector at the Department of External Relations within the Patriarchal Administration, with the mission to translate and prepare paperwork for the Patriarchal Cabinet and the Romanian Orthodox Church Synod.

Starting from August 1966, the Professor started working at the publishing house of the Biblical Institute[51].

Even after his liberation from jail, Professor Popescu was present in the “active operative evidence” of the File “Romanian Patriarchy”, as an ex-convict for “counter-revolution activity”[52].

The portrait of Professor Teodor M. Popescu was sketched out above from the perspective of the documents written by the political police. However, this is just a step toward the creation of the biography of a great professor; this is a must and, today, we have the moral obligation to do it. Also, the publication of the complete literary work of the professor is very necessary, because the Romanian Orthodox Church needs the recognition of both the professor’s personality and his literary work, which represents a strong argument not only in the dialogue with the Catholic Church, but also with the other confessions. Furthermore, part of the professor’s literary work, focused on the mission of the cleric, the position of the theologian, and the relationship of the Church with the nation is more actual today than ever. Therefore, the discovery of Professor Teodor M. Popescu is necessary. Professor Popescu is not only a religious writer, as he could be considered at a first look, but also a martyr. One that did not abdicate one moment from the faith of the Church in which he was christened, whose belief firmly defended and promoted, and that finally forgave those who tortured him, is a martyr of the Holy Church. This is also the case of Teodor M. Popescu[59].

Adrian Nicolae Petcu

Saint Gregory Palamas and the new Occidental Theology

Saint Gregory Palamas has represented an obstacle in the debate between the Orthodoxy and the Occidental tradition/Theology, both during his life and nowadays, when he represents one more reason of disagreement between the Orthodox theologians, on the one hand, who consider him “a light of Orthodoxy, a fortifying symbol of piety, and a teacher”[1], and the Occidental theologians, on the other hand, who consider him an heretic.

This different appreciation of Palamas by the Orthodox and Western theologists is not difficult to comprehend; through his Theology, the dimension of the organic association that characterizes the Orthodox Theology and spirituality, and also the deep gap that separates it from the Occidental tradition, becomes obvious for everybody.

The premises of Saint Gregory Palamas’ Theology

By contrast with the Catholic Theology of his era that was founded on the scholastics’ Aristotelianism, Palamas did not develop his theory starting from philosophical premises, not taken into consideration, but from the reality of his own spiritual life that he experienced in the Church.

In Palamas’ opinion, the spiritualization of the man is not, simply, a moral state of mind that one could achieve making use of the philosophy about God, but a reality abounding of spirituality that supposes a pure heart accomplished by communion with the uncreated energies of God[2].

God is not only uncreated nature and hypostases, but also uncreated works through which the persons composing the Holy Trinity come in direct communion with the Creation. By nature, called by Palamas “superior goddess”, God is infinite, transcendent, unseen, and non-cognoscible; related to His energies, which Palamas called “inferior goddess”, God is situated inside the Creation, immanent, perceived, cognoscible, and truly experienced[5]. For example, in the middle of the theological disputes, in a try to establish, from a theological point of view, the reality of the direct divine experience of the believers in Church, Palamas uses, in an ample manner, the distinction between God’s nature and His works, distinction that has always existed in the Orthodox patristic tradition[6].

Palamas emphasizes that the man, getting in communion with Church mysteries through God’s uncreated and divine energies, resembles God in an authentic manner, not by nature, but by spirit. This way, for Palamas, the distinction nature-energies in God’s essence becomes the theological foundation for his concepts, and for this reason, during his times, the same as today, this theological distinction plays a central role in the dispute between the Orthodoxy and the contemporary Occidental Theology.

The roots of these theological discrepancies could be found not only in the rationalism of the Western Theology, evidenced since the beginnings of the medieval scholasticism, but also in the premises of the Orthodox Theology, from the times before schism to the Triadology of Saint Augustine[9], and thereafter, primarily, to the Aristotelianism of Thomas Aquinas’ Theology. The distinction, unclear from the beginning, within the eternal existence of God and the fated descent of the Holy Trinity persons, which is found in Augustine’s theory, and also Thomas Aquinas’ assertion that God is absolute simplicity, actus purus[10], potential brought from eternity to embodiment, does not allow in the Occidental Theology the admission and, so much the less, the concrete valorization of such a distinction in God’s essence, as it is done by Palamas, in the spirit and following the concepts of the Holy Fathers of the Church.

Saint Gregory Palamas and the Roman-Catholic Theology

The aggressive opposition of the modern Occidental Theology against the concepts of Saint Gregory Palamas has existed since the beginning of the 20th century. When the Orthodox theologists that studied Palamas’ theory, such as Temistocle Hagistavrou, who later on became archbishop of Athens[11], Gregory Papamihail[12], and Hristou Papadopoulos[13], brought again into the attention of the theological media from that time, the distinction nature-energies in God’s essence that represents one of the main differences that separates the Orthodoxy from the Catholic Theology.

Several Roman-Catholic theologists, among who a major role was played by Martin Jugie, supported the idea that Palamas’ concepts about the uncreated energies represent an uncommon innovation within the Christian Theology, being completely unknown not only to the Occidental patristic tradition, but also to the Eastern one[14]. Their goal was to demonstrate that there is neither spiritual communion nor relationship between Palamas’ Theology and that of the former patristic Fathers. As a consequence, even if Palamas considered that his distinction between God’s nature and works was of patristic origin, specific to the Fathers of the Church, making further reference, to strengthen his concepts, to Cappadocian Fathers such as Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, Saint Maximus the Confessor, and others, however, according to Catholic theologists from the beginning of the 20th century, he substantially misrepresented their teaching[15].

In these conditions, the more recent anti-Palamas Catholic theologist E. von Ivanka felt responsible to demonstrate that the knowledge of Palamas related to the distinction nature-energies in God’s essence does not have any foundation from both biblical and patristic point of view, having a philosophical root represented by the Neoplatonic philosophy[16]. Especially for this reason, Ivanka tried to interpret in the same manner the distinction done by the Holy Fathers between God’s nature and works, in order to present Palamas as one that either do not understand them, or removes them from context.

According to B. Schultze, one of the contemporary Roman-Catholic opponents of Saint Palamas, the fundamental accusation against Palamas’ Theology is represented by the impossibility to accept a true distinction inside God, absolute Simplicity, and the perfection Itself. Such a distinction, assert the Catholic theologists, would be absolute, because would be objectively founded in God’s spirit – in contrast with the distinction between the divine persons that is obviously real, but only regarding the relationship between them, because this hypostatical distinction exists exclusively at the level of the inner relationships between the Persons composing the Trinity, according to the Roman-Catholic concepts[19].

Saint Gregory Palamas and the Protestant Theology

The Protestant Theology has not focused too much, until several decades ago, on the concepts of the archbishop of Tesalonic from the 14th century. However, in 1980, a modern theologist, Dorothea Wendebourg, professor at the School of Protestant Theology in München, roused, with her point of view, the interest and different reactions not only from the side of Orthodox theologists, but also from that of the Catholic and Protestant theologists. In her well-known study “Spirit or energy? The problem of the intra-Trinity foundation of the Christian life in the Byzantine Theology”, she supports the idea that Palamas, through his important soteriological role attributed to the divine energies, left the Trinity persons without any soteriological significance, specific to the Eastern Church Theology. The role of Savior exerted by the divine persons would have been replaced, in Palamas’ Theology, by the uncreated energies.

By contrast with the modern Catholic Theology, Wendebourg perceives clearly the unity and close relationship between Palamas’ Theology and the one of the ancestor Saints, regarding the distinction nature-energies in God’s essence, as being true. However, the German theologist stipulates that Palamas’ concepts differ from those of the ancestor Fathers: the last ones understand the communion as the release in the World of the uncreated energies in a Triadic manner, emphasizing this way the specific, individual fate of the divine hypostases, while Palamas’ concept completely differs when he treats the fated specificity of the hypostases during Their descent in the World, as long as Their soteriological role in the fated area has been substituted for that of the uncreated energies. Despite all of these, because they also indicate an ontological and authentic distinction in God’s essence between His eternal existence, and His materialization and fated descent in Creation, and, in the same time, consider the uncreated energies as the only vehicle of God’s connection with the World, Wendebourg concludes that they are – by contrast with the older Occidental Theology – the starting point of this “dysfunction” of the Triadic hypostases in the Eastern Orthodox Theology, which is perfected by Palamas’ theory, one thousand years later[25]

The Orthodox critique of the Occidental theologists, opponents of Saint Gregory Palamas

Let’s analyze rigorously, one by one, the dilemmas mentioned above: are the accusations brought by the recent Western theologists against Palamas valid, or they are distorted representations of his Theology?

First of all, regarding Catholic theologists’ accusations, it can be noticed that Palamas’ distinction between God’s nature and His works does not come from the area of the Greek philosophy, particularly from the Neoplatonism, as Ivanka presumed, but from the biblical and patristic tradition. In the Neoplatonic perception, the work/energy does not represent an expression of God’s will, such as in the Revelation and in the belief of the Holy Fathers, but rather it is the emission, the essential and compulsive manifestation of the One, the primordial monad, the one of the Mind, who simply serves the process of this emission[29].

Julian the Paravat, who belongs to the Neoplatonic philosophical school, firmly supports the idea that no distinction could exist between God’s nature and work[30]. However, by fundamental nature, Palamas’ distinction originates entirely in the biblical tradition and in that of the ancestor patristic Fathers.

About the meanings of this theological distinction in the pre-Palamas patristic tradition, it is worth to mention that both for Palamas and the ancestor Saints who he refers mostly to, the distinction between nature and works is not subjective and intellectual, because it originates in God Himself, and not in the finite human thinking[31]. For the Holy Fathers, the Person represents the foundation of intra-Trinity life in God’s spirit, while His energies represent the ontological vehicle of His extra-Trinity relationships with the World. It could not simply be a distinction of gnoseological nature, intended to answer the ardent problem of God’s comprehension. The theological gnoseology of the Holy Fathers is never subjective or arbitrary, being always reinforced by objective, ontological premises[32].

When Palamas emphasizes the realistic existential and ontological character of the distinction nature-works in God’s essence, he does not see it like a division of God in two independent, ontological categories. One is the distinction and other is the division of God. The difference could exist without resulting in division, and therefore, without touching the simplicity of God.

According to Palamas, the distinction nature-hypostases, despite its authenticity, does not result in the division of God in three independent hypostases, different one from another by their existence. In the same way, the distinction nature-energies in God’s essence could not result in God’s division in two ontological realities, independent one from the other. The same as the Persons impart the intra-Trinity God’s way of existence, in the same manner, the energies impart the pattern of His extra-Trinity relationships towards the World, and could not be thought and understood independently of the divine existence[35].

Conclusion

At a first critical eye-bird view of the polemic between the new Western Theology and the Theology of Saint Gregory Palamas, a fundamental question shows up: what are the consequences of this dispute for the Occidental Theology that sticks, in its essence, to these opinions?…

The answer to this question, from the Orthodox point of view, is only one. The Catholic and Protestant Theology denial of Palma’s teaching about the uncreated and divine energies of the Holy Trinity represents, in the Western European ecclesiastical area, the impossibility of man’s spiritualization and his authentic communion with the divine life. Therefore, in reality, the basic Christian teaching regarding to man’s ascent to God and his spiritualization, which represent the nucleus of the Theology and spirituality of both the Revelation and the Holy Fathers, is denied on and on.

This way, the Occidental Christianity becomes spiritually poorer, facing the danger to turn into a simple humanistic and moralistic system. As the contemporary Catholic theologist Jürgen Kuhlmann sincerely confesses, unfortunately, the Orthodox theologists have been right. Within the Western Theology, the spiritual meaning of man’s spiritualization, in the true sense of the word, as it could be found at the Holy Fathers and Saint Gregory Palamas, does not exist[39]. For this reason, he addresses the Occidental Theology the following words: “From now, our Theology should not deny anymore the evidence given by Saint Gregory Palamas about the fated Trinity with its divine energies. Therefore, the (Western) Theology needs to keep alive the Church faith in man’s authentic spiritualization. In a secular World, the idea of an absolutely transcendental Trinity, entirely outside of this World, not coming in a real and direct communion with the man, does not provoke unhappiness, but also does not lead to salvation”[40].   

Prof. Univ. Dr. Gheorghios Martzelos,

Professor of Dogmatic Theology, School of Orthodox Theology - Aristotelis University, Tesalonic, Greece

Let’s permanently have in our minds the Savior’s words addressed to his disciples on Mt. Tabor: “Wake up and do not be afraid!” (Matthew 17, 7), and accept no other teaching, but the Orthodox one. Let’s reject all healers that propose us a different model than Jesus Christ, because God told us: “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; listen to Him!” (Matthew 17, 5).

In the Bible, the Sunday of the lunatic tells us how a parent with a weak belief and an ill child, kneeled down in front of the Savior, saying: “My Lord, have mercy on my son, because he is a lunatic and suffers a lot: he falls into fire and into water all the time. I brought him to Your disciples but they could not cure him.” (Matthew 17, 15-16). In front of Christ, he accused His disciples that they could not cure his son, and, more than this, he showed a certain doubt regarding the healing power of the Savior: “But if You can do something, have mercy on us and help us” (Mark 9, 22).

After Jesus had cured the boy, exorcising the evil that came out of him, he told His disciples - puzzled and frightened because they believed that they lost the divine gift that they had been blessed with (“Why couldn’t we take it out?”) - the followings: “Because of your weak belief. (…) if your belief was at least as a mustard grain, you would tell this mountain: Move out this way, and it would move out; everything would become possible.”

For our wish to become true, such as the example of this healing, is it really enough to have faith only? First of all, it is necessary to have a right faith from the doctrinal point of view, the one preached by Christ, apostles, and their descendants, together with “prayers and fasting” (Matthew 17, 21), which are true spiritual weapons that chase off the evils and the sins, as the Holy Fathers say.

To those that ask for healers’ help, I would remind them the words of Saint John “Golden Mouth”: “Do not tell me about the rare cases when some people took the evils out without fasting! Even if you can see a couple of such cases, I tell you that it is impossible for a person that lives in decadence to rescue somebody suffering from an illness like this. To cure a person that suffers from such illness, the fasting is necessary more than everything. (…) The fasting seeds philosophy in man’s soul, transforms the man in angel, annihilates the evil; but the fasting alone is not enough, praying being also necessary.”

We continue to comment on some faked contemporary practices that unfortunately become legal, by giving some examples of the most sold books in the field of complementary therapies.

The book of Dr. Stephan T. Chang, The complete system of self-healing. Internal exercises, with the original title: Le système complet d'autoguérison. Les exercices taoïstes internes, focuses, in fact, on the Taoist Medicine, approached in several other books written by the same author, such as The Tao of balanced diet: secrets of a thin and healthy body or The Tao of sexology. The book of infinite wisdom. From the height of his spirituality, the author offers to the regular people like us, “a book written as an act of benevolence to make the old Taoist wisdom known”. However, in an important annotation, he mentions that: “Both the author and the publishing house do not take upon themselves the responsibility for any damage or risk that could be encountered following the use of any of the aspects or techniques described in this book”. No comment. In addition, a review that extensively promotes the healers indicates that the patients with digestive disorders should practice the Exercise of the solar plexus, because this is “recommended for all digestive disorders”!

Doreen Virtue, a clear-sighted psychotherapist, offers us the book entitled The healing with angels, book with divine reverberation, as it could be considered, because the author “communicates with the divinity”! After she showed us Seven Ways to Peace, taught us to practice The Purification of Chakras, and initiated us in The Divine Guidance, we witness through this book a real Angel Training Program! The author assures us from the beginning that “There are no limits in the healing powers of the angels. They could help us to restore our relationships, career, financial or locative problems, and any other problems that could disturb us.”

If people that do not have any medical knowledge, or those that look for healing by different strategies, buy these books, what could be said about professors working in the academic environment, such as a Professor of Psychology, who was seen in a library buying all books dealing with the paranormal area, considering them very instructive?! Are the students in Psychology really asking themselves in vain why nobody speaks with them about spirit? The “tradition” of Psychology without spirit, launched in the 19th century, is still passed on!

Richard Constantinescu

Invaluable memories about the Saint of the jails

The Saint of the jails – Memories about Valeriu Gafencu, collected and annotated by Monk Moise, Alba Iulia, Romania, 2007.

This book offers us, the ones used with the comfortable life style, an opportunity to reflect upon the sacrifice, the suffering, and the Cross, because nothing could be done without effort and sacrifice. The temptation of the contemporary people, as Saint Paisie the Aghiorite used to say, is to accomplish everything without sacrifice; in the same manner, we, the Christians, desire to obtain the Salvation without any effort, which, in fact, is impossible. In this context, this book is a remembrance of the extraordinary and terrible past times in which those people who had wanted to obtain the Salvation, went through extreme suffering. That happened when the communist and atheist Romanian state, making use of diabolic institutions such as the Security and the jail, tortured the bravest Christians from that time. “The communism filled the Haven with Saints” – Father Arsenie Papacioc says. Therefore, if somebody had gotten to know all people from our nation that reached the shore of sanctity during the communist regimen, that person would have embraced the words of Saint Dosoftei of Moldavia, the Bishop: “there are many Saints among Romanians too, but they have not been looked for!”…

This book, an authentic testimony, was edited by the Monk Moise Iorgovan from Oasa Monastery – Alba County, Romania, who has a lot of piety for the people that suffered for Jesus Christ in the communist jails. One of those sufferers in Christ’s spirit was Valeriu Gafencu. For him, the Savior’s message was very clear: “Everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess about him before My Father Who is in Haven” (Matthew 10, 32). It is worth to remark that Father Moise succeeded in highlighting the fact that Valeriu Gafencu stayed actually away from any partisan ideologies or attitudes, acting simply as a sincere disciple of Christ. Even if at the beginning he was a member of the “Sworn Brothers” movement – because of his aspirations toward a pure spiritual life, without any compromises – he detached so much from the outside World, so that even some people from the Right movement started considering him an extreme person and a mystic. Therefore, Father Nicolae Steinhardt – Jewish by origin – named him “the Saint of the jails”. Thus, Valeriu Gafencu was one of the most prominent figures that experienced an authentic spiritual life in conditions of detention. By his sacrifice and love, originating in the unconditional offering of his life to Christ, he has remained forever in the harts of those who met him. In this regard, Father Gheorghe Calciu said: “I do not have any doubts that he is a Saint; he experienced the word of God at such a level that is incomprehensible for us”. “Valeriu Gafencu is frequently mentioned in the memories of those that went through the experience of jail; Although journal articles and even a documentary movie about him have been done, being this way the most “advertised” person among those who experienced the communist jails, his life is not much known among the believers of the Church. In consequence, using all information that has been published about him by date, and adding some unique memories, we will offer the reader fragments from the life, experience, and thinking of this Saint of the 20th century”, Father Moise said.

This document represents an authentic odyssey of the spirit, an abyssal introspection done with modesty and delicacy that “only a man who went through hell and came out purified on the superior shore of holiness, could get from the angel that protected him throughout the encountered difficulties”, because these contemporary martyrs survived in the arena of “the communist lions” due to their strong belief in God – Who “can do everything for everyone who believes”, giving to the modest ones His gift that blesses, governs, and promotes the life!…

The heroes that sacrificed themselves in the communist political jails looked, first of all, to put order in their lives, “to understand and to live the civic experience within the primary Church, and to polish, slowly but without fail, the features of love, sacrifice, goodness, and the experience of civic love”. All of these martyrs of the 20th century, “sharing the same detention room, tried to transform it into a church of Christ, beyond all inherent temptations, difficulties, and stumblings specific to conditions in which many people live together in an improper, miserable, and insalubrious space…” The story of a life entirely dedicated to Christ, as that of Valeriu Gafencu, is a constitutive part of the unseen war that the Philocalia teaches us about.

The book has a pedagogical and missionary character; it reminds us and strengthens our conviction that, without communion, involvement, and sacrifice, the Christianity would be a simple ideology, without “Spirit and Truth”. Therefore, the Church – that is an alive and dynamic divine-human institution – does not represent a museum of antiquities, a storage space for historical and artistic valuable pieces, but the Mount of our Transformation and birth “from water, Holy Spirit, and fire” of so many generations of people, among who many have been invited to embrace “the crown of martyrism and holiness”. “A person, the same as a nation, values as much as he/it understood from Bible, and as much as he/it could follow the teaching of Jesus Christ” – as Simion Mehedinti said.

One of the conclusions of this book is presented by Father Moise as following: “ The people that the Holy Spirit worked through powerfully, such as Valeriu Gafencu and other martyrs of the jails, worthy of an absolute appreciation, are waiting for their place in the calendar, being the most representative models for us during this contemporary times dominated by confusions. Their lives deserve to become known, not for their glory in this World, but for the people who live these times governed by so many wanderings, sequels of our distancing from God, and who need to know that such special people, who ascended to the powerful faith and sacrifice characteristic to the first Christian martyrs, lived in the 20th century”.

Stelian Gombos

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