A judgment without fault

I went to see Father Stăniloae in Saint-Sergius, where he lives in a student room. He had been in Paris for a few days. No one knew that he was going to receive the title of Doctor Honoris Causa, no Romanian was present at the ceremony. According to Olivier Clement, who gave a beautiful speech, the Russians in Saint-Sergius were not very happy, given the Russian ambition to be the first in Orthodoxy, but they were obliged to bow down before Stăniloae and a theologian like Olivier Clement.

There’s something else: the fear of displeasing the Patriarchate in Bucharest, since the only people present were the other Romanian priest and the bishop sent from Bucharest to Paris. Father Stăniloae told me about his work: Dogmatics, now translated into all the major languages, Volume X of the Philokalia, edited by Olivier Clement with Desclees, and a book on love published in Switzerland.

On the situation in Romania, he said that the Romanian people had never been so humiliated as they were now. He spoke with disgust and contempt of Ceaușescu’s personality cult, of the diabolical nature of the system that defends him. No one can get close to him. He is surrounded by an extraordinary bodyguard. He has appointed only relatives and close associates to top posts. Even Securitate, says Father Stăniloae, is fed up with the regime. Then there is the misery, the queues, the shortages – especially in the villages. Father Stăniloae gave me the same impression of courage and authenticity as before. An impeccable judgement, a wisdom passed on by a traditional spirit, capable at the same time of being highly topical.

(Sanda Stolojan – Clouds above the balconies. Diary from Exile in Paris, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 1996, pp. 110-111)