Father Daniil – a lover of spiritual beauties

It was around 1936-1937, at the Cernica Monastery near Bucharest, where I was a student at the monastic seminary; from time to time, in spring, autumn, Father Gala Galaction would come with some friends.

All the students would gather under a large walnut tree in the monastery, and a gentleman, elegantly dressed and with a beard, would talk to us about things I had never heard in the monastery where I had been an apprentice for several years, nor had the seminary teachers told us.

He told us about spiritual beauties found on the Holy Mountain, in manuscripts in the monastery libraries, about the Philokalia, about the prayer of the heart. I remembered the image of St. Calistus, the lute player with his head bowed on the wing, enraptured by the beauty of the song with which he wanted to draw our attention to the prayer of the heart.

This gentleman was Sandu Tudor – the writer, then Hieromonk Agathon and finally Hieroschemamonk Daniil. Later I had the joy of living with him in the Antim Monastery in Bucharest and we met more often in Moldavia, in the Slatina Monastery and in the Rarău Hermitage, where he was abbot towards the end of his life.

A lover of spiritual beauty, a tireless seeker of subtle and profound meanings, moved by a longing for the sublime and wounded by love for the spiritual life, to which he gave himself with all his being. This is how I met Father Daniil. Always with a book in his hand, meditating or writing, always with a spiritual word on his lips, with subtlety and depth of thought, with beauties of chiselled and decorated grace, like the philological manuscripts he loved.

In his life as a layman he had edited a magazine and collaborated on many others, he had written volumes of poetry, the Akathist of St. Dmitry Basarabov; as a monk, however, he turned to the life of prayer and inner renewal, thoughts and feelings which he poured into a triad of philokal Akathists: St. John Bogoslov, father of prayer and divine teacher of the spiritual life, and the third, St. Hierarch Calinic of Cernica, Romanian icon of the high spiritual life. He was the initiator and the soul of the Burning Bush Movement at Antim Monastery.

Seeking peace and silence, in his old age he retired to a hermitage in the Rarău Mountains, at an altitude of more than a thousand metres, where he renewed and led a spiritual community of about 20 disciples, lovers of hard life and of prayer.

But also here many people came from far away to hear confessions and to learn from Father Daniil. He welcomed and counseled the simple people of the country with great joy, but he knew how to get rid of those who came more for curious words, with wisdom. For example, some gentlemen from the city came to see him and happened to meet Father Daniil. Not knowing him, they said to him: “Father, we have heard that there is a hermit Daniil here, we would like to see him and talk to him”. “You are mistaken,” replied Father Daniil. The hermit Daniil is not here, but somewhere else, in Voroneț”. And after treating them properly, he gave them directions to Voroneț, a monastery a good day’s walk from Rarău. In fact, a famous holy hermit, Daniil the Hermit, had lived in Voroneț, but he had not been alive for about four centuries.

Many spiritual writings have survived from Father Daniel, but only a few have seen the light of print. But his former disciples and those who listened to him carefully preserved much of his advice, some of which I give to lovers of spiritual fulfilment and growth.

“The transformation of the physical man into a spiritual man is a great miracle,” he said. The man of the spirit, the monk, is the ark of the future life, for which ceaseless care and extraordinary preparation are required. One must constantly overcome oneself in order to grow spiritually as a little child grows. In all circumstances you must walk by the side of the monk within you. Examine yourself daily to see what stage you are in; work so hard that the abbot and the confessor have no more work to do with you”.

“The unruliness of the monk is a great iniquity to his soul. At Voroneț, in the Mouth of the Dragon, there are even monastic koukoulions.

“The monk is the everyday disciple. We have to live this daily austerity in all the little things of life. Let us learn the holiness of austerity, the holy sweetness of submission, the holiness of obedience, the cutting off of the will in everything we do, with humility and discretion”.

“Where does the piety of the monk come from? Why is it that even some covetous monks cannot restrain themselves and are easily inflamed with anger? Monastic penance and monastic devotion, if done only externally, are like a pot of boiling water. When the steam rises in the pot, the lid is torn off and the steam comes out. External asceticism, only physical, makes us sensitive, explosive; it does not liberate us internally, it does not lead to piety. That is why a pneumatological asceticism, an interior work, is necessary. Let us change and prefigurate ourselves from the inside out, not the other way round, as we usually do. The external work is childish, and with it alone, we will we remain in the minds of children all our lives”.

“Then the spiritual bonds between us must be strengthened. To experience daily the joy of meeting a man. The Fathers had this wonderful saying: ‘When you have seen a man, you have seen God’. To win someone, do as St. Isaac teaches: put his good deeds before him”.

“The monk has left everything for the love of God, and he who loves Jesus lays his head on His breast, rests beside Him, stands on the threshold of rest. That is why he too, the monk, can and must give rest to people who are tired of life and who come to him”.

“The monks have already anchored themselves on the shore of the heart of Christ, who calms the storms with His Word alone. In this way, he too can calm the storms of men’s souls and give them the peace they need”.

“The monk is a fulfilled man, healthy and harmonious in his soul, a man who is constantly being renewed and growing to the measure of the fullness of Christ. He is an example and an icon of the Christian life, so he can and must help others to be fulfilled”.

“But in order to be able to calm, heal and rest others, the monk must first do it with himself: rest, heal, be fulfilled, make himself the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, who fills and renews all”.

“Strictness in good works leads to self-knowledge, and this leads to repentance and tears, which are the blood of the soul, and these lead to right reckoning, to discernment, to distinguishing good from evil, to the love of good, to the sweetness of good works, and to the sweetness of patience and perseverance, of prayer and goodness and all virtue. Through the gift and help of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”.

There was a candle lit in the candlestick, and it shone all around. Nights were spent with friends, always eager to hear the new ideas that Father Daniil would surprise them with. He longed to lay the foundations of a spiritual settlement, with a chosen life of holiness and prayer, and the Rarău hermitage was filled with this thought. But God’s will was different. His journey ended in Aiud, far from his beloved hermitage, but his search for spiritual beauties did not remain fruitless, but drew the attention of many to the philokal image of holiness and prayer made in the Romanian lands.

In 1955, the poet Vasile Voiculescu, a close friend, wrote to him:

“I often dream of Moldavia, the heavenly Moldavia of long ago,

“Enclosed in constellations of white holy hermitages;

“I’m beginning to see spiritual glory.

Like her mysterious founders in caves and tombs.

Then the thought of Rarău makes its way.

I see you serving at the Burning Bush as in a miracle,

In the rough poetry of your hermitage

“clothed in the high gold of prayer.”

(Pr. Petroniu Tănase – Icoane smerite din sfânta ortodoxie românească, Byzantine Publishing House, Bucharest, 2003, pp. 33-40)