Father Stăniloae, man and theologian of prayer. Testimony of a disciple

I have chosen the theme “Father Stăniloae, man and theologian of prayer” as the theme of my testimony about Father Stăniloae. This, of course, can be seen in all his works. It is not only his very thorough studies and constant theological formation that explain the ethos of his theology, but also the fact that he himself was a man of prayer. His Holiness did not flaunt this aspect of his life. I will only give a few testimonies of some moments that I happened to experience in his presence.

Father had a great gift, that of bringing people together, and in this closeness you could understand what you did not understand in his theology, which was very profound and required a spiral of thought, and if you could not follow him when he spoke, at a certain point you were left with nothing but admiration. Father Professor would go very deep into the meaning of words, even when he repeated them, and with each repetition he would bring an extra nuance. But those who couldn’t understand all his theology from the professor’s desk would sometimes meet him at home or in the street, they would accompany him on the way to the tram and on the tram. He lived in two different places in Bucharest. His last address in Bucharest was 6 Cernica Street (now D. Stăniloae Street), and that’s where we used to go most of the time. We would announce ourselves an hour or two in advance, and then he would tell us: “Come now” or “I have someone here now, come in an hour”. He had a very modest house, a very small flat, when there were several of us we could hardly find a place to sit; he had a desk with books on it, on shelves, on the left, on the right, it was very crowded.

The office was the size of a cell. He had many of the qualities of a monk, although he was married. First of all, he was impressed by the very obvious modesty of the house. Sometimes I would ask Father for clarification when I didn’t quite understand what he was saying. When he was explaining and he didn’t have the text written down, he was a different man; the way he wrote, the way he expressed himself, was completely different. That’s why – someone said – if he doesn’t write, Father can’t say everything he has to say. In a spoken language he communicates differently than in writing, perhaps more simply, more accessible. As a preacher, he wrote a lot but spoke little. Even as a teacher he did not lecture freely. But his own writing also changed him, completed him. To teach his doctoral courses, he read his own sentences and sometimes stopped reading. When he stopped, I remember that once he sat for six hours on a single page, reading his own work, rereading and explaining. He would stop at the sentence and look in the corner at the window, it was as if he was talking to someone, he didn’t always look at us. Then he’d start to go deeper into the sentence, saying that he was explaining it. He was much deeper in what he was saying in the ‘explanation’, as he was in his explanations or notes to the Philokalia. If you look at the explanations in the notes, they go deeper than the text. In fact, Fr. Stăniloae does not explain the theology of the Holy Fathers, but deepens it in a proper terminology. He had an extraordinary creative power and inspiration, starting from his own writings and always going beyond them. We found this as doctoral students in Bucharest, but above all in the printing office of the Patriarchate. When they gave him the text he had written for correction, he would write again, something different. And even the ones he corrected himself, he changed again before the final form, i.e. he added something else. He said, “I am always dissatisfied with myself.”

It was a very interesting way of theologising. When he wasn’t writing or hadn’t written down the text and we asked him a question, he spoke more simply. That’s why we used to go to Father’s house or accompany him home. When he spoke to us directly, without having the text in front of him or without writing, he tried to be more catechetical, more understandable. He would share with us his views on the life of the Church, on Romanian theology, on the theology of other Churches, on other confessions. In everything he was a theologian, but more understandable, more familiar. A kind of theology that was more mysterious, more discipleship, that made you feel not only a student, but also a spiritual son. I have made these few remarks in order to understand something of the spiritual atmosphere during the years that I knew him here in Bucharest. Mrs. Maria, Father Stăniloae’s wife, was a very special woman. Perhaps, next to the prayer of Fr. Stăniloae, the most important prayer was the prayer of Mrs. Maria, who was a fasting and deeply devout woman. She was a woman who prayed a lot, who helped Father Professor a lot, who took care of all the administrative matters of the house, so that he could devote himself to writing. He would get up at five in the morning and write until nine or ten. After that, he received so many visits that it was impressive how a man who wrote so much could receive so many visits in his chiropractic room, there, at 6 Cernica Street.

I am telling you this because at the Proskomidia, every time I mention Father Dumitru Stăniloae, I also mention the priestess Maria. It is very important to know this, because in the life of a priest, as well as in the life of a teacher and theologian, it is very important whether the family helps him or not, whether it is a family of prayer or not, whether the wife is a person of prayer or not. In the case of Fr. Stăniloae, he himself said, “My wife prays more than I do”. And she would reply: “Well, Dumitru says so, but he also prays when he writes”. There was a very deep spiritual communion between them, strengthened by prayer.

The testimonies we are giving this evening about Father Stăniloae as a man of prayer refer to only a few moments in his life. The first is his vocation to the priesthood. Once, when he came to correct the doctoral thesis that I had prepared in Strasbourg, and then, on the occasion of his coming to Strasbourg and then to Freiburg, before the defence of my doctoral thesis, he confessed to me a special thing about how God had called him to be a priest or a theologian. Stăniloae first enrolled at the History Faculty of the University of Cernăuți. And after a year he came home for holidays and one morning his mother said to him: “Dumitru, I dreamed something special about you”; he asked: “What? She replied: “I dreamt that someone came and said to me: “Make and donate to the Church a priest’s vestment for Dumitru”. “And I,” added his mother, “understood that you were to become a priest”. He replied: “I don’t know if it really means that”. He went back to college and began to see that the college he was attending was still too spiritually poor. The following year he enrolled in the Faculty of Theology, although he was very much inclined towards history. In fact, his doctoral thesis combined history and theology: On the Life and Work of Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem. Then Father told us that at a certain time the Theological Academy of Sibiu did not have a professor of dogmatics, so he was asked to fill the chair of dogmatics. Then he began to translate from Androutsos’ Dogmatics. Then he began to translate the works of St Gregory Palamas and in this way he surpassed Androutsos and began to write a neopatristic dogmatic theology. Here, then, is a very interesting destiny. The young Dumitru Stăniloae did not enrol in theology at first, but saw how God works in the life of man and how the addition of other disciplines sometimes redirects one’s vocation.

So the first conclusion is that the vocation of Father Stăniloae to the priesthood was greatly influenced by his mother’s prayer. We don’t always realise the importance of prayer because we are often tempted to do a scholastic, more didactic theology. But each one of us is a spiritual fabric of gifts received from others! From parents, from teachers, from colleagues more devout than ourselves, from believers more humble than ourselves, and this energetic, spiritual presence of others in our spiritual formation is immense. However, the way in which we receive, restructure or build up in our soul what we have received from others, makes us ourselves as a person, as a particular way of existing and processing the influences we have received. I personally believe that Father Professor’s inclination to prayer came from his mother’s prayer. So, in a way, faith is also transmitted in an energetic, spiritual way, not only in a didactic way. The one who prays in the family influences the others, even if he does not speak theologically. He who prays influences others by his very presence as a praying being. There is a well-known case of St. Seraphim of Sarov: a student or a young man with a very serious problem came to him and found him sleeping in a clearing near the hermitage. And he doesn’t wake the saint up, but stays, looks at him, prays and waits for him to wake up, and suddenly the solution to his problem comes to him. He didn’t wake up the saint, he went back because he had found the solution to his problem. But what inspired him? The presence of the praying person! So it is with Father Stăniloae’s exhortation to give a priestly vestment to the Church! I also said this at his funeral in 1993 in the monastery of Cernica, near Bucharest.

The second testimony comes from what Father Professor Dumitru Stăniloae said about his years in prison – you know that His Holiness spent many years in prison. When a delegation from the Ecumenical Council of Churches, from the Faith and Order Commission, led by Lukas Fischer – who was the coordinator of this commission for twenty years – came here to Romania in the 1960s, they asked: “Where is Father Dumitru Stăniloae? We are here in Bucharest for a week and we want to see him”. Then the Communist authorities told Father Stăniloae: “Old man, come out of your cell, there are some Westerners asking for you”. They got him out of prison, and then he met with Western theologians. It was, according to Lukas Fischer, a very emotional atmosphere, but you couldn’t talk much, you couldn’t ask anything, because there were all kinds of observers around. The Westerners asked him, “And how was it?” Father replied, “Just like it is there!”

He then spent some time proofreading theological journals, until someone from the Department of Religious Affairs read Father Stăniloae’s article “Thou shalt not kill” and said, “Who is the one who wrote this article? Let him come to me. How can this man sit there proofreading when he’s so talented? We must give him another job, look how well he writes”. Of course, he “rehabilitated” himself after a while when he got out of prison. Once, when he was allowed to represent Romanian theology at international meetings, he was asked: “What is the most important thing that marked you most during your years in prison?” Father Stăniloae replied: “In prison I learned to pray”, an answer that shocked those present. Prison had become a school of prayer for him. The dialogue continued: “But how, you didn’t pray before?” “But in prison, when you don’t know if you will escape alive or not, when the connection with God becomes the only chance to keep your identity and your hope, then prayer really becomes a vital breath of the soul, not in a metaphorical sense, but in an existential sense”. So it is an existential prayer that comes from the whole being, not a formal, mechanical prayer.

The third testimony I would like to give about him as a man of prayer was inspired by an Orthodox meeting in France, which took place in Amiens, near Paris, in 1977. It was a congress of the Orthodox of Western Europe, which, if I am not mistaken, was held every year or every two years. Father Stăniloae was invited to Amiens to be the main speaker. And after that meeting we went together to St. Sergius Institute in Paris, where many of our later young men studied, some of whom are now hierarchs. This institute had two or three modest buildings with few students, about twenty in number. This institute was founded by Russians from abroad. The students of St. Sergius Institute were at weekends. Some were there, others were at home. We, Father and I, citizens of socialist Romania, had no money to pay for the hotel. So we asked to stay there, in a room with two beds, where two students who had gone home for a few days were staying. And we stayed that night in the same room, and before we went to bed, Father Stăniloae said, “Let’s pray”. And we prayed, we sat like this in the prayer position, and he said the first prayers by heart, but because we didn’t have the Horologion with us, he prayed freely. When I heard how he prayed, I thought he was a different person. A simple, deep, sensitive prayer, without any elaborate theological idea, he just said: “Lord, help us! God be with us! God forgive us!”, like a child in a family talking to his father. A simplicity you only see in country people who have never been to a theological school, but who pray with great conviction and faith, in an amazing intimacy and familiarity with God. Afterwards, the next day, I dared to ask: “Father Professor, forgive me, but I was surprised when you prayed so simply last night”. He replied: “The greatest temptation in prayer is to theologise. You are not talking to God, you are talking to yourself about God”. Later, years later, I asked Father Cleopas of Sihăstria about the temptation to theologise during prayer. And he enlightened us on the basis of quotations from the Holy Fathers of the Church. So I would say that Father Stăniloae prayed like a student who is not a theologian, but it is precisely this form of prayer that shows that no matter how much theological knowledge we have, if we remain in our soul with the prayer from home, from childhood, it is a sign that we are praying in the most authentic way, that is, that we feel before God the Father like a child before his Father.

I have seen Father Professor Dumitru Stăniloae several times as a priest. An amazing contrast between his high theology and his humble way of serving as a priest. At first sight, there was absolutely nothing impressive about his service. But after meditating on the way he served, you realised that it was the authenticity that was most impressive. He served with humility, as if he were a simple village priest with a modest theological education. Fr. Stăniloae didn’t care what his voice sounded like – he served with an almost muffled voice – or what his appearance or gestures looked like. He was very natural, simple, humble, shy, reserved, and when he preached in the small church near Cernica Street, where he often went, he gave a very substantial but simple catechesis, so that simple people could understand the essence of faith as life in God.

What always impressed me were his words, both simple and essential. He put a lot of emphasis on God’s love for us – this truth came up many times in his sermons – and he also showed how much prayer helps us. His sermon was a kind of meditation with practical, simple advice, so that even the simplest person could understand that participation in the prayers of the Church is a great gain for the spiritual life. Reflecting now on the way he ministered, I realised that the most important characteristics of his priestly ministry were humility and simplicity. But his humility came from being overwhelmed by the presence of God. It is a great gift to be overwhelmed by the presence of God when you serve. Usually when you’re serving as a priest, you think about whether you’re in tune with the congregation, whether there’s somebody else who’s bringing a prosphora, whether you’re behind the others when you’re serving in a group. Fr. Stăniloae was concentrated and overwhelmed by the holiness of the moment. In addition, he had a strong conviction and you felt that he was the bearer of a presence, but not a spectacular presence that forced itself on you, but a spiritual presence that was experienced as a pacification of the soul that carries it within. Sometimes I made a comparison with two people in our country whom Father Stăniloae resembled surprisingly when he was a priest. Father Sofian, who was not a great speaker either, but his word had power, as spiritual advice, because of the presence of the Spirit of Christ in the priest who helps others. Fr. Stăniloae also resembled Fr. Paisie of Sihăstria when he was a priest. The teacher had in common with Father Sofian and Father Paisie the peacemaking and sanctifying word, the bearer of the Holy Spirit. So we can see that Father Stăniloae lived his liturgical ministry very intensely, he was overwhelmed by the presence of Christ, by his silent and holy love in the liturgy of the Church. Here we must confess that on several occasions he said that he regretted not having been a parish priest for a while. Sometimes he would say: “If I had been a parish priest for a longer time, it would have influenced my theology even more”. And in his testimony to young people at the end of his life, around 1992-1993, which we published in the magazine “Candela Moldovei” (no. 5-6, May-June 1992, Iași), he said, among other things, that at the end of his life he realised that he had to connect his theology more with the importance of philanthropic work, of serving his neighbour. Always dissatisfied with what he had achieved, he regretted with great humility that he had not been a parish priest and had not sufficiently united mystical and missionary theology. Today, however, we know how much missionary work he did with his profound theology in the theological formation of our parish, monastic and university priests.

Finally, I would like to say that the theology of Father Stăniloae as a whole, even if some of his articles are more historical in character, can be called a theology of prayer, directly, when he speaks of prayer, and even indirectly, because we find in his works several references to the importance of prayer, to the benefits of prayer, to the necessity of prayer. For example, in his work Spirituality and Communion in the Orthodox Liturgy, he says: “Prayer is the mystery of man’s union with God. It is a mystery that is fulfilled whenever man prays with concentration. He who reaches the unceasing prayer lives this mystery unceasingly. Through prayer, man penetrates like a diver into the infinite depths of God, who, as a loving Person, remains separate from the one who prays and keeps him separate. Therefore, through prayer, innumerable and infinite powers come to man. Even more powers of prayer come to him in an infinitely lesser degree, powers even from the very fellow human being with whom he receives communion. If the presence of a being strengthens you when it communicates from its spirituality, how much more the presence of God in prayer. Or, when one makes the effort to pray, God comes to meet him and strengthens this effort, drawing him into the depths of his divine life and power, from which he draws new strength”. And this meditation on prayer is made by Fr. Stăniloae, after having previously quoted St. Gregory he Sinaite, who says: “Prayer is God the Word who works all things in all”. Let us remember, then, that prayer is God who works in us.

Prayer is not an activity of ours alone, because when we enter into communion with God, prayer becomes His active presence in us. And this shows why the Orthodox Liturgy is celebrated primarily by Christ, who also draws us into His service. “You are the Bringer and the Offering, the Receiver and the Sharer, Christ our God” – it is said in the prayer of the priest at the time of the Cherubic – that is, the perfecter of the work of sanctification is Christ Himself, who draws us into His service. In this sense, St. John Chrysostom says: “The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit do everything; the priest, the servant, only lends his tongue and his hand” (Homily 86 on the Gospel of John). When we enter into communion with God, we do not only work for Him, but He works for us, in us and through us. The whole of Orthodox spirituality confirms the theology of prayer of Fr. Stăniloae, expressed in his commentary on the statement of St. Gregory the Sinaite, who defines prayer as “God the Word who works all things in all”. Moreover, in the Small Spoken Dogmatic – Dialogues from Cernica, 2nd revised edition, Sibiu 2000 – the Father speaks of his personal experience of prayer: “I sought God in the people of my village. Then in books, in ideas and symbols. But that gave me neither peace nor love. One day, in the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church, I discovered that it is possible to meet God in a real way through prayer. And then I heard Him say to me: “Dare to understand that I love you. Then, patiently, I began to work. Gradually I understood that God is close, that He loves me, and that by filling myself with His love, my heart opens to others. I understood that love is communion with God and with others. And that without this communion the world is nothing but sadness, ruin, destruction, massacre. If only the world wanted to live in this love, it would know eternal life”.

This is his theological experience of prayer. The whole of Father Stăniloae’s work is, indirectly, a liturgy of the mind and of the heart, a theology of prayer and of communion with God.

(DANIEL, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, “Father Stăniloae, man and theologian of prayer. Testimony of a disciple”, in Father Dumitru Stăniloae in the consciousness of the contemporaries. Mărturii, evocări, amintiri, Trinitas Publishing House, Iași, 2003, pp. 25-38).