For Archbishop Bartholomew Ananias generosity was a non-negotiable trait, being part of a code of spiritual elegance

It is not the purpose of this text to praise the personality of the Archbishop of Cluj, founder of the Romanian Bible and of countless literary works. I leave the light and dark contours of Archbishop Bartholomew Ananias’ biography to the historians who will write about the fate of the Orthodox Church in the last century. My undiminished memory of him is interwoven with an undiminished respect and gratitude for a representative of the high clergy who knew how to be a man first and then a bishop. Did not Blessed Augustine, when he spoke of his episcopate, say: “I am a bishop of yours but I am a Christian among you”?

Thanks to my publications in the theological and eparchial magazines of the Archdiocese of Cluj, I had the joy of getting to know Archbishop Bartholomew in a completely different light from that in which he was presented by those who praised his personality, as well as by those who publicly reviled him. He remains in the memory of those who knew him closely as a herald who opened the doors of his office wide to young people, as one of the promoters of theological renewal of a patristic nature, and as a formidable interlocutor capable of seducing his dialogue partner with his skilful words and disarming presence of mind.

For my part, he always made a point of meeting me face to face, even though I was neither a diocesan councillor, nor a priest, nor a monk, nor a political potentate, but simply a student of theology. The first question after greeting each other was how I was, what I was studying, what I was writing, whether I had what I needed to live, whether he could do anything to help me with my studies at that time.

In the autumn of 2006 I had one last meeting with Archbishop Bartholomew before I left on a scholarship to the Evangelical Theological Institute in Sibiu to learn German. After our meeting I got up to leave to catch the bus to the Institute in Sibiu. Archbishop Bartholomew stood up, reached for his wallet and asked me if I had money for the trip or if I had any material needs, which I did not hesitate to tell him. I looked at him in astonishment, trying to understand if the hierarch’s statement was one of polite completeness; later I understood from others who knew him better than I that this the way he was, that for Archbishop Bartholomew Ananias generosity was a non-negotiable trait, being part of a code of spiritual elegance from which he never deviated.

(Ionuț-Florin Biliuță – The Point. On the world we live in. Article “Why I choose to remain an Orthodox Christian” published on 2 April 2015)