Memories of Sandu Tudor from the time of the impetuousness and impulsiveness of the new convert to Orthodoxy
The third room of the seminary had been given by Prof. Gusti to the “University Students’ Office”, founded in 1927 on his initiative. It was run by Sandu Tudor, who was also very competent, as can be seen from the Student’s Guide that he wrote and printed that year, containing a rich and still useful documentation, to which Mircea Vulcănescu added, in an appendix, a small treatise on “intellectual work”, i.e. the initiation of young students in the craft of bibliographical information, reading, note-taking and writing. […]
Sandu Tudor was an odd character: An “orthodox” militant, a poet (of good quality). He was a naval officer who had made a pilgrimage to Mount Athos, from which he had returned full of faith, so I used to call him, ironically, “a lieutenant in the navy of Christ”. When he read an article of mine, published in 1938 in a small provincial magazine, Milcovul, under the title A Duty of Vrancea region, he thought he could guide me in the ways of Orthodoxy. In fact, I had asked for a “cross” on the abandoned tomb of Pope Serban, that is, of someone who symbolised the social struggle for freedom in Vrance and whose memory I thought it would be good to revive. I therefore asked that the tomb of this leader should not be abandoned, but should be honoured according to local tradition. This was subsequently done by some of the locals, who forgot to invite me to the act of gratitude owed to this great man whom I had challenged. But Sandu Tudor, seeing that I was talking about putting up a “cross”, thought it was time to catechise me. When I showed some reluctance to be penetrated by his preaching, Sandu Tudor became violent and said that he would have no more power of persuasion over me than a “holy beating”. It was indeed one of his current arguments. I remember how, at the seminary, after a heated discussion with Mircea Vulcănescu, he asked him to come out into the corridor so that they could decide who was right by the means of a beating.
Sandu Tudor was always full of ideas and impetuous initiatives. When he was editing his (short-lived) magazine Floarea de foc, he asked me to write some articles and published my article on George Popovici, whose manuscripts I had just read.
(Henri H. Stahl – Memories and Thoughts of the Old School of “Sociological Monographs”, Minerva Publishing House, Bucharest, 1981, pp. 181-182)