Petre Țuțea – “I carried ideas and faith like the wind carries germs”

An economist, publicist, essayist and philosopher, Petre Țuțea is considered the most important figure in the movement. Cioran described Țuțea as “the genius par excellence”, but he attributed to himself only the quality of being a peasant, the peasant embodying the absolute man.

An authentic Socrates from the Dambov region, Țuțea realised in the second part of his life that he had to get rid of philosophy, of the “lice of metaphysics”, of the logic of this world, because the intellect is given to man not to know the truth, but to receive it.

On 3 December 1991, after four decades of communist persecution, Petre Țuțea was to die in a ward of the “Cristiana” hospital in Bucharest. Surrounded by journalists, the great philosopher answered their questions lucidly. “Professor, should we write a history of the communist prisons where you were mocked?” the reporter asked. “No, for the honour of the Romanian people. If I say that I was beaten, I will tarnish the glory of the Romanian people. I don’t want to humiliate the Romanian people by mourning myself”. Asked further about the future of the Romanian people, Petre Țuțea replies: “I believe in its future, that’s why it has suffered. Look, if you were to put me up against a wall for the Romanian people, I would cry out: ‘Excelsior'”.

This is how the man who was called the provincial Socrates ended his life: talking, throwing slogans everywhere, considering himself, in his own words, “a priest” who has no parish “but confesses wherever he can”.

A life of turmoil

Petre Țuțea was born on 6 October 1902 in the village of Boteni, Muscel, into the family of a priest. He studied at the “Neagoe Basarab” high school in Câmpulung-Muscel and at the “George Barițiu” high school in Cluj. He will then study at the Faculty of Law at the University of Cluj, but also at the Humboldt University in Berlin. At the end of his studies, he obtained a doctorate in administrative law.

From 1930, he collaborated with various nationalist publications, in particular the newspaper “Cuvântul”, edited by the philosopher Nae Ionescu. Here he will have colleagues such as Constantin Noica, Mircea Eliade, Mircea Vulcănescu, Radu Gyr and others, together contributing to the intellectual effervescence of the time.

After 1940 and until the establishment of the communist regime, he held the positions of Head of Service and then Director in the Ministry of National Economy.

After the arrival of the communists, Petre Țuțea was arrested and sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment, which he served between 1948-1953 and 1956-1964 in various prisons, such as Jilava, Ocnele Mari and, above all, Aiud. Remembering those moments, he tells the story: “Thirteen years in prison… I only had a prisoner’s overcoat. They gave us lukewarm juice and fried porridge. They beat me… They arrested me at home. I don’t even remember the year… When they interrogated me, I fainted from the beating. I can’t tell you everything I suffered because I can’t offend the Romanian people by telling them that such atrocities happened in their midst.”

Released from prison in poor health, he continued to be persecuted by the Communists, who raided his home on several occasions and confiscated his writings, such as the “Treatise on Christian Anthropology” and copies of the “Prometheus” project. Because of this persecution he did not publish much before 1989, but after the collapse of the communist regime his writings began to be more widely read and interviews with him were broadcast throughout the media.

At peace with God, his people and himself, Petre Țuțea died on 3 December 1991, saying that if he could go back in time he would change nothing, that he would want his life to be “exactly as it was”.

Without God, you cannot know the meaning of human existence

Like his good friend Emil Cioran, Petre Țuțea was born into a family of priests, which did not lead him to think about God or the Christian faith in the early years of his life. His mind was occupied with the various currents of political opinion, philosophical registers, rational abstractions, and not with the Christian faith, which, as he would later say, “is embodied in the little girl standing before the icon of the Mother of God”.

Like many others, the philosopher would meet God in prison. It was here that he recognised God’s care and spent time with Him. He realised that “without God’s help, I cannot know who I am, what the world is, whether it makes sense or not, whether I am useful or not”. The abundance of personalities and people with holy lives that Țuțea encounters in communist prisons makes him wonder how it is possible to endure so much suffering and who can stop it. “When I saw in prison that the whole regime applied to me was ineffective – could I, as a human being, explain that? And then I thought that there is a supercosmic, transcendent power called God. Only He could have done the trick so that I could escape from the chains. Because I personally can’t break the chains and free myself. And to live there, in prison, without His help, is not possible; people have died… Then was born in me the boundless faith in the divine omnipotence and omniscience”.

“Without God, man remains a poor, rational, talking animal”.

With this revelation, Țuțea would dedicate his life to God and the Church. Only here, in the bosom of the Church, can you say that you exist: “In the Church you are compared to God, because you express His image and His likeness. If the Church disappeared from history, history would have no people. Man would also disappear”. Only the Christian can survive in this world and transform it in his own image, to be as it came from the hand of God, “very good”. According to Țuțea, the Christian is the only one who can “bring the absolute down to the everyday level”.

In the last years of his life, the great thinker wrote a Christian anthropology in six chapters. Throughout, he stressed that “without God, man remains a poor, rational, talking animal, coming from nowhere and going nowhere”. But with God, man is not a stranger to himself, he is not alone. Through prayer, man can come into contact with God and know who he is: “From a Christian point of view, prayer shows us that humility exalts, not humiliates.

Man’s realisation that he can do nothing without God leads him to humility in order to bring God closer to him: “Humble yourself daily, so that God may enter into the emptiness that remains in you”.

“God knows what a Socrates I am!”

Petre Țuțea was considered by all the intellectuals of his time to be a true Socrates of our country, because of his gift for speaking, for asking questions and always raising new ones. He knew how to charm his audience, even though he was not a professor and did not give lectures. In this regard, it is worth recalling the testimony of a prison guard who, when asked by the prison authorities what he understood from what Țuțea was saying, replied: “I don’t understand anything, but it’s a great thing!”

Like Socrates, he knows how to speak and to arouse the interest of the “public” with his ideas. It’s as if he were an image. He himself confesses: “I have carried ideas and faith as the wind carries germs”. He loved philosophy and syllogisms: “after all, philosophy also has access to the truth”, he recognises the superiority of faith. Thought is only a trap on the way to divine knowledge, true knowledge: “If man is not favoured by divinity, he knows nothing. If he is a mere seeker of truth, he seeks without seeking and knows without knowing”.

(Mihai Grobnicu – Lumina Newspaper)