The arrest and sentencing of Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae
Like the majority of the Romanian elite, Dumitru Stăniloae had experience of prison, spending time in Jilava and Aiud prisons between 1959 and 1963. His arrest and conviction are closely linked to the actions of the Securitate in the late 1950s, which aimed to destroy the last potential centres of resistance to communism.
After the experience of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the withdrawal of the Red Army from Romania, the communist power in Bucharest launched a new wave of persecution to prevent any manifestation of opposition by those who hoped that the departure of Soviet troops would in any way weaken the authority of the single party. The fear of Gheorghe-Dej and those around him made the repression take on monstrous, even absurd, proportions. Former prisoners were “reintegrated” into the camp, and new “recruits” followed. Many of them had been in contact with Securitate in previous years, but it had not been considered necessary to arrest them. Now, however, they were all on their way to prisons or labour colonies. And in the case of many leading intellectuals, the reason was that they represented an authority in their field and could somehow shake up the ‘values’ established by the communist regime.
The Romanian Orthodox Church received special attention from Securitate throughout these years, as it remained the only officially recognised institution that had not been completely infiltrated by the communist system. The Orthodox Church, headed since 1948 by Patriarch Justinian, had officially submitted to the regime and, at least on the level of declarations, helped the communist power to achieve its goals. This collaboration was initially more an expression of Patriarch Justinian’s personal relations with some Communist leaders. The trust that Justinian enjoyed made the interference and infiltration of power in the ecclesiastical structures less manifest than in other areas, since the Patriarch had a certain margin of manoeuvre which he would use to develop, as far as possible under the conditions of the time, the main role of the Church: the spreading of the Word of Christ and the preservation of the religious consciousness of the faithful. To this end, he sought to develop monasticism, one of the main pillars of the Church, and theological teaching, and to ensure that all the people of the Church, priests, monks and nuns, were as well educated as possible so that they would be able to resist anti-religious propaganda. For this reason, Justinian constantly promoted and protected the great names of our theological doctrine, the most illustrious of which was, of course, Dumitru Stăniloae.
Having become a professor at the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest in 1947, separated from the city of Sibiu where he had worked before the war, Dumitru Stăniloae had to start all over again in a rather strange city. Here he forged new links with people he knew little or not at all. A lasting rapprochement was achieved through Benedict Ghius, his assistant at the university, with the “Burning Bush” group led by Sandu Tudor, Stăniloae participated in the meetings of Antim monastery and, after the dissolution of the association, maintained friendly relations with its former members.
After his release from prison in 1955, Sandu Tudor proposed to resume contacts with the former members of the Association in an organised way, in a kind of reading and spiritual reflection centre. The older members were joined by a number of young people who were eager to learn about things other than official materialism. The meetings usually took place when Sandu Tudor (who became Father Daniil) came to Bucharest, either at the homes of Alexandru Mironescu or Constantin Joja, or at Plumbuita monastery. Father Stăniloae also attended these “colloquia” several times between 1955 and 1958.
However, these years were also marked by the Communist authorities’ loss of confidence in Patriarch Justinian, who became increasingly controversial. Alarmed reports from Securitate recorded the development of religious life, the flourishing of monasteries, the increase in the cultural level of the clergy, when on the contrary the authorities’ aim was precisely to eradicate religion from society. Well consolidated, the communist power was determined to no longer tolerate the “freedoms” it had left to the Orthodox Church for tactical reasons. These years also witnessed an explosion of anti-religious and atheist publications in Romania. At the same time as the propaganda campaigns, harsh measures were taken against the main centres of the Church: monasteries and educational institutions. Church personalities were to be removed and stricter control was to be established.
During the campaign, the communist power had two main enemies: Patriarch Justinian and its own legislation. The latter made it clear that the practice of religion was free as long as it did not contradict the state order. More precisely, in security jargon, as long as no hostile manifestations of communist power took place under the “cloak” of religion. Isolated manifestations of resistance did exist, but they in no way justified such a large-scale action as the Securitate had envisaged (documents on the Securitate’s actions in this matter in Cristina Păiușan, Radu Ciuceanu, The Romanian Orthodox Church under the communist regime, Bucharest, 2001, doc. 155, 167, 168, 169). Then, in order to have a reason to intervene, a vast conspiracy, obviously legionary, was invented, the aim of which was to use the Orthodox Church to overthrow the state order. The legend of Securitate’s infiltration of the Orthodox Church with legionnaires unfortunately still has fanatical “admirers” today. It was just a pretext to condemn hundreds and thousands of people more easily and to attack the Church in its most important institutions. Decree 410, which dealt a severe blow to monastic life in our country by removing thousands of monks from their monasteries and arresting hundreds of priests, was all based on this devious “argument”.
It was no different in the case of “Teodorescu Alex. and others”. Under “surveillance” for a long time, most of the former members of the “Burning Bush” association were arrested on the night of 13-14 June 1958, and their case constituted one of the strongest “arguments” against the Legionary conspiracy. The conclusions of the indictment of 26 September 1958 read as follows “After 23 August 1944, in order to conceal their past, some of these legionary elements entered monasteries where they became monks and carried out counter-revolutionary activities.
Taking advantage of the fact that cults are free in the P.R.R. according to the Constitution and other laws regulating them, these devious elements, under the guise of “religious meetings”, carried out an intense legionary activity organised in secret, indoctrinating and training some young people from a legionary point of view, especially among the students of higher education”. It was all a fabrication, the documents relating to the case clearly show that it was not so much a Legionary conspiracy as a handful of people who wanted to manifest their spiritual aspirations at a higher level. However, because of this classification, the members of the group will be severely punished.
Dumitru Stăniloae was not arrested with the majority of the group, but only on 3 September, when the investigation into the others was practically over. His investigation was also the shortest of all, lasting only the day of 4 September. The first interrogation took place between 7.45 a.m. and 11.02 a.m. and focused on his political activities before 1944, with the clear intention of establishing his links with the Legionary Movement. Stăniloae categorically denied that he was a member of the Movement and showed that he had not carried out any political activity before 1944. This fact was well known to the investigators, who did not give up and asked him to show which Legionaries he had dealt with during his time at the Theological Academy in Sibiu. Sibiu was a strong Legionary centre. Spiridon Cândea, Zosim Oancea and Liviu Stan worked there, people to whom Stăniloae was very close and it is impossible to deny that he knew them, but apart from the fact that he knew them, he refused to say more.
The persistent investigators go further, questioning his articles in Telegraful român and Gândirea, the most consistent material against Father Stăniloae, this of course from the perspective of communist logic. Father Stăniloae categorically states that these articles are all of a religious nature, and that the investigators no longer insist on them because these issues are no longer discussed. Either they were in a hurry, or the facts were obvious to them, so it didn’t matter whether the accused admitted it or not. In order to be convicted “with proper papers”, it had to be proved that Dumitru Stăniloae continued his “evil activities” after 23 August 1944, and here the link with the “Burning Bush” group had to be proved. The interrogation that follows, between 10.45 (sic!) and 12.15, is intended to demonstrate Father Stăniloae’s evil activities within the “Burning Bush” group. “Guided” by the investigators, he admits that he knew Sandu Tudor and that he took part in the meetings organised, the last of which took place on 21 May 1958, but that they were only religious discussions, without any political connotation.
The interrogators did not bother to continue with threats and pressure, as they had done with the previous detainees. The greatest pressure was exerted on Alexandru Mironescu and his son Șerban, who confessed to having had discussions at home that were harmful to the regime and to having listened to imperialist radio stations, which was more than enough to convict them. Thus, on the same day, between 12.30-14.15 and 14.15-15.30, Dumitru Stăniloae was confronted by Alexandru and Șerban Mironescu. While after the first confrontation he categorically denied having done so, after the second, Father Stăniloae stated: “I am not aware of the disgraceful discussions that took place there, I only expressed my regret that the democratic regime (does not) have a nationalist base and does not approach religion, which is what I wanted. That was my point of view in those discussions and I never expressed my support for changing the democratic regime in the P.R.R.”.
That was all. On 6 September he was presented with the indictment and then interrogated from 8.30 to 10.30. This is just a recapitulation of what was said earlier. Father Stăniloae “admits” that he collaborated with the magazine “Gândirea” with “nationalist-religious” articles and that he participated in meetings of former members of the “Burning Bush” association, where a series of “unfavourable discussions against the popular democratic regime” took place, with which he “agreed”.
On the basis of these elements, Dumitru Stăniloae is charged with the offence provided for and punishable under Article 209, paragraph 2, letter a of the Criminal Code. B, last paragraph, C.P. (conspiracy against the social order), the indictment pointing out that he carried out intense legionary activity through his contributions to the magazine Gândirea and his participation in the “Burning Bush” meetings. All of this is an obvious compulsion, but one that they wanted to emphasise at all costs. In his prison file, you can see how it was first written under the heading “political affiliation”: APOLITICAL, and then it came back and was written LEGIONARY.
Through sentence 125 of 8 November 1958, Father Stăniloae was sentenced to 5 years of hard labour and 5 years of civic degradation. He was imprisoned in Aiud, transferred to Jilava on 20 October 1960 and again to Aiud in March 1962. From there he was released on 15 January 1963, in accordance with Pardon Decree no. 5/1963, and was reinstated among the teachers of the Theological Institute.
But the question remains: why was Father Stăniloae arrested? Why not in 1958 and not immediately after 1948, if his work was so serious? What is certain is that his fate is very similar to that of another great professor at the Bucharest Theological Institute, Teodor M. Popescu. He too had not been arrested in previous years. Teodor Popescu was also investigated in January 1959, for no clear reason, also as a legionnaire, convicted, and served his sentence in Aiud, being released on 15 January 1963! Moreover, in Stăniloae’s prison file there is an address dated 13 August 1962, in which the D.G.P.C.M. asks the Aiud Commander for a characterisation certificate for each of them: Dumitru Stăniloae and Teodor M. Popescu. These facts lead us to believe that they were arrested in order to get rid of the best teachers of the Institute and indirectly to hit Patriarch Justinian, who protected them. In the case of Stăniloae, the connection with the “Burning Bush” was only a pretext. Both professors were first and foremost scholars, with no significant involvement in political life, for which they apparently had no inclination. Both had nationalist tendencies in the inter-war period, but they dealt with the issue in a purely theoretical way, without being bound to any particular political doctrine. After 1945, they both fulfilled their duties as professors without offending anyone. Moreover, like many others, they had written a few articles critical of the communist regime, while continuing to teach their students, as seriously as possible, the enduring values of the Christian faith. In the hysteria of the late 1950s, both Stăniloae and Popescu were arrested precisely because of their academic authority, which some could use to legitimise their theological attitudes. This is still the case today, with many hiding under the cloak of these two theological giants. Although they were only doing their duty as teachers, they were once considered a potential threat to communist power and were arrested.
Communist investigators reduced the work of the two theologians to an apology for nationalism. Contemporary scholars also limit them to this and to some compromises with Caesar during the communist years. The great works of both, however, transcend the inevitable “falls in time” and are powerful confessions of the power of faith in Christ. To deny this is to stoop to the level of a Securitate criminal investigator of the 1950s.
(George Enache – Rost magazine no. 9, November 2003)