Sandu Tudor

[5] After moving back to Bucharest, Tudor headed the Welfare department of the Association of Christian Students,[1] publishing his first poetry collection, Comornic ("Cellar", or "Cellar-Keeper"), in 1925.

[18] With Vulcănescu and Gheorghe Racoveanu, Tudor wrote the polemical tract Infailibilitatea Bisericii și failibilitatea sinodală ("Church Infallibility and Synodal Fallibility"), published on the front pages of Nae Ionescu's daily, Cuvântul (January 22, 1929).

[2] Sterian, who announced that, thanks in part to Tudor, Romanian poetry had entered its age of "religious glory",[28] was directly inspired to write his own Akathist to the Venerable Mother Parascheva the New.

With fellow writer Ilarie Voronca and artist M. H. Maxy, he supported the Vilna actors and their mentor, Yankev Shternberg, for having broken up with old-school drama, even when their "lugubrious" productions had scandalized the Romanian public.

[33] Tudor's own journalistic venture was the political and literary magazine Floarea de Foc ("Fire Flower"), published sporadically (1932, 1933, 1936), and having for collaborators some of the leading Trăirists, modernists or political radicals: Eliade, Manoliu, Sterian, Emil Cioran, Eugène Ionesco, Arșavir Acterian, Haig Acterian, Dan Botta, Ovidiu Papadima, Camil Petrescu, Henri H. Stahl, Horia Stamatu, and Octav Șuluțiu.

[30] Another controversial aspect is Floarea de Foc's opposition to the established school of cultural criticism: a Manoliu essay (called "ridiculous" by Sorohan) posthumously attacked literary theorist Titu Maiorescu as a manipulator of the reading public.

[30] Maiorescu's modernist disciple, Eugen Lovinescu, was also scolded by Floarea de Foc, in what Sorohan calls a "disgusting" piece, written by one whose name "is forever buried in the pages of that magazine".

[35] Eliade claims that he himself only agreed to work with Tudor after the latter insisted; he published his subsequent articles under a pseudonym, Ion Plăeșu, explaining that he was thus bypassing the exclusivity rights of Ionescu's Cuvântul.

[11] Cartoonist Neagu Rădulescu, who joined the group at this time, recalls that Tudor, striking the figure of a "Church martyr", was a literary sponsor of the "writing republic".

Enlisted in 1932 with the more moderate National Agrarian Party,[39] Tudor criticized the Trăirists' sympathy for radical solutions, either fascist or communist, defending Romania's young democracy.

According to cultural historian Zigu Ornea, who wrote an overview of Trăirism (published 1995), Tudor's other publication remained an "ideologically unaffiliated" magazine, and as such open to all sorts of political opinions.

[48] For Paul Costin Deleanu, the Orthodoxist columnist at Floarea de Foc, the legacy of Romanian liberalism was suspect, and Orthodox Romania existed outside the Western world.

Credința seized on an opportunity for scandal, accusing several Criterion people (Comarnescu, Vulcănescu, Alexandru Christian Tell, and dancer Gabriel Negri) of promoting "pederasty".

Researcher Ruxandra Cesereanu describes Tudor's allegations as a diversion: "The scandal had erupted for political and cultural reasons, and reflected a series of backstage arrangements that had exploded in dishonorable manner.

[21] In his entry for November 27, 1935, Sebastian concludes: "I am waiting for the day when [Criterion members] make their peace with Sandu Tudor [...] and discover that the Jews are alone responsible for the quarrel—especially myself, who has aroused discord among the Christian fraternity.

Ornea, who writes that Credința only published the verdict with much reluctance and discretion ("somewhere deep in the pages of one issue"), concludes that the scandal was a decisive blow for Criterion, causing Eliade's club to dissolve itself.

[64] Although situated to the left, Credința and Floarea de Foc were largely anti-communistic, and Tudor's own news digests took a highly critical view of the Soviet Union.

[4] However, according to files kept by the Siguranța Statului police force, Tudor still intended to collaborate with communist agent Scarlat Callimachi on the anti-fascist review Munca ("The Labor").

[69] He was soon joined in Bukovina by other figures of the Orthodoxist revival: Fathers Benedict Ghiuș and Nicolae M. Popescu, philosophers Noica and Anton Dumitriu, journalist colleagues Manoliu, Mironescu and Sterian.

[81] However, according to religious anthropologist Radu Drăgan, hesychasm itself is a "prudent" form of Esoteric Christianity, and Tudor's movement a Gnostic revival "in the bosom of Orthodox spirituality", "the only one of its kind.

[86] In his other briefs, Kulygin protests against being branded a "counter-revolutionary" under Soviet law, writing that his captors "understand nothing of things spiritual in nature", warning his disciples that they should hide all written records of their conversations.

[92] According to his visitors at Rarău, Daniil was living an exemplary austere life, but was prioritizing the internal prayer over all exterior ritual, and would spend half a working day submerged in meditation.

In his memoirs, Pandrea claims that Scrima and "the ex-sailor" Tudor were together responsible for slandering the anti-communist and religiously innovative nuns of Vladimirești, eventually rounded up by the Securitate with the tacit approval of Orthodox prelates.

They recovered Tudor's Credința columns, which, they claimed, read as "intense anti-communist propaganda, slandering and defiling the Soviet Union and eulogizing the capitalist order.

[2][3] Burning Pyre inmate Roman Braga attesteded that: "Father Daniil died in the Aiud Hole following four months of tortures and beatings, one of the few prisoners to have worn shackles throughout their detention".

[3] The hieromonk's body is said to have been dumped at the nearby Trei Plopi burial site, an iron spike driven through his heart by prison guards who meant to certify Tudor's death.

[3] In keeping with his renunciation of earthly possessions, Tudor left behind only a handful of personal belongings: a fufaika jacket, a pair of sandals, a brown shirt and a beret.

[3] In December 2006, speaking before Parliament and outlining his resolution to condemn communism, President Traian Băsescu paid homage to Sandu Tudor as a "martyr of the Church".

Published shortly after the Duca assassination, Eliade's novel Întoarcerea din rai ("Return from Paradise") constructed the character Eleazar by fusing together Comarnescu's "words" and Tudor's "ticks".

Historian Cristian Vasile nuances this verdict, suggesting that Anania was "embittered" by his political background: Sandu Tudor was no Guardsman, not even a Guard sympathizer; in the 1930s he was rather the leftist, criticizing the far right.

Alexandru Bassarab 's Nașterea ("Birth"), engraving inspired by the Iron Guard version of Orthodoxism. The Archangel Michael watching over the crib of future Guard leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
Antim Monastery . The living quarters
Church of the Nativity, part of the Sihăstria Monastery complex