Elder Daniil Sandu Tudor
MYSTAGOGY
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Yesterday we commemorated 48 years since the death of Father Daniil Sandu Tudor.
Alexandru Teodorescu was born on December 22, 1896, in a family of lawyers.
After he started working as a journalist he chose the pseudonym Sandu Tudor; afterwards he became monk Agaton and then schema monk Daniil (Daniel).
He participated in WW1 and later studied Theology, Philosophy, and Arts, but without obtaining a degree. He was an airplane test pilot, teacher, poet, journalist. In 1929, after reading an article by a French female journalist who had claimed she visited Mount Athos, he decided to visit it himself and then write a tabloid article about it.
Father Roman Braga later remembers him saying how, on Mount Athos, he started making metanias (prostrations) to pass as a simple pilgrim, but something inside him mysteriously transformed step by step. Instead of a few days, he spent eight months on the Holy Mountain.
He returned to Romania and published his own newspaper. He was imprisoned in 1942 for his left sided political views and set free in 1944. After a plane accident from which he miraculously survived he sold all his possessions and decided to become a monk. He was received as a brother in Antim Monastery in Bucharest in 1945. There he started a group called "Rugul Aprins" (The Burning Bush). It was a study group which held conferences and practiced the Prayer of the Heart. Because of this he was imprisoned by the communists for three years. In 1952 he was released and he became a hieromonk and then hiero-schema monk. He retired to Rarau Skete in the Carpathians.
He was arrested again in 1958 and sentenced to 25 years of jail for "plotting against social order by publicly reading and commenting on writings of the enemy to the regime". Those writings were actually the writings of the Church Fathers.
We don't know how Father Daniil actually died. He was last seen in 1960, seriously ill in Aiud prison. His death certificate says Father Daniil died on November 17, 1962, because of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Father Roman Braga, who was also a member of Rugul Aprins, declared that "Father Daniil died in Zarca (a prison building with extreme conditions) from Aiud after four years of tortures and beatings, being one of the few inmates who wore chains for the whole duration of the sentence."
I also want to post the following story:
Father Augustin from Aiud Monastery gives us an important testimony about the holiness of the one who could be called the Righteous Daniil the Confessor:
"One winter, Father Daniil was put in a cell called The White or The Fridge, as it was also called, at a temperature of -30º Celsius (-22 ºF). It was a windowless cell, with feces and urine everywhere, because there they put those that were meant to die - practically they were sentenced to death because of the cold. They had few clothes and they where kept there with very, very little food before entering the cell, as well as after they where in that cell.
"And the elder was put there together with a medic, a very good friend of his. After they were both put in the cell by three guards, Father Daniil immediately jumped on his belly, with his arms spread in the sign of the Cross, with his face in all those dirty things, and told the doctor: 'Sit on me!' The doctor sat with his back on the back of the Elder in the same position of the Holy Cross. Then the Elder told him: 'Doctor, don't say anything more than: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.'
"And the doctor later said that when Father Daniil started praying, a blinding light entered the cell and from that moment he lost the notion of time.
"After a while, a few guards entered the cell, picked them up and then they found out they survived in there for 8 days without water, without food, without sleep or anything to wear, at -30° Celsius.
"When the torturers entered the cell and touched Father Daniil, he was hotter than when they had brought him to the cell, and everything around him had melted."
(Fragment from Rafael Udrişte's documentary, TVR, October 11, 2008).
Alexandru Teodorescu was born on December 22, 1896, in a family of lawyers.
After he started working as a journalist he chose the pseudonym Sandu Tudor; afterwards he became monk Agaton and then schema monk Daniil (Daniel).
He participated in WW1 and later studied Theology, Philosophy, and Arts, but without obtaining a degree. He was an airplane test pilot, teacher, poet, journalist. In 1929, after reading an article by a French female journalist who had claimed she visited Mount Athos, he decided to visit it himself and then write a tabloid article about it.
Father Roman Braga later remembers him saying how, on Mount Athos, he started making metanias (prostrations) to pass as a simple pilgrim, but something inside him mysteriously transformed step by step. Instead of a few days, he spent eight months on the Holy Mountain.
He returned to Romania and published his own newspaper. He was imprisoned in 1942 for his left sided political views and set free in 1944. After a plane accident from which he miraculously survived he sold all his possessions and decided to become a monk. He was received as a brother in Antim Monastery in Bucharest in 1945. There he started a group called "Rugul Aprins" (The Burning Bush). It was a study group which held conferences and practiced the Prayer of the Heart. Because of this he was imprisoned by the communists for three years. In 1952 he was released and he became a hieromonk and then hiero-schema monk. He retired to Rarau Skete in the Carpathians.
He was arrested again in 1958 and sentenced to 25 years of jail for "plotting against social order by publicly reading and commenting on writings of the enemy to the regime". Those writings were actually the writings of the Church Fathers.
We don't know how Father Daniil actually died. He was last seen in 1960, seriously ill in Aiud prison. His death certificate says Father Daniil died on November 17, 1962, because of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Father Roman Braga, who was also a member of Rugul Aprins, declared that "Father Daniil died in Zarca (a prison building with extreme conditions) from Aiud after four years of tortures and beatings, being one of the few inmates who wore chains for the whole duration of the sentence."
I also want to post the following story:
Father Augustin from Aiud Monastery gives us an important testimony about the holiness of the one who could be called the Righteous Daniil the Confessor:
"One winter, Father Daniil was put in a cell called The White or The Fridge, as it was also called, at a temperature of -30º Celsius (-22 ºF). It was a windowless cell, with feces and urine everywhere, because there they put those that were meant to die - practically they were sentenced to death because of the cold. They had few clothes and they where kept there with very, very little food before entering the cell, as well as after they where in that cell.
"And the elder was put there together with a medic, a very good friend of his. After they were both put in the cell by three guards, Father Daniil immediately jumped on his belly, with his arms spread in the sign of the Cross, with his face in all those dirty things, and told the doctor: 'Sit on me!' The doctor sat with his back on the back of the Elder in the same position of the Holy Cross. Then the Elder told him: 'Doctor, don't say anything more than: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.'
"And the doctor later said that when Father Daniil started praying, a blinding light entered the cell and from that moment he lost the notion of time.
"After a while, a few guards entered the cell, picked them up and then they found out they survived in there for 8 days without water, without food, without sleep or anything to wear, at -30° Celsius.
"When the torturers entered the cell and touched Father Daniil, he was hotter than when they had brought him to the cell, and everything around him had melted."
(Fragment from Rafael Udrişte's documentary, TVR, October 11, 2008).
Source: This was translated and abridged from: Razbointrucuvant and Razbointrucuvant by Marius Nitu.
3 New Confessors of the Romanian Orthodox Church
Father Hilarion the Confessor
He was born on March 21, 1903, in a village in Hunedoara county in Romania. His father was a priest. In 1926 he graduated from the Faculty of Theology of Sibiu. On July 29, 1927 he was ordained priest. On October 30, 1939 he submitted his doctoral thesis, titled Repentance: Theological and Psychological Approach. He had also written the book Towards Tabor, which is, according to Elder Justin Pirvou the best work to date about Romanian Orthodoxy and a perfect interpretation of the Philokalia. Speaking about the exalted spirituality of Father Hilarion, the greatest Romanian Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century, Father Dumitru Staniloae said: "Father Hilarion has surpassed me." He was professor of the Theological School of Arad from 1938 until 1948. On September 25, 1958 he was imprisoned and sentenced, along with six other priests from Arad, for a 20 year sentence. He was detained in Gerla and then Aiount, where he died on September 18, 1961. He was buried without a cross, in a grave that is unknown, along with other witnesses of the Romanian nation in Aiount.
Abbot Daniel Tudor
He was born on December 22, 1896 in Bucharest. After the First World War he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. In the year 1929 he traveled to Mount Athos, where he lived for eight months. God saved him often from a violent death. Once, flying his own plane, he was saved from death, saying the noetic prayer. While the airplane was destroyed, he did not suffer anything.
After the Second World War, returning to his house, he learned that his wife had left him. He then decided to become a monk. He sold all his belongings, renewed the Antim Monastery in Bucharest, and became a monk there. From the year 1945, the monastery gathered around it a group of scholars, which was trying to regain, based on the Bible and the Holy Fathers of Orthodox Christianity, true spirituality, having as a center of their efforts the noetic prayer. They were called The Burning Bush. Later he went to the Sychastria Monastery where Elder Cleopas made him a hermit and later abbot of the Skete Raraou. One day in June 1958, he greeted the brothers and went to Bucharest, having been informed by God that he will re-enter prison, where he will die, confessing Christ. The principal of guilt, as confessed by a court magistrate, was that he wanted to burn Communism with The Burning Bush.
One day in winter, they put him together with a friend in a storehouse - the White or the Refrigerator - where it was minus 30 degrees. The storehouse had no windows, but a very dirty floor. People who were put in there would die of cold after no more than three days. Father Daniel lay down immediately with his face in the dirt and with open arms, and told the friend: "Sit on me back to back with open arms and say only this, 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!'" Immediately as they started to say this, the storehouse was filled by a very brilliant light, and thereafter they did not know what happened next. After eight days (without the two prisoners receiving any water or food, sleep or clothes), the guards came to take their carcasses, but they were alive and fine. When they touched Father Daniel he was hot, and what was around him had melted.
In prison he was one of the few who wore leg chains during his time of incarceration. He died after four years of suffering in Aiount on November 17, 1962. We do not know exactly where his holy body is to be found.
Valeriu Gafencu
Valeriu was born on January 24, 1921 in Vasaravia. In the autumn of 1941 he was imprisoned and sentenced to 25 years of prison. He was then a second year student of the Law and Philosophy School of Iasi. Becoming ill with TB, he was sent in December 1949 to Tirgou-Okna. There, with no medical care, he survived another two years. With many physical wounds, they would continuously discharge pus. Valeriu awaited his death with a serenity which softened the hearts of his guards and tormentors. He was a man of noetic prayer. He was made worthy by God to know the day of his death. He asked to be buried with one cross in his mouth, and another in the right hand so as to be recognized if perchance his bodied was found. He departed to heaven, this "saint of prisons" (as other inmates have called him) on 18 February 1952 and thrown in a common, as of yet unknown, tomb. Read more about him here, here and here.
He was born on March 21, 1903, in a village in Hunedoara county in Romania. His father was a priest. In 1926 he graduated from the Faculty of Theology of Sibiu. On July 29, 1927 he was ordained priest. On October 30, 1939 he submitted his doctoral thesis, titled Repentance: Theological and Psychological Approach. He had also written the book Towards Tabor, which is, according to Elder Justin Pirvou the best work to date about Romanian Orthodoxy and a perfect interpretation of the Philokalia. Speaking about the exalted spirituality of Father Hilarion, the greatest Romanian Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century, Father Dumitru Staniloae said: "Father Hilarion has surpassed me." He was professor of the Theological School of Arad from 1938 until 1948. On September 25, 1958 he was imprisoned and sentenced, along with six other priests from Arad, for a 20 year sentence. He was detained in Gerla and then Aiount, where he died on September 18, 1961. He was buried without a cross, in a grave that is unknown, along with other witnesses of the Romanian nation in Aiount.
Abbot Daniel Tudor
He was born on December 22, 1896 in Bucharest. After the First World War he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. In the year 1929 he traveled to Mount Athos, where he lived for eight months. God saved him often from a violent death. Once, flying his own plane, he was saved from death, saying the noetic prayer. While the airplane was destroyed, he did not suffer anything.
After the Second World War, returning to his house, he learned that his wife had left him. He then decided to become a monk. He sold all his belongings, renewed the Antim Monastery in Bucharest, and became a monk there. From the year 1945, the monastery gathered around it a group of scholars, which was trying to regain, based on the Bible and the Holy Fathers of Orthodox Christianity, true spirituality, having as a center of their efforts the noetic prayer. They were called The Burning Bush. Later he went to the Sychastria Monastery where Elder Cleopas made him a hermit and later abbot of the Skete Raraou. One day in June 1958, he greeted the brothers and went to Bucharest, having been informed by God that he will re-enter prison, where he will die, confessing Christ. The principal of guilt, as confessed by a court magistrate, was that he wanted to burn Communism with The Burning Bush.
One day in winter, they put him together with a friend in a storehouse - the White or the Refrigerator - where it was minus 30 degrees. The storehouse had no windows, but a very dirty floor. People who were put in there would die of cold after no more than three days. Father Daniel lay down immediately with his face in the dirt and with open arms, and told the friend: "Sit on me back to back with open arms and say only this, 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!'" Immediately as they started to say this, the storehouse was filled by a very brilliant light, and thereafter they did not know what happened next. After eight days (without the two prisoners receiving any water or food, sleep or clothes), the guards came to take their carcasses, but they were alive and fine. When they touched Father Daniel he was hot, and what was around him had melted.
In prison he was one of the few who wore leg chains during his time of incarceration. He died after four years of suffering in Aiount on November 17, 1962. We do not know exactly where his holy body is to be found.
Valeriu Gafencu
Valeriu was born on January 24, 1921 in Vasaravia. In the autumn of 1941 he was imprisoned and sentenced to 25 years of prison. He was then a second year student of the Law and Philosophy School of Iasi. Becoming ill with TB, he was sent in December 1949 to Tirgou-Okna. There, with no medical care, he survived another two years. With many physical wounds, they would continuously discharge pus. Valeriu awaited his death with a serenity which softened the hearts of his guards and tormentors. He was a man of noetic prayer. He was made worthy by God to know the day of his death. He asked to be buried with one cross in his mouth, and another in the right hand so as to be recognized if perchance his bodied was found. He departed to heaven, this "saint of prisons" (as other inmates have called him) on 18 February 1952 and thrown in a common, as of yet unknown, tomb. Read more about him here, here and here.
Last photo of GafenkuApolytikion in Plagal of the First
Flowers of Romania, planted by God, children of the Church true and faithful, let us exalt, O faithful, as martyrs of Christ; for they competed brilliantly, confessing Christ before the atheists, and were worthily crowned, in His glorious kingdom.
A Prayer to the Lord to Find the Relics of the Holy New Confessors and Martyrs
Lord, our God, who guarded the three children and Daniel in the furnace of fire, who strengthened the Confessors of the last persecution to give a good witness before their persecutors, hear our little prayer. Plant, O Christ our God, their sacrifice as a seed in the land of our hearts. May this seed bring forth good fruits, to become for us a good start to our salvation and give us the courage of confession of the truth before those who blaspheme it.
Yes, Lord, may their example never be forgotten, but with it may the sons of the Orthodox Church be raised. May their virtues and sacrifice awake us out of indolence and carelessness. May we accept this admonition for our correction.
Once St. Mary Magdalene asked for your body saying to the Gardener: "Lord, tell me where you've put it and I'll get it." And so we kneel before You, praying in the hope that You will forgive us our boldness, and to listen to this prayer: "Lord, show us the location of the holy relics of Your Confessors, so that in finding them we will honor them with reverence."
And if, because of our sins, we are not worthy to venerate them, Lord, please, with a humble heart, do not leave the holy relics of Your servants to remain in limbo, but bring them to light, to confer upon them the proper honor and glory.
So that embracing them with reverence, we can enjoy to honor them in Your Church, as they deserve, along with all Your martyrs. And along with them to give You glory, honor and worship, God glorified in Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.
John Ianolide, Dramatic Incidents of the Romanian Prisoners, Confessors and Martyrs of the 20th Century, Orthodox Kypseli Publications, Thessaloniki 2009 (Greek).
Source. Translated by John Sanidopoulos
The anti-Human Flowers of Romania, planted by God, children of the Church true and faithful, let us exalt, O faithful, as martyrs of Christ; for they competed brilliantly, confessing Christ before the atheists, and were worthily crowned, in His glorious kingdom.
A Prayer to the Lord to Find the Relics of the Holy New Confessors and Martyrs
Lord, our God, who guarded the three children and Daniel in the furnace of fire, who strengthened the Confessors of the last persecution to give a good witness before their persecutors, hear our little prayer. Plant, O Christ our God, their sacrifice as a seed in the land of our hearts. May this seed bring forth good fruits, to become for us a good start to our salvation and give us the courage of confession of the truth before those who blaspheme it.
Yes, Lord, may their example never be forgotten, but with it may the sons of the Orthodox Church be raised. May their virtues and sacrifice awake us out of indolence and carelessness. May we accept this admonition for our correction.
Once St. Mary Magdalene asked for your body saying to the Gardener: "Lord, tell me where you've put it and I'll get it." And so we kneel before You, praying in the hope that You will forgive us our boldness, and to listen to this prayer: "Lord, show us the location of the holy relics of Your Confessors, so that in finding them we will honor them with reverence."
And if, because of our sins, we are not worthy to venerate them, Lord, please, with a humble heart, do not leave the holy relics of Your servants to remain in limbo, but bring them to light, to confer upon them the proper honor and glory.
So that embracing them with reverence, we can enjoy to honor them in Your Church, as they deserve, along with all Your martyrs. And along with them to give You glory, honor and worship, God glorified in Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.
John Ianolide, Dramatic Incidents of the Romanian Prisoners, Confessors and Martyrs of the 20th Century, Orthodox Kypseli Publications, Thessaloniki 2009 (Greek).
Source. Translated by John Sanidopoulos
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Constantine Oprisan (1958), the Philosopher and Martyr New Martyrs (tag)
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