The great Romanian theologian of the 20th century now has a museum in the heart of Bucharest, near kilometre zero.
The museum dedicated to Father Staniloae was set up by the Old St
George Parish and is located on the ground floor of the parish house in
the courtyard.
Parish Priest Sorin Tancău explained to Basilica.ro where the idea
for the project came from and presented some important aspects regarding
the usefulness of the museum.
“The initiative to organize a parish museum started from the fact
that the famous theologian lived for a long time in that space with his
wife and daughter, Lydia, starting in 1947.”
Father Tancău emphasized that “the warm and friendly museum space,
which brings to the fore the luminous face of the theologian appreciated
throughout the Orthodox world, was made out of gratitude for the Father’s missionary activity.”
“As for when the museum will be inaugurated, this will take place immediately after Romanian
society will overcome the pandemic period, and it aims to host various book
launches, theological discussions, courses and seminars for students,
media programs which evoke the theological personality of Father Dumitru
Staniloae, but we also look for the visits of pilgrims,” said Fr. Tancău.
Currently, the parish is working on a virtual tour in images, as well
as a short film, in several languages of international circulation, for
the purpose of a presentation for visitors.
The Museum project
The arrangement for the museum began in the spring of 2019, at the
expense of the parish, but with the support of a team of volunteers who
began to transform the rooms, “into a place suitable for honoring the
memory of the great theologian.”
The archive images in which Father Dumitru Staniloae is presented
were a source of inspiration for the organization of the museum.
The first room is arranged as we find Father Dumitru Staniloae in
most photos, in an interior with Romanian specifics, with a wall of wool
woven during the war, surrounded by many traditional icons painted on
glass, typically Transylvanian, to help the visitor remember the saying
of the Father, that “nowhere is the sky bluer than in Vladeni,” his
birthplace.
The second room of the museum was designed as “a cultural space where
one can admire original manuscripts of Father Staniloae, donated by Mr
Costion Nicolescu, along with the icon dear to the Father – the Holy
Trinity and the two great holy theologians he translated and interpreted
as a patristic's scholar: Saint Maximos the Confessor and Saint Gregory Palamas.”
“Also there are countless photos of the Father with his family, students, the community of Rohia Monastery, with illustrious friends of
the Father such as Nichifor Crainic and Father Arsenie Boca, but also
from personal events such as the award of the title of Doctor Honoris
Causa of the University of Bucharest,” said Father Sorin.
“All these immortalized moments are completed by the theological work
of the famous Orthodox dogmatist and confessor, printed in different
editions, as well as dedicated philatelic issues, medals commemorating
the Centenary of his birth and the Congress organized 110 years after
the professor’s birth.”
Father Dumitru Staniloae
Father Dumitru Staniloae was born on November 16, 1903, in Vlădeni, Brașov County.
His theological work shows him as one of the most important Christian
thinkers in the world, a Father of twentieth-century Orthodoxy. Father
John Meyendorff said of him that “he is the greatest Orthodox theologian
in the whole world of the last century.”
