Talk:Dumitru Stăniloae

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The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Dumitru Stăniloae/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

The article about Staniloae has not only numerous orthographic mistakes, but also contains incorrect information in the biography compare for example the date of his arrest with the information on the official site www.dumitrustaniloae.ro!!!

Last edited at 17:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 13:54, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Telegraful roman

I'll try to tackle this issue in the weeks to come. I think it's important and I find it surprising that no mention of this has surfaced so far in wikipedia articles despite the extensive academic literature currently available (in Romanian and in English). Independently from his contribution to Eastern Orthodox theology, Staniloae was a nationalist ideologist, and in the 30s and 40s headed what was one of the most overtly antisemitic church newspapers. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 07:09, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

POV

The article needs to reflect the ongoing controversy. While DS is remembered as an important theologian and (recently as a saint) by the Church he is also known for his aggressive antisemitism and pro-Nazi editorials. The announcement of his canonization was met by the Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania with the following press statement (fragment):

Dumitru Stăniloae (1903-1993) wrote articles in the far-right publications Calendarul and Porunca vremii in which he defended Nazi Germany and the link between Orthodoxy and ethnocracy. He also made important contributions in the pages of the magazine Gândirea where he engaged in far-right debates arguing the link between orthodoxy and nationalism. In addition, he also defended legionionism in the pages of Telegrafului român, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Sibiu. When the Legionaries came to power, Stăniloae stated that "Today (September 22, 1940) our nation once again takes in its hand the sword of the Archangel, the guardian of Christianity, which God has given it. Today we constitute ourselves into a state permeated by faith in God, into an advanced citizenry which stands firm and impregnable in the face of pagan chaos. This, we believe, is the meaning of today's revolution in the life of our state, the meaning of the transformation into a national-legionary state, under the patronage of the Archangel Michael, God's warrior against the aggressive powers of evil. Other nations claim the Archangel Michael as their patron [...] But no nation has accomplished and is accomplishing the work of the Archangel Michael on the visible plane of history as our nation has done and does not accomplish so completely." (Romanian Telegraph, no. 39, 1940). Also for Stăniloae, the installation of the National Legionary State marks the removal of those ministers "who could only speak by reading the anti-religious doctrine of the Jew Durkheim".

More generally, there is abundant literature underlining DS's role as a nationalist and antisemitic writer: this needs to be in the article including the lead. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 07:29, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I am trying to decide what to think of DS. My local Priest has said good things about his theological writings and his faithfulness and kindness under incredible tourture at the hands of the Communists.

I knew nothing about his association with antisemitism until I read this Wikipedia page. Obviously it is important to keep this information on the page.

DS must be a complex person. Is he easily categotized? I am unable to do it.

In the course of my inquiry i have run into two resouces which may benefit the wiki page.

[1]https://publicorthodoxy.org/2024/08/27/st-dumitru-staniloae-complex-figure/

[2]https://readingreligion.org/9780253029560/the-romanian-orthodox-church-and-the-holocaust 2600:6C58:4A00:2F3:D944:C491:D435:F642 (talk) 16:21, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree: the article should be written from a neutral point of view, without avoiding "unpleasant" facts. I'm currently caught up on another page, yet, I'll keep this in my view. The very quote from the Institute would be a good starting point. Again, I strongly agree with what you said so far. Aristeus01 (talk) 15:32, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The information about his activity as a journalist and as editor-in-chief of "Telegraful Român" should be taken with a grain of salt as close to all the citations made on the page in reference to his opinions were not published under his name, they were just published in Telegraful more or less by him as editor-in-chief. Basically you can not say as a fact that everything published there was his own personal opinion. Because we come up with erroneous statements such as those of Plinul cel tanar who called these text's DS's texts, in reality those are texts published by Telegraful with DS as editor-in-chief.

Some information also has to be double checked due to the continuous presence of communist propaganda in sources that study this topic as the communist authorities wanted to exaggerated legionary/fascist tendencies for the sake of their persecutions. Certainly we have the texts but who is the actual author of these texts and how much can we attribute all the opinions as DS's ?

https://www.dw.com/ro/canonizarea-sfin%C8%9Bilor-legionari-o-decizie-ru%C8%99inoas%C4%83-a-bor/a-69798957

Also the word "publicist" should not be used, it is a false friend in English. The Cambridge dictionary defines publicist as: "someone who arranges publicity for a person or organization by giving information to reporters and television and radio companies and arranging public meetings and special events" which in Romanian is agent de publicitate. Publicist better translates as opinion journalist or simply journalist.

~~~~ Georgios Basiklios (talk) 11:04, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

The word publicist has more than one meaning and it can also be "a journalist or a commentator on the political situation", but I agree, journalist is more fitting for the article.

Regarding the information in the sources and the reliability of the sources of the cited sources I have no doubt the issue will be discussed in even more detail in the future. For now we can only recognize there are more than a few that make passing notes and/or direct statements on the anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi political activity of the subject and that it is part of a controversy. Aristeus01 (talk) 14:52, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

DS's texts in Telegraful weren't just antisemitic, some were pro-Nazi. There is a lot of literature available and not just Popa. Ionut Biliuta wrote about him extensively, Clark, Ladouceur, Kalaitzidis, Rubel... Ideally the article should reflect these sources. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 12:15, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not for us to carry out original research. Some very problematic texts ARE signed, others are attributed to him even by Church editors (they were included in the complete works of Staniloae). The attribution is based on the testimony of his daughter who described in detail his work at Telegraful. Moreover Staniloae himself explicitly defended his work at Telegraful in a 1988 interview claiming he was fighting against religious pluralism and after 1990 gave an interview in the Neo-Fascist Gazeta de vest where he said some very disturbing stuff about Iron Guard martyrs Mota and Marin [1]. That said, again, there is no place here for debate around the primary sources. We should quote Holocaust scholars, historians of the Iron Guard, historians of the Church. Plenty of academic literature out there (Popa, Biliuta, Clark, Ladouceur, Kalaitzidis, Rubel etc).

[1] https://publicorthodoxy.org/2024/07/30/fascist-hagiographies/ Plinul cel tanar (talk) 13:01, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Well in a way writing an encyclopedia implies original research because you want it to be an objective systematic review which implies research, what I am saying is that all sources should be taken into consideration and information the fact that there might be wrong or biased sources on both sides of viewing DS is true I am not saying WE should interpret anything just that more care should be taken and not everything should be taken at face value. Was he nationalistic, antisemitic with legionary sympathies ? Pretty likely. Was he against the Greek Catholic Church in Romania and against religious pluralism ? Definitely for sure, but that is expected from the point of view of a (conservative - theologically speaking first of all) Orthodox Theologian. My comment was mostly linked to a portrayal of him as a Securitate informant, simple mention in the article, which is technically true but the truth is more nuanced as he was a false informant that was disliked by the Securitate. Georgios Basiklios (talk) 13:42, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I am not familiar with his activity as an informant. However I have gone through his interwar publications. Nationalist, antisemitic, pro-Fascist, pro-Nazi. There is a 1941 article (which he signed) in which he explains how German national socialism was "lovingly bringing together one human being and another". Was that expected of a conservative theologian? Also this conversation isn't productive. If I find the time and strength to edit the article in the following months I will. Until then the label stays, at least the reader is warned. Plinul cel tanar (talk) 13:51, 19 September 2024 (UTC)