New Confessor of Romania Daniil Sandu Tudor: A Modern-Day Apostle Paul
Interview: Father Ioan of Rarau Skete on Father Daniel Sandu Tudor
Father Ioan, you were the disciple of Staretz Daniil of Rarau. Please tell us about the first memory you have of Father Daniel.
My first memory is the first time I went to the monastery in Rarau, when we met for the first time. I don’t know if I can use the word “superb,” but he was something special, which impressed me very much. I saw an elder, with a white beard–as I too am now–in a thick, cotton cassock, with fabric sewn on the back, and very much spiritual love, great benevolence.
He received me with total love and gave me my first instructions for living in the monastery. I had come from Alba-Iulia, from the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist; I stayed there about six months, then I returned, I came to Rarau. I remembered the beautiful mountains, the clean air, and the spiritual life in this area. Father Daniil Tudor was very renowned almost everywhere, and this attracted me and I came.
When I arrived, I saw young men, all with prayer ropes in hand, all saying: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.” Very serious, humble, and full of love! And I too entered their ranks. I sought to adapt to the spiritual conditions which were set at Rarau Skete. Hieroschemamonk Daniil was present at the services, at the homilies. At the dining hall, they would read from a book and he would comment; he would speak about the lives of the Saints, about patience, about spiritual virtues. There was a spiritual word all the time. And the obedience impressed me very much, which was half an hour of work, half an hour of prayer. Each had a bag over his shoulder and a book: either the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, or the Prologues, a prayer book, or the Psalter. Hieroschemamonk Daniil sought this permanently: for prayer to be done unceasingly, something that troubled satan in hell, and he began a persecution against him until he was put in prison and the communists tortured him. And he became a Saint, the great martyr Daniil.
What can you tell us about the monastery’s schedule under Father Daniil?
He was the only priest and served the Liturgy only on Saturday and Sunday. In fact, that was when he also ate–only once a day. The rest of the time, it was the same schedule followed by every monastery, beginning with the Midnight Hours, Matins, the Hours, Akathists. Meals were once a day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday–without oil–and the rest of the time twice per day. They respected this schedule.
What was Father Daniil’s cell like?
His cell was simple. There was a table, chair, and it was full of books–shelves of books, books on the table, books everywhere. He wrote all the time, read all the time, prayed all the time. He was a man who did not take a break, he was uninterrupted in his spiritual life. A man who had converted to the faith like the Holy Apostle Paul, from an unbelieving man as he was–the son of a landowner, who had much land, nearly 300 hectares, he had two apartment buildings with 12 stories in Bucharest, he had his own plane. A man who had studied very much, he had an immense intellectual capacity. Neither can I find words to express nor do I exactly know his real capacity, because he was an exceptional man; he did not have adversaries in any discussion, in any kind of conversation, in any religious manifestation. At the time, the Patriarchate did not have as many books as Daniil Tudor: about 6,000 volumes–I heard, no one counted them. He had some in Bucharest, and in Campulung, and in the Monastery; he knew where else he had books that had been given to people for their benefit. He knew five foreign languages and he read every [new] book, and he was a man who permanently worked for the honor and praise of God. This was his sole aim.
The Communist Party would send so-called people of culture to combat him. And, from the way they came to the monastery, they left changed! The discussions were social, political, religious, and dogmatic, but also nationalistic–and he converted all of them. All of them! Not a single one left as he had come; something which irritated the communists, and they arrested him and condemned him to twenty years, without a criminal motive. And he did his time in prison, and he finished the course of his earthly life at Aiud and reached the heavens–because he was the most persecuted of all the prisoners.
He was a man who ceded absolutely nothing in regard to the faith. The communists had the tendency in prison, especially with the political prisoners, to distance them from God and the faith. Father Daniil never accepted this, and he was very tough in all his responses, which attracted their hatred and enmity. Each day, they wrote that he had been beaten. And, when the Amnesty Decree for the liberation of political prisoners came, they killed him. This is what the commander said: “Daniil Tudor must not escape, we must kill him!” They removed the teeth from his mouth while he was alive, they beat him until he was left lying on the ground–that is what I heard, that they drove a stake through his head, and after, God knows what they did with him; they took him to the mass grave–holy relics.
He went to the Holy Mountain in shorts
He didn’t really talk about his life with anyone, because he read continuously and prayed unceasingly. When he would go to eat, we would eat and he would listen to the reading that was read at the table, and after he would interpret it. He only ate on Saturday and Sunday, once per day. We do not even know what he ate or lived on.
He went to the Holy Mountain–where his conversion took place; but he went there as a tourist, in shorts, clean-shaven, with a rucksack on his back, like the libertarian people at the time who did not have a single spiritual thought. And, arriving there as one who was very studious and drawn to literature and culture, he began to read books, participating regularly in all the services. And he converted. When he left from there, he left with the Prayer of the Heart already received from God as a gift. And with a beard. He stayed about seven months.
And when he came to Bucharest, to the elite society in which he lived, all laughed at him, saying: “Sandu Tudor went mad, and he let his beard grow!” He let his beard grow because one night he decided to! He was in an all-night vigil service, and he saw a hermit, who was leaning on a cane, come up to him. The hermit wanted to tell him something but went back, he stayed there a bit, and came back, wanting to tell him something, but he did not dare to speak, because [Daniil] was already known as a distinguished and cultured man. And when he came the third time, Daniil said: “Father Evloghie, you are coming a third time! If you want to say something, say it, don’t go back!” And the elder told him: “Mr. Sandu Tudor, why do you throw your beard in the trash? Why do you throw the image of Christ in the trash?” Then he thought about these words and other spiritual things the whole night, and he stopped shaving. He had a beautiful, but also imposing, face.
Father Daniil was firm on the Orthodox faith
Now there is a satanic thing that seeks to mix the light with the dark, the right Orthodox faith with heresy–they consider each heresy to be a Church or a segment of the Church. Father Daniil was firm on the Orthodox Christian faith. And, although he was a son of Neamt Monastery–he was educated there, he stayed in a hermitage there for nearly three years, at Râpa lui Coroi [the cave of Saint Daniil the Hesychast], eating only mushrooms or raw potatoes once a week–he introduced the schedule of Mount Athos. Afterward, he came to Slatina Monastery and established the same schedule. About 30 monks went from Slatina to Putna and established the schedule there too–the same one. And from there to the Skete at Rarau.
And he was very drastic in regard to the monk’s impurity of soul and body. Confession was mandatory once a week, as well as each time it was needed, even every day. We had to have a paper, a notepad, and write down our sins each day; then you would go and he would immediately give you absolution. He did confession in an exceptional way; he was a man who would see you and know what was in you, nothing could get by him. He knew what you were thinking.
He was an exceptional man. This is the power of prayer and the grace of Orthodoxy. And he works miracles. I had chronic meningitis for 30 years and I got better without a doctor.
How were Father Daniil’s arrest and time in prison?
I know less about this. It happened that I was not in the monastery when they arrested him. The secret police came and surrounded the monastery; they tied him and took him, arrested him, and convicted him. I only know this: they asked why he gathered so many young people in the Rarau Mountains and did not allow them to work in the factories. Hieroschemamonk Daniil responded: “I gathered them in order to teach them to say: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.” The judge told him, “sit down,” and they gave him a sentence of 20 years in prison, without having a criminal file on him. He was always accused of being a legionnaire. This was a lie, a terrible lie created by the communists who hated the faith; they considered faithful people to be legionnaires!
There was also a persecution during the time of Gheorghiu-Dej, during the time of
Ceausescu–the police stopped you if you went to a monastery, they questioned you, threatened you, searched your bags, as if you were transporting who knows what. Just to stop you! Then there was the Decree of 1959 through which they stripped the monastics of their monastic garments, cut their hair, shaved their beards–it was a persecution, a communist persecution: atheism against the faith of Christ.
Neither are persecutions far away now. Even now people speak against icons, against Christians, against monasteries.
Did Father Daniil have a vision about the future of Romania?
He was not a political person; he was concerned about the faith, that’s it. He was the general director of the Journal of Faith, and the communists could not bear the Faith!
Fragments from an interview done by Cezar Machidon,
Revista Familia Ortodoxa, nr. 11 (46)/ 2012, pp. 58-62