Even today, almost 40 years on, I still have my first invitation to a hierarch’s enthronement: that of Metropolitan Antonie of Transylvania, which took place on 7 February 1982. It consists of two invitations: one to the Divine Liturgy in the cathedral, the other to the official banquet at the ‘Împăratul Romanilor’ restaurant in Sibiu, featuring an effigy and blue embossed lettering, every bit as impressive as invitations to embassy receptions.
To transport the guests from the capital to Sibiu, the Archdiocese allocated half a carriage on an express train, second class, the other half – first class – being reserved for the ten or so senior hierarchs (not the entire Synod was taking part in the ceremony), who, led by Patriarch Iustin, were to officiate the following day and be present at the installation of the new metropolitan. A few minutes before the train departed – our carriage was the last one – I caught sight of Patriarch Iustin through the window, standing on the platform with his walking stick in his hand. It was the first time I had seen him up close.
In the carriage corridor, I met several well-known writers, including Dan Zamfirescu and Dinu Ianculescu (a poet and actor), and was introduced to C.D. Zeletin, whose civil name was Constantin Domoftache, a medical scholar and close relative of George Emil Palade, a Nobel Prize laureate and the son-in-law of the industrialist Nicolae Malaxa. Due to a fault with the carriage’s heating system – it had become very cold – I made my way to the restaurant. However, the next carriage, which was well heated, was occupied by priests and their wives who had prepared snacks, brought cozonac, slices of sponge cake and cake, and thermos flasks of mineral water, juice and coffee. There was an atmosphere of joy and merriment, and I was invited to join in. The priests, all in their cassocks, and their wives were keen to be present at the enthronement of their former bishop (of Buzău) in Sibiu Cathedral. Some of them knew that in the summer of the previous year, 1981, I had published a literary review in a widely circulated magazine, spread over two issues with a gap between them, on their bishop’s book, Teachers of Romanian Thought and Sentiment. What they did not know was that, following the publication of the first instalment, Vasile Nicolescu – director of what was then the equivalent of the Ministry of Culture – had invited me to his office at Casa Scânteii. Vasile Nicolescu was a genuine writer, a highly cultured man, a poet and a translator. I had published a glowing review of one of his volumes of poetry, for which he had telephoned me to thank me, as he was a civilised man.
For nearly an hour, whilst I was in his office, he spoke to me about youth, poetry, talent and self-sacrifice, without my realising where he was going with it… Then he stood up – which I did immediately – and walked out with me. On the way to the lift, he whispered to me that someone had been outraged that a young man (I was 29) had taken it upon himself to praise a bishop. He then added that he would publish the second part of the article. Which he did. Over the course of a year, I wrote further about Nestor Vornicescu, Antim Nica, Father Anania and the then vicar bishop of Râmnic and Argeș, His Grace Gherasim Cristea.
The five-hour journey passed quickly. Before entering Sibiu station, the train was halted and the carriage we were in was uncoupled, whilst the rest of the express train continued on its way. After a quarter of an hour, a small locomotive towed our carriage, pulling it to the main entrance of the station, which was decorated with fir branches. The platform had been cleared, and several officials welcomed Patriarch Justin and the other members of the Holy Synod with great deference. The Patriarch then took his seat in the back of a black car, whilst the other hierarchs got into another four or five cars; we lay people boarded a clean and elegant coach, which took us to the ‘Belvedere’ Hotel. That same evening, together with the priests from the Diocese of Buzău and their wives, we had dinner at the canteen of the Theological Institute, in a very pleasant atmosphere – typical of the clerical world of that time – which stood in stark contrast to the tension that was beginning to grip the country. It was then that I met Tanța, an elderly lady, a former stenographer to Petru Groza, well-educated and dignified, who never missed a single enthronement of a hierarch and would always have a quip ready, intended to make the rounds of the diocesan residences and monasteries. That evening she also joined us for dinner – I was sitting with Dan Zamfirescu and Boris Buzilă – and said to me: ‘You look like King Michael’. I’d heard this said to me many times during my adolescence and youth, and Tanța was reminding me of it for the last time.
The next day, in Sibiu Cathedral, I saw Patriarch Iustin up close, celebrating the service. Of course, he lacked the grace of hierarchs who had come from monastic life, but through the very thick lenses of his spectacles shone a clear and intense gaze, one that was hard to forget.
At the agape meal at the ‘Împăratul Romanilor’, the seat I was sitting in, at a table with five or six other writers, placed me with my back to the much longer table, situated just a few metres away, occupied by the Patriarch, the other hierarchs and the Minister for Religious Affairs, Ion Roșianu. The speeches had begun—there were many of them, as is customary at the enthronements of hierarchs—so I was, like my fellow diners, tucking into the refreshments on my plate. Almost an hour had passed. The new metropolitan was delivering his address. Then Patriarch Iustin stood up, last of all – he was very tall – and began by saying: ‘In the Romanian Orthodox Church, there is too much talk’, making a wry face. Whilst until then I had been looking at the Patriarch over my shoulder, from that moment on I turned my chair round and began to listen to him and watch him with my full attention and interest.
Patriarch Iustin’s address on 7 February 1982 left an overwhelming impression on me, and I have never since encountered such calibre (in any hierarch). Iustin Moisescu was not seeking to please – he was above that – nor to slip in anything ‘subversive’ that might place him amongst the ‘brave’ of the era; that, too, would have been contrary to his nature and beneath his dignity. Listening to him, I thought of Nae Ionescu, as the Patriarch was not seeking to win people over, but was simply saying what he believed – regarding the Church and its situation. His speech was transcribed and published in full in Telegraful Român, where I was pleased to come across it.
On my return to Bucharest, I sought out the writings of Patriarch Iustin. At that time, there was no complete edition of his written works; this was compiled by His Eminence Calinic, Archbishop of Argeș and Muscel, in 2002, by the ‘Anastasia’ publishing house. His Eminence wished to introduce me to Patriarch Iustin in the summer of 1985. We were both at Sinaia Monastery and, just as we were about to set off by car for Dragoslavele, a telephone call informed us that Patriarch Iustin had set off for Bucharest. I deeply regretted missing the opportunity to meet such a great figure. A year later, on 31 July 1986, I was once again at Sinaia when Abbot Lavrentie told me, deeply moved, that Patriarch Iustin had passed away.
His theological work is concise and brilliant, beginning with his doctoral thesis in Theology at the University of Athens. And anyone who reads The Activity of the Apostle Paul in Athens will no longer be surprised by the esteem in which Constantin Noica held Iustin Moisescu as a Hellenist – I recall, in this regard, a text by the philosopher published posthumously in 1990 in the Jurnalul literar – or the words addressed to him in public by President Constantine Karamanlis of Greece at a reception at the Greek Embassy in Bucharest: ‘This is how we ought to speak our language – with the elegance with which Your Holiness speaks it’.
The March 1980 issue of the magazine The Romanian Orthodox Church is dedicated to Patriarch Iustin on the occasion of his 70th birthday and features numerous photographs. Several photographs reproduced there, from the period when he was a professor of the New Testament at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University of Warsaw, show him wearing a tailcoat and a tuxedo with distinction. Other photographs depict him alongside Jacques Chirac at a dinner in 1975, when Chirac was Prime Minister of France. As Chirac was a devout man and a practising Catholic, the ‘hosts’ included in the programme for that visit a Divine Liturgy in Rădăuți, celebrated by Metropolitan Iustin of Moldavia and Suceava. Several photographs show him, at the agape meal that followed, relaxed and at ease alongside his guest.
It would be fitting for a monograph to be devoted to Patriarch Iustin Moisescu, with the caveat that, given the complexity of the subject, its author would also need to possess the talent of a novelist. Until then, let us take to heart the brilliant and succinct characterisation by Father Professor Mircea Păcurariu: ‘Through his rich scholarly, ecumenical and pastoral work, Patriarch Iustin has secured his place amongst the most distinguished hierarchs of the entire Orthodox world.’