Scholarly record

EDUCATING STUDENT IN 'THE BURNING ALTAR' MOVEMENT

C. Ciornea

Abstract

Education is essential to the survival of any social group, since a community secures its continued existence and development only through the transmission of its accumulated knowledge, derived power, and ideological aims to the next generation. Education may be simply (and brief) defined as the process of teaching and learning, the imparting and acquisition of knowledge and skills. The need for education was no less true for the students included in „The Burning Altar” movement, who regularly attended Antim at the time. Among them we can mention André Scrima, Roman Braga, Sofian Boghiu, Leonida Pl?m?deal?, Adrian F?ge?eanu, Felix Dubneac, ?erban Mironescu, Nicolae Borda?iu, Petroniu T?nase, Ioan Toma, Valeriu Streinu, Virgil Stancovici, Gheorghe Carcalitan, Nicolae Nicolau, young men’s that later would thoroughly confirm the value in the ecclesiastical and socio-professional hierarchies of their times. Being no part of the group, Valeriu Anania, who at that time held the position of chief librarian of the Patriarchate, participated in its meetings. The young theology students feel acutely the need to oppose to the communist atheism work, and inspired by the adult model of „The Burning Altar”, among which some teachers from the courses were included (such as priests Dumitru St?niloae and Benedict Ghiu?, Alexandru Elian) decide to set up a group of spirituality, which also could provide the comfort and support of their faith, which they call ATOS (Orthodox Association of Youth Students). On that time, the communist offensive was very strong and we felt this in the student life where communists were seeking to win, to get the students, the Romanian intellectuals, closer to the Union of Communist Youth (UTC) or the Socialist Youth Union (STU) and tried to attract them through various forms to join these parties. Moreover, the mere fact that they were students in theology, somehow they felt morally obliged to take action. Indeed, ATOS was organized after „The Burning Altar” model, meetings of students being scheduled every Tuesday afternoon, in the chapel of the monastery of Antim, giving the occasion to the participant’s time of prayer and meditation on scriptural or philocaly texts. It is true that there were signs of resistance to the atheistic work of the state, as the episode in 1945 when on May 1st coincided with Holy Week. In this case the students have devised an action to counteract holidays planned by communists and drafted and disseminated a manifesto for the Resurrection, action appreciated by Sandu Tudor, but which, in May 1948, will become one of the main charge , resulted in sending many of them behind bars. In our attempt to reconstruct a truthful image of „Orthodox Association of Youth Students” and „The Burning Altar” in that time, we combine the documents from the C.N.S.A.S. (National Council for Studying the Security Archives) archive with memoirs.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2017/34/S13.020

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