51 Facts About Sandu Tudor

From 1927, when he wrote his first akathist, Sandu Tudor made overtures toward Orthodox monasticism.

Sandu Tudor was branded an enemy of the Romanian communist regime, and twice arrested for supposed political crimes.

Sandu Tudor died at Aiud Prison, a victim of torture and criminal neglect.

Sandu Tudor is generally considered an unaccomplished writer, although his fusion of modernism and traditionalism has drawn critical interest.

Sandu Tudor enjoys a sizable following in the field of Orthodox theology, and, after the fall of communism, has been considered for canonization.

The future Sandu Tudor was born Alexandru Teodorescu in the Romanian capital, Bucharest.

Sandu Tudor had many siblings, including a brother who became a painter.

Sandu Tudor graduated high school in Ploiesti city, where his history teacher gave him his first lessons in Christian philosophy.

In 1916, as he was about to complete his secondary education, Romania entered World War I Tudor was drafted into the Romanian Land Forces, fought in the defensive war of 1917, and reached the rank of Sub-Officer; he was eventually demobilized in 1921.

An aspiring painter, Sandu Tudor made his way back to Bucharest, and enlisted at the Academy of Arts.

Sandu Tudor lacked the means to support himself, interrupted his studies, and traveled to the Black Sea port of Constanta, to live with his family.

Sandu Tudor alternated these assignments with work in education, and was a substitute teacher at the high school in Pogoanele town.

Once he decided to begin a fifth career, in journalism, Sandu Tudor returned to Bucharest.

Sandu Tudor had acquired a passion for book collecting: he is said to have gathered over 8,000 volumes in one place, making his one of the largest collections in Bucharest.

Sandu Tudor married and divorced three times, but did not have any children.

Sandu Tudor soon rallied with the mystical Orthodox circles, whose informal leader was poet-theologian Nichifor Crainic.

In Contimporanul, Sandu Tudor had hinted that Arghezi's "pseudo-avant-garde" poetry was vulgar and hedonistic.

Around 1928, Sandu Tudor was in contact with the young religious scholar Mircea Eliade, who was becoming an exponent of experimental neo-traditionalism in Romanian philosophy.

Together we planned a journal of religious philosophy, for which Sandu Tudor had found a title: Duh si Slova.

Sandu Tudor proposed that the religious revival needed to focus on "vigorous and harsh penance", with "the signs of a true confession".

In later articles for the same paper, Sandu Tudor challenged Church politics to the point of arguing that the Synod was schismatic.

Reportedly, Sandu Tudor never managed to earn respect the principal Trairist figures.

Pandrea and Sandu Tudor first clashed around 1928, shortly after Pandrea published his White Lily Manifesto of the revolutionary youth.

Philologist Elivira Sorohan summarizes critical consensus: Sandu Tudor was a "sub-mediocre poet".

Shortly after receiving the Synod's accolades, Sandu Tudor left on pilgrimage to Mount Athos, the Orthodox sacred site.

In early 1930, Sandu Tudor was involved in a debate about modernist theater, part of a "defense team" for the Expressionist Vilna Troupe.

Cartoonist Neagu Radulescu, who joined the group at this time, recalls that Sandu Tudor, striking the figure of a "Church martyr", was a literary sponsor of the "writing republic".

The campaign was aggravated when Vulcanescu showed up at the Credinta offices and pummeled Stancu, and degenerated further when Sandu Tudor himself participated in a brawl at Corso Coffeehouse.

Brezianu recalls that Sandu Tudor was the plaintiff, citing Vulcanescu for assault and injury.

Sandu Tudor was upset that, while he stood by his friends and refused to even shake Tudor's hand, Comarnescu made "peace overtures to Credinta".

However, according to files kept by the Siguranta Statului police force, Sandu Tudor still intended to collaborate with communist agent Scarlat Callimachi on the anti-fascist review Munca.

Sandu Tudor maintained his religious focus during World War II.

Sandu Tudor was joined in Bukovina by other figures of the Orthodoxist revival: Fathers Benedict Ghius and Nicolae M Popescu, philosophers Noica and Anton Dumitriu, journalist colleagues Manoliu, Mironescu and Sterian.

The authorities rejected their first application, in 1944, but Sandu Tudor persisted: the Burning Pyre received its legal recognition in 1945 or 1946.

In 1948, when the Burning Pyre association was dissolved by government decree, Sandu Tudor abandoned his public career and became a monk at Antim, with the monastic name Agathon.

Sandu Tudor left Bucharest altogether, moving between Crasna and Govora monasteries.

Sandu Tudor was arrested in 1948 or 1949, and the Antim meetings, closely supervised by the Securitate secret police, ceased altogether in 1950.

Sandu Tudor was originally assigned to Crasna, then moved to more remotes sketes.

Sandu Tudor did provide the occasional sermon, and earned much respect from the Bukovinian peasants he addressed, especially because he would freely express his emotions in front of them.

Sandu Tudor's work was again becoming a kind of religious resistance and, as Dragan writes, intolerable for the communists.

Sandu Tudor was arrested in the home of his disciple Alexandru Mironescu, and kept in a cell together with a Securitate informant.

Sandu Tudor cared little about the past activities of his Burning Pyre colleagues, but, even in 1947, he had denounced the Iron Guard as an anti-Christian enterprise.

Sandu Tudor proudly indicated that he never carried any personal items.

Sandu Tudor was held there together with other Burning Pyre group members, but reunited with his old rival, Petre Pandrea.

At Aiud, Sandu Tudor became a victim of repeated torture, and, according to various commentators, suffered a martyr's death.

Also held in Aiud, Bartolomeu Anania later attested that both he and Sandu Tudor went through the process of "reeducation", a communist form of coercive persuasion.

Sandu Tudor was severely weakened by repeated torture, terminally ill with Pott disease, and only survived into 1963.

Sandu Tudor's Burning Pyre manuscripts were confiscated by the Securitate, and presumably destroyed or lost.

In keeping with his renunciation of earthly possessions, Sandu Tudor left behind only a handful of personal belongings: a fufaika jacket, a pair of sandals, a brown shirt and a beret.

Several theologians and priests came to suggest that Daniil Sandu Tudor is worthy of canonization.

Sandu Tudor was no Guardsman, not even a Guard sympathizer; in the 1930s he was rather the leftist, criticizing the far right.