In 1983, I published a one-column article, discreetly paginated, in Scânteia tineretului, entitled A Restoration, in which I wrote about Bistrița Monastery, deliberately avoiding the word ‘monastery’ and using the synonym ‘chinovie’ instead. After it appeared, the abbot, Father Ciprian, whom I had mentioned in the article without his ecclesiastical title, thanked me and said: ‘The headteacher of the village school came to me with the newspaper in his hand and said: ‘Father Abbot, I can now bring the pupils to you so they can see the church’s frescoes, the tomb of Prince Alexander the Good and that of Grigore Ureche, because Scânteia tineretului has written about them.’ I showed the article to the metropolitan as well. I thought perhaps you might be able to write something about his books too; he has just published a monograph on Iacob Putneanul.”
‘Father Abbot, I can now bring the pupils to you so they can see the church’s frescoes, the tomb of Prince Alexandru cel Bun and that of Grigore Ureche, because he writes about them in Scânteia tineretului.’
I did not tell Father Ciprian that it was easier to slip in a review of a volume by a hierarch named Antim, Nestor or Gherasim than one bearing such a monastic name: Teoctist. I did, however, recall that a beautifully printed bimonthly magazine, Tribuna României, was published in Bucharest, aimed at the exile community, but which was also distributed within the country. An editor I knew only vaguely worked there, Dumitru Radu Popa, whose sister had been a fellow student of mine at university. I went to see him, mentioned my former classmate, and promised that I would never bother him again in my life if he would help me publish a review of Metropolitan Teoctist of Moldova and Suceava’s work on Iacob Putneanul. This was in May 1984. After four or five months, I had lost all hope. However, the article appeared in the final issue of October 1984 of the magazine. Surprised and delighted, the first thing I did was to ring Dumitru Radu Popa at the editorial office to thank him from the bottom of my heart. Given the distinctive nature of Tribuna României, I had been able to refer to the high-ranking clergyman by his true title, without having to resort to the usual terminological subterfuges such as ‘distinguished intellectual’ or ‘remarkable scholar’. The secretary seemed very taken aback when she heard who I wanted to speak to. She told me that Dumitru Radu Popa was away, that he would be absent for some time, and that she could not tell me when to ring back… A month later, I learnt that my benefactor had ‘chosen freedom’, never to return from a trip to the West.
After the article was published, I received a letter from Metropolitan Teoctist – a short, warm letter – in which he told me that he had read my piece ‘under the vaults of Milan Cathedral’. Whilst visiting the Romanian parishes in Italy, a parishioner there had brought him the magazine, to which he was a subscriber. The Metropolitan invited me to pay him a visit if I ever found myself passing through Iași; an invitation I never took up.
On 31 July 1986, I was at Sinaia Monastery; it was a Monday. When he entered the dining room, the abbot, with whom I was having lunch, told me, visibly shaken: ‘Patriarch Iustin has died! We commemorated him this morning, at the Divine Liturgy, at the vineyards…’. According to the rules of the time, in the event of the Patriarch’s death, the Metropolitan of Moldavia would become acting Patriarch until the elections, which were to take place within three months. In a Romania where almost nothing ever happened, a patriarchal succession was a major event. Intellectuals believed that the new patriarch would be Metropolitan Antonie of Transylvania; a young officer said he had heard his superiors naming Metropolitan Nestor of Oltenia as the successor to the late primate.
On 23 August every year, I was woken up early in the morning by the sounds of preparations for the parade, just as had happened in 1986. At 8 o’clock, the telephone rang: Father Vartolomeu Bogdan from the Patriarchate’s Publishing House informed me that His Eminence Teoctist would like to meet me. Could I come to the palace at 10 o’clock?… Very surprised, I replied: “Of course!”, and, despite the hot day, I put on a dark-coloured suit with a tie and black shoes… At one minute to ten, I was climbing the stairs of the patriarchal palace alongside Father Vartolomeu. In the hall I saw a hierarch wearing an engolpion round his neck, who did not appear to be more than 50 years old (Metropolitan Teoctist was 71), so, after a nod of the head in greeting, I started to walk on – even though he was smiling at me and had opened his arms in a gesture of welcome… The very next second I heard Father Vartolomeu, who had stayed behind and was bowing low to the hierarch, calling out: ‘Mr Dan! His Eminence; Your Eminence!’… Which, in short, means: His Eminence; the metropolitan.
I turned towards the Metropolitan and confessed to him in all honesty: ‘Your Eminence, please forgive me! But I mistook you for one of the patriarchal vicar bishops; in photographs you look much older, which is why I didn’t recognise you’. The three of us went into a room in the Archiepiscopal Residence lined with portraits of bishops, metropolitans and patriarchs, which I was entering for the first time, wondering whether it was from there that Patriarch Justinian would order the portrait of Irineu Mihălcescu to be taken down (“Get this Freemason out of here!”)… Although he was Patriarchal Vicar, Metropolitan Teoctist had not taken up residence in his predecessor’s office, but had set up his temporary study here. Father Ion Bănățeanu, secretary to the last two patriarchs, soon appeared; he was a priest who conducted services with particular grace, aided by a voice to match, at the White Church on Calea Victoriei. The Metropolitan asked us if we would like a coffee, after inviting us to take a seat in the armchairs and settling himself into the one opposite me. He had almond-shaped eyes and a clear gaze that lit up his relaxed face. The rhythm of his movements suggested patience, balance and unhurriedness – qualities acquired through his monastic life, which began when he was 15. Right from the start of our conversation, I was amazed by his memory. He had remembered a few details from my reply sent to Iași almost two years earlier. Then the door opened and a nun appeared, carrying on an alpaca tray—covered with an immaculate napkin with lace-trimmed edges—three cups of coffee, three small bowls and a decanter in which I recognised the colour of cognac. As I raised it to my lips, I recognised the aroma of French cognac, and after the first sip I realised it was Hennessy.
The radiant serenity on Metropolitan Teoctist’s face was mirrored in his voice as a gifted storyteller. He told us about the Seminary at Cernica Monastery, where he had been a student in the 1930s, and about the frozen water of the lake there, across which carts would pass in some winters. At the table we had passed by before entering the room where we were, one morning in 1967, the translator of Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras was astonished to find him speaking directly with Justinian over breakfast. Athenagoras was Aromanian on his father’s side. He was on his way to Rome to meet Pope Paul VI, following the incident on Mount Sinai and the mutual lifting of the anathemas in ’65. He was first passing through Sofia, Bucharest and Belgrade to consult with the patriarchs of those countries. Justinian tempered his enthusiasm and was right to be cautious, since, even after the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI was unwilling to yield on the points that dogmatically divided the two Churches. A return to communion remained a beautiful dream. The Metropolitan then told us about the years he spent as a bishop in Arad, about the churches he had commissioned to be painted, and about the tact he had to exercise in his dealings with Greek Catholics who had returned to Orthodoxy...
The room was quiet and cool, and the rhythm of his gestures, like the Metropolitan’s voice, made time slip by imperceptibly. I was wearing a double-cased pocket watch, made in 1905, so that I could not open it without breaching the rules of propriety. I did so on leaving the palace, at the point where the Metropolitan had seen Father Vartolomeu and me off. It was 11.20. Those 80 minutes had passed incredibly quickly.
Metropolitan Teoctist told us that, apart from Theology, after the war, he had also attended courses at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in Iași, mentioning several times the name of Professor N. I. Barbu, a Latin scholar, and those of other Iași intellectuals from the same generation. By the way! ‘What were the intellectuals and writers in Bucharest saying about the imminent election of a new patriarch?’ I could not recount to him, in this regard, an episode that had taken place just a few days earlier at the home of a well-known novelist, where the subject of the patriarchal succession had been raised. There were also two other people present, of my own age—that is, around 35 years old—both literary critics. I was quick to argue that the new patriarch would be the Metropolitan of Moldova. The novelist allowed a deliberately didactic pause to set in, looked at me with fatherly condescension – there was a 20-year age gap between us – and informed us, almost categorically, that the new patriarch would be Antonie Plămădeală, the Metropolitan of Transylvania, author of several books…
I replied to Metropolitan Teoctist, in the Byzantine language I had begun to master, that intellectuals, by their very nature, are naïve, proud and out of touch with reality, but as far as I am concerned, I am convinced that I can already address him as: Your Holiness. He fell silent, taken aback, for a second, then said: ‘Elections are, after all, elections’, after which he changed the subject, asking me whether, amongst the books he had sent me, there was also his edition of Dosoftei’s Divine Liturgy. I didn’t have it, so he offered me a copy. As he was opening it to write a few words on the flyleaf, I took a silver Parker pen—of which I was very proud—out of the inside pocket of my coat, intending to hand it to him. It was one of the first pens that no longer needed to be filled with ink from an inkwell, as it was refilled with cartridges. The Metropolitan placed his hand on his chest and pulled from his cassock a splendid Mont Blanc, with the well-known white six-pointed star at the top of the cap.
Two weeks later, again accompanied by Father Vartolomeu, I paid another visit to Metropolitan Teoctist, much shorter than the first, in a small, cool room in the north-west wing of the palace. He spoke to me about the Patriarchate’s magazines, picking up a copy of Romanian Orthodox Church from the small table around which we were seated. “Do you like this colour?”, he asked me. Father Vartolomeu, who worked on the editorial team of those magazines, started. “It’s a church colour” – it was a dark purple – I replied. As we parted, I told him once again how convinced I was that he would be the new patriarch.
On 22 December, it was bitterly cold in Bucharest, and there was hardly any heat in the houses. Two radiators with glowing heating elements, placed on top of the frozen 20-element radiator, were helping to temper the tomb-like temperature in the room. That night I had slept fully clothed in my overcoat. I could barely hear the ringing of the telephone in another room. Father Vartolomeu asked me if I could be at Patriarch Teoctist’s by 10 o’clock.
It was a Saturday. As there were few taxis, I set off on foot, wearing shoes, in a frost of –15°. This time I walked in alone through the door on the slope leading down to 11 June Street. In the antechamber, Father Bănățeanu greeted me, shivering, and invited me to take off my coat and sit down on a chair. It was cold inside the patriarchal palace too. I was asked to wait a few minutes, as His Beatitude was seeing someone else. I then entered the patriarchal office in the annexe added during the time of Miron Cristea, in the 1930s, by the architect Simotta, the former residence of the Metropolis of Ungrovlahia. For a few moments, I gazed through the large windows on the west-facing wall at the rooftops of interwar Bucharest, which reminded me of the Rahova of my childhood, just two kilometres away.
Patriarch Teoctist held out his hand to me, smiling, and showed me to my seat, whilst he settled into the high-backed armchair on the other side of the desk… “Well… you didn’t waver.” He was still under the impression of his enthronement, which had taken place a month earlier. Whilst he was telling me about the ceremony, I noticed two electric radiators which were struggling to heat the high-ceilinged, spacious room, bathed in the yellow late-December sunlight. I was looking at his long white robe, cinched with a red sash; a soothing, deep shade of red… Then my gaze fell upon the cross on his white fez: they were genuine emeralds. For a few moments, their brilliance prevented me from following his words. It was an overwhelming sensation, although I am not, by nature, at all drawn to precious stones or jewellery. I couldn’t take my eyes off the emeralds on the cross and their sparkles, which multiplied ceaselessly, like silver-green bursts of fireworks.