“So it is not the Church we try to preserve now, but the Gospel” asserted Elisabeth Adler (
Adler 1964, p. 13). Likewise, Sobrino’s understanding of “partisan pro-existence” (
Sobrino [1987] 2004, p. 34) suggested that the Church should more radically cultivate love to the one in special need than simply talking about God’s love for all Christians or all humankind. The first approach can thus be interpreted as an attempt to apply to the concrete circumstances of life Christ’s pro-existence as expressed in the parable of the Lost Sheep, where the good shepherd is ready to leave the ninety-nine sheep in order to rescue the one in danger (Matthew 18:12–14; Luke 15:3–7). The second approach in Catholic and Protestant theology, which faces the relativizing danger of a call to service aiming at transgressing religious boundaries, has generally maintained that fullness of service can only be experienced if Christians are nourished by Church’s sacraments, especially by the founding words of the Eucharist as the full expression of Christ’s self giving to God and absolute service to humans, and guided by the ministry of the clergy. At the same time, Heinz Schürmann’s and Walter Klaiber’s perspectives can be read as contributions in which elements of the first approach are considered essential to the life of Jesus Christ’s Church, without necessarily having to assert a radical attitude of service. For instance, both theologians assert the need of the Church to regard the specific problems of a certain community or space in which a community lives as opportunities to inform and renew the Christian understanding of pro-existence, just as different historical periods have shaped new understandings of Christology, as part of a larger process of “inculturation”.
In the manner of the second approach to pro-existence, the Romanian Orthodox theologian Dumitru Staniloae reflects on the possibilities of living service to the human brother as fully as possible, in relation to the beating heart that sets into motion the life of the Church: the Eucharist. Nevertheless, a closer look at both Staniloae’s experience as a member of the Romanian Orthodox clergy under Communist persecution, and his theological understanding of service and pro-existence will show that, for him too, the concrete circumstances of life should play an essential role in situating oneself as a Christian within the Church, and situating the local Orthodox Church itself, led by a bishop, and all the Orthodox Churches, within the larger body of Christ.
3.1. Pro-Existing in Humbleness: The Oppressed, Their Need for Christ’s Presence and the Response of the Incarcerated Orthodox Priests
Fr. Dumitru Staniloae personally experienced the horrors of an oppressive system, his marginalization from the center of Romanian intellectual life having reached its peak in September 1958, when he was incarcerated due to his membership of
Rugul Aprins (
The Unburnt Bush). This cultural organization had organized small meetings in members’ houses, and public conferences at the Antim monastery in Bucharest, having thus contributed to Romanian cultural life and to keeping alive the spirit of intellectual resistance to Soviet ideology (
Botez 1992, p. 212). In an article published in 1990, Father Staniloae describes with modesty, in just a few words, some of the physical torments that he and his fellows endured during imprisonment, and gives the names of his cellmates who died in prison or shortly after being released. He also adds: “In prison, the Orthodox priests and monks did not just dwell, but taught people Akathist hymns and other prayers, written on pieces of soap with broken bars taken from cell doors; they gave lessons in the Christian catechism. In spite of all persecution and surveillance, the priests and monks continued practising their service, celebrating the Divine Liturgy, as well as baptisms, marriages and funerals. They continued preaching the word of God, and nobody ever heard any priest mentioning the tyrant in their sermon" [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 2003b, p. 284). Father Dumitru Staniloae shows the two attitudes shared by the incarcerated: first of all, the rituals of the Church helped them gain a sense of normalcy of life, a degree of inner freedom that no persecution could have taken away from them; secondly, while coming together in prayer, they never uttered words of contempt regarding their persecutors, suggested by the symbolic name “the tyrant”. They simply followed Christ’s example (Isaiah 53:7) that was included by the Christian Orthodox Tradition in the prayers of the Proskomedia, the ritual of the preparation of bread and wine for the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It is also striking that Orthodox priests and monks could have celebrated the Divine Liturgy and other Church sacraments and hierurgies without that which makes a Church visible in the eyes of a common Christian: without the building itself, without liturgical garments, without the bride and the groom being physically present in the same room, and even without bread or wine for the Eucharist. Fr. Staniloae does not give details on how all of this had been materially possible, since, according to his testimony, many of his fellow inmates died of starvation, a fact which would have practically made procuring bread very difficult, and practically impossible when it came to procuring wine for the Eucharist. He simply states that all these sacraments and hierurgies did actually take place, as a facet of the Church’s service to the special need of Christ’s brothers. Nonetheless, this did not weaken the Church in her visible presence, but rather intensified it, as the Church took the concrete situation in the prison as the starting point of her service, and continued her mission of bringing Christ at the table of the ones who needed his presence.
3.2. Service as the “True” Dimension of the Church in the “New Social Era”
In 1965, two years after his release, Father Staniloae was reinstated as a professor of theology in Bucharest, following a response by the regime who wished to generate a more positive impression among western intellectuals who were themselves demanding information on Staniloae’s fate (
Botez 1992, pp. 212–13). Already in 1963, the year of his release from prison, Dumitru Staniloae published in the Romanian Orthodox theological journal
Glasul Bisericii (The Call of the Church) an article simply entitled “Servire și proexistență” (
Service and Pro-existence), mentioning that he took the term
pro-
existence from the proceedings of the Christian Peace Conference (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1019). Staniloae’s contribution to the reflection on pro-existence that generated the two approaches mentioned in the first section of this article places in balance both the need for Christians to take as a point of departure the concrete situations of certain persons or communities in order to find the best answer to their needs, and the Church’s vocation of offering the plenitude of her gifts to those animated by faith in Christ’s pro-existence.
Given the fact that the concrete circumstances may inform the pro-existential attitude of Christians towards concrete service to people in need for specific solutions, in his 1963 article Staniloae chooses to talk first about service, by pointing to the fact that Catholic and Protestant Churches have a long and uncontested experience in serving, not only individuals, but especially communities. In the opening of his 1963 article, Staniloae quotes from the Japanese Protestant theologian Masao Takenaka’s intervention during the World Council of Churches’s third General Assembly of New Delhi (1961), emphasizing that, although the “dimension of service” remains the essential feature of Christ’s Church, it is the concrete “new”, “communitarian structure” of the international context that has “helped” the Church “rediscover” new ways of accomplishing her call (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1019). Staniloae goes as far as asserting that this “new” dimension emphasized by Takenaka actually represents the Church’s “true” dimension (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1020), an attitude that might seem compatible with the aspect of “inculturation” in Christology discussed in Schürmann’s case, this time also extended to Ecclesiology.
Staniloae advances further towards a peculiar argument of “inculturation” regarding Ecclesiological renewal given the opportunity of the reevaluation, within each local Church, of the role of service that is becoming more and more necessary under the pressure of international instability. The growing necessity of serving not only individuals, but also entire communities, has led to the emergence of international organizations dedicated to service. According to Staniloae, right from the first meeting of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has reacted to this situation by the official “renouncement” of any “tendency of domination” in the Church, a measure accompanied by the more practical rule for the clergy to divest themselves of the “royal garment” and instead to don the “coat of humility”. Moreover, “a special merit for the emphasis placed nowadays on Christian ‘service’ within the Ecumenical Movement belongs to Protestant theology”. Staniloae believes that the “salutary rediscovery” of service in the Protestant theology has come as a “special joy” for the Church, since this rediscovery “represented a return from the individualism of the original protestant doctrine, which had dissolved the community” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1021).
3.3. The Necessity of a Renewed Sense of Service in the Orthodox Church: From Humbleness in the Face of Oppressive Political Authority, to Humbleness Regarding the Authority of the Clergy
By contrast, service in the Orthodox Church “has always been practised as something self-evident”. However, this also explains the insufficiency of the Orthodox theological reflection on the dimensions of service in “the new social era”: “What is needed today from the Orthodox Church as well is both the necessary theological clarification of the notion of service, and its increased application in an Orthodox spirit” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1021). In other words, given the new special circumstances of the “new social era”, both Catholic and Protestant Churches have come closer to the Orthodox understanding of service, although paradoxically, the Orthodox Church does not respond adequately to this phenomenon, but rather follows the old trends of those western Churches. An “inculturation” process in Ecclesiology as a new understanding of Church unity based on Christ’s “act of boundless service” is not only desirable, but necessary, not only because the Orthodox Church is not sensitive enough, or does not organize herself well enough to respond more urgently to situations requiring concrete help, but also because, throughout her history, the Orthodox Church has not been able to fully observe the complexity of Christ’s example, in spite of her openness to doing so: “The Orthodox Church preserved, as much as circumstances allowed, a part of the spirit of community of early Christianity” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1021).
The striking assertion that the Orthodox Church has only preserved a “part” of Christ’s example of service should not be understood as a radical call, similar to the first approach to service and pro-existence emphasized above, but rather as a call to humbleness: the Orthodox Church has always been under the negative pressure of the “structure and mentality of an individualistic society”, which she always chose to counter by humbleness. “Humbleness, united with the feeling of fraternity and equality, preached and applied throughout her area of jurisdiction, had bridled the tendency towards arrogance” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1021). This a humble way of suggesting that, at the time of the article, the Orthodox Church was, as in the past, under the pressure of a certain “structure and mentality” that was promising “equality” and “fraternity” without liberty. Thus, the Church’s mission had always consisted in the work of proposing humbleness as a substitute for liberty, humbleness as internal liberty paired with Christ’s attitude of readiness to suffer without retaliation, as prophesied: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). At the same time, this carries the risk of an incorrect understanding of humbleness by the clergy themselves, who, in their great eagerness to escape being supervised by a superimposed earthly authority and their great confidence that some truths are “self-evident” in the teaching of the Church, would rather renounce any further enquiry and try to look for discourses complacent with the ideological trends of the time. The humbleness of the Orthodox way is thus not the one that transforms the clergy into a quiet instrument of a political regime that, in spite of its official endorsing of equality and fraternity, leads in practice to a more acute individualism. Admitting that the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church made mistakes every time the clergy tried to borrow attitudes preached by the political power in the name of equality and fraternity, would be an important step towards embracing a kind of humbleness that would reorient the Orthodox Church towards the true meaning of Christ’s teaching and example.
There are three challenges ahead for the Orthodox clergy, Staniloae believes. The first is the harmonious joining of both service to God, which he renders by the Greek term
leitourgia, which in Romanian has been translated by the term “slujire”, and service to people, represented by the term
diakonia, in Romanian being called “servire”, although in practice the first term, “slujire” is wide enough to express both meanings in Romanian, service to God (worship) by service to people: “It is fair to admit that the Church has been preoccupied in the past rather with the service to God in the strict sense of the word, that is with the “divine service” (
sfintele slujbe). Still, the refreshing of the Christian life from the spring of the New Testament should help us avoid dissociating “service-worship” (
slujirea) to God from “service” (
servirea) to people. Only in the “service” (
servirea) to people is the “service-worship” (
slujirea) to God fully accomplished” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1025).
The second challenge, even for the common priest, will be to find adequate ways of serving “beyond the divine service and the preaching of the word”, especially because even small communities may be affected by problems which the priest “will not define himself” to his community, but will be “imposed to him by the specific needs of the people among whom he lives, believers or non-believers” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, pp. 1025–26). This is a special reminder for the Church hierarchy not to fall into ideological rigidity, or mislead the members of the Church by defining in an erroneous way the specific need for service of a certain person or number of persons as a potential threat for the integrity of faith of the community as a whole, even when the persons in need are not believers.
3.4. The Necessity of a Unified and Coherent Effort of the Orthodox Churches in the Context of Global Challenges
The third challenge for the Orthodox Church hierarchy is to find ways to allow local Churches to come together and produce a coherent message that would be translated into a visible unified effort comparable to the effort of other Churches and non-Christian institutions dedicated to the service of specific human problems: “When emphasizing the requirement of service that is to be expected from the Church as a whole, as distinguished from the personal service of each Christian, we need to take into consideration the fact of the existence of iniquities or threats of a more general order, which cannot be overcome simply by individual actions, but which require the common action of all peoples and institutions. It is the case with the contemporary world’s threat of an atomic war. Tackling this threat requires the firm action of the humanity as a whole and necessitates at the same time the service of the Church, or to put it more clearly, the service of the Churches as integers (
întreguri) in each part. There are also other problems, which inflict suffering to peoples and large numbers of human beings, and preclude the development of humanity: racial persecutions, cultural backwardness, extreme poverty and sickness of a large segment of population from different parts of our planet” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1026). Catholic and Protestant Churches have proven their ability to respond to the new problems of the humanity as a whole by coming closer to the spirit of the Orthodox understanding of service, whereas the Orthodox Churches have major difficulties in finding ways to organize themselves around the principle according to which each local Church is the whole Church manifested according to the particular political, social, or cultural settings. The solution envisaged by Staniloae is only suggested in the article dedicated to service and pro-existence, and is developed subsequently.
In the 1963 article, Staniloae believes that one reason for this insufficiency in bringing about a unified decision and action comes from the import of the distinction between Militant and Triumphant Church in the Orthodox ecclesiology, a separation abandoned by the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council. This distinction is damaging for the Orthodox Church in the sense that her clergy embrace either a political messianic mission, against the existing structures, or simply slip into collaboration with the political power, since at first sight, the ideology of equality and fraternity seems compatible with the mission of the Church, praising both social stability and the establishment of a social order capable of offering a certain degree of safety from the external potential threats. The second attitude, nourished by concrete social and political situations, leads local Churches to reach an “individualistic” mentality, with the consequence of arrogating for themselves in practice, although not theologically, the authority of the whole Church: “It is not for nothing that Dionysius the Areopagite assimilates the role of the three hierarchical ranks of the Church (deacons, priests, bishops) with that of the angels, something that the Book of Revelation had done with the rank of bishop (in Chapters 2 and 3), because angels themselves are servants. The ‘fight’ of the Christian or the Church can only be understood as service” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1026).
In another article, published in 1977, Staniloae went on to propose a theological term intended to clarify the ways in which each local Church may present herself as a representative of the Church as a whole. This term is “sinodicity” (
sinodicitate), which he first describes as similar to the term “sobornicity” (
sobornicitate) (
Staniloae 1977, p. 611). In the field of Ecumenical studies, Dumitru Staniloae is known for having proposed the term “Open Sobornicity” to express the inclusive attitude of the Orthodox Church towards the doctrinal and spiritual advancement of the Catholic and Protestant Churches towards an Orthodox perspective (
Turcescu 2002). This time, he intends the term “sinodicity” to mean not interconfessional dialogue, but the dialogue between the Orthodox Churches in their goal of regenerating the understanding of sobornicity and coming together in one coherent body. Describing the function of the bishop leading the local Church, Staniloae asserts that the bishop helps manifest the whole presence of the Church in the local part led by him, in a similar way to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist: “The transformation of the gifts into the Lord’s body and blood is accomplished by the priest with the invocation of the Holy Spirit, although not in isolation from the atmosphere of prayer of the community; similarly, the ordination of the bishop is accomplished by the invocation of the Holy Spirit by the ordaining hierarchs, although within the atmosphere of a liturgical community [...]. That is why, right from the initial moment of his quality and service, the bishop is ‘pars in toto’, not ‘pars pro toto’“[Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1977, p. 613).
Thus, the bishop cannot simply substitute, in an individualistic way, the wholeness of the Church for the wholeness or the “integer” of his community. Moreover, Staniloae argues that, by virtue of this ordination accomplished by several bishops as a visible sign of the “liturgical community” across the Orthodox Churches, the bishop has the prerogative of participating in a general council “without having to receive a special empowerment from the members of the Church, although he represents the pleroma of his Church during the council and at all times.” Staniloae is aware that the preparation for a “synod” of the Churches requires a considerable amount of time and work spent in creating an agreement and unity of perspective not only between the participating groups of clergy, but also an internal coherence of each local Church before the departure of the clergy to take part in the synod: “In other words, the Church prepares the statements, and is preparing herself for the resolutions to be taken by the synod, and within this framework the bishops are preparing themselves as well; and it is still up to the Church to establish later if the formula agreed upon [during the Council] corresponds to the essence of the preliminary conclusion that had emerged from her experience and reflection as it was reasoned prior to the Council” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1977, pp. 613–14).
This extended argument shows Dumitru Staniloae’s view that a more decisive response of the Orthodox Church as a whole regarding global challenges is possible, provided that the local Churches renounce their individualistic inclinations that have affected the functioning of sobornicity, and embrace the humility of acknowledging that the ambition of a local Church to talk “pro toto”, for the entire body of the Church, should be countered with the attitude of following the example of Christ who “washed the feet of his disciples and gave the parable of the Samaritan who washed the wounds of the one who fell among robbers” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1026). In the framework of Staniloae’s argument, the figure of the Samaritan may account for the Catholic and Protestant Churches, since he chose to open the article dedicated to service and pro-existence with examples of their advancements in following the biblical service. The actions of the Catholic and Protestant Churches should not be overlooked by the Orthodox Church, and neither should the Orthodox Church overlook the actions of other international organizations. Given the situation created by the new international context—a situation dominated by urgent problems like nuclear threats, racial discrimination, cultural backwardness, extreme poverty, sickness, and the like—service becomes not only a desideratum, but a necessary activity of the secular international world, so that “no human being and no human organization can elude this general trend, far less the Church, as she has at her very foundation an act of boundless service” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1020). This perspective places Staniloae in a position which is incompatible to that of Aidan Nichols, who had disapproved of the idea of compatibility between the Church and other human “aggregates”, with which, in Nichols’s view, the Church can only have a relation of “co-existence”, in spite of their philanthropic activities. As we will see further, the reason for the peculiar position of Fr. Dumitru Staniloae comes from his theological understanding of the attitude of pro-existence.
3.5. Staniloae’s Specific Understanding of “Pro-Existence” and Its Implications for the Orthodox Church’s Attitude to Service
If the Catholic and Protestant theologians emphasize Christ’s self-sacrifice as the initiator of human pro-existence, in Staniloae’s thought, the perspective is much wider: pro-existence is seen as an “ontological fact” (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1027), being given by God to Adam and Eve from their creation, and it is not lost with the fall, because it has always been, in human history, closely connected to co-existence: “The term ‘pro-existence’ means the existence for the other. It emphasizes a certain aspect of the term ‘co-existence’. ‘Co-existence’ means the together existence of many. But it does not express only an appended existence, but rather a certain community of existence [...]. In a way, the ones that co-exist reciprocally help each-other to exist. This community of existence is stated more clearly from a certain perspective by the term ‘pro-existence’. For each of those that co-exist, to exist together with the other means also, among other meanings, to exist for the other. It is obvious that, in this way, pro-existence expresses a deeper, more fundamental engagement of each human being towards others than service, but also the want that each one has for the existence of the other. [...] ‘It is not good for the man to be alone’ says already the first page of the Holy Book of the Christian Revelation. ‘I will make a helper suitable for him’; this is the role of a human being side by side with another human being: to be ‘a helper suitable for him’ (Genesis 2:18)” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1027). First of all, pro-existence is identified by Staniloae even in the attitude of co-existence, since existence for each other is unavoidable, as this is a condition of society. The dimension of pro-existence thus only serves to emphasize the existing aspect of reciprocal existence implied in co-existence. However, this doesn’t mean that the minimal pro-existence included in the reciprocal help manifested with co-existence fully accounts for all the generous acts manifested in the world since the beginning of human existence. The minimal level of pro-existence included in co-existence would not explain the philanthropic acts that are carried out in the complete absence of any self-interest. Staniloae’s argument for this second, autonomous level of natural pro-existence is “the want that each one has for the existence of the other”. In other words, one can feel the need to be in the presence of the others in a more practical way, the division of labor being among the aspects that would correspond to a level of “being for” included in co-existence, but it would be hard to explain by this aspect of co-existence the need to love and be loved, or the need to help and be helped in a non-selfish way, as these needs are given by God to Adam and Eve, and manifested by all human beings before Christianity. Pro-existence is an “ontological fact”, asserts Dumitru Staniloae. Indeed, Staniloae admits, the ontological restoration accomplished by Christ in his pro-existent attitude enlarges the horizons of pro-existence: “The ultimate cause and finality for Christians is God” (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1027).
This perspective explains Staniloae’s claim that Christians should serve not only believers, but unbelievers as well, and that the service to God or worship (
leitourgia) should not exclude service to people (
diakonia). In another article focusing on the topic of service and published in the “Pastoral Guidance” section of the journal “Romanian Orthodox Church”, being thus intended as a theological resource for priests, Fr. Staniloae argues: “By Serving people we do not give the tithe of our service to God, we do not steal from the time and full attention owed to the service of God, but actually we serve God by accomplishing His commandment” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1970, pp. 409–10). If the project of the Catholic theologians was to go beyond a sacrificial and legalistic understanding of Christ’s pro-existential gesture of suffering death for all humankind (
Deneken 1988, p. 270), Dumitru Staniloae’s project was to go beyond a ritualistic understanding of worship in the Orthodox Church, which was, in his view, linked to a kind of sacrificial understanding of the service to people. If co-existence means occasionally existing for others, with the feeling of sacrificing one’s own time and energy, this might appear acceptable for an Orthodox Christian, since this would involve giving the tithe of our own profit for the glory of God, but having to give the tithe of our own worship, this would seem unacceptable, first, because even if Christians prayed day and night, they would still not bring enough service to God by worship, and second, because this may engender a bad habit of choosing to sacrifice time for prayer when trying to help the other, rather than sacrificing from our private time and, thus ultimately endangering our own hope for salvation. As we have seen, Staniloae does not agree with this kind of attitude, first of all because a natural pro-existence inclines even non-Christians to carry out unselfish acts, even if they do sacrifice a large part of their own time and profit, and also because if the Christian embraces a renewed pro-existence in Christ, s/he will choose in a non-selfish way to serve God by serving the neighbor.
Furthermore, it can be argued that there is an undeniable degree of compatibility between the natural pro-existence and the Christian pro-existence, by taking into account Fr. Dumitru Staniloae’s view on the place of the world as a space of communion between people and of people with God. Fr. Marc-Antoine Costa de Beauregard, who spent the summer of 1981 at the Monastery Cernica interviewing the Romanian theologian, writes that, in Staniloae’s thought, the world itself becomes “a space of communion and a space of liberty”, and that it is in this space that God showed that his creation is for the human being, as all the animals are brought to him as God’s gift, “revealing thus the trinitarian, that is, relational form of the created space” [Author’s transl.] (
De Beauregard 2002,p. 149;
De Beauregard 1983, pp. 169–79). Indeed, Staniloae’s vision on the vocation of Christian pro-existence to embrace all natural pro-existence and co-existence with human beings, animals, and the entire material universe as a space of love can be observed from an article published in 1972: “When we share in the material goods of the universe we must be conscious that we are moving in the sphere of Christ, and that it is by making use of these material things as gifts for the benefit of one another that we progress in our union with Christ and with our neighbor. [...] Thus the universe is called to become the eschatological paradise through the agency of fraternal love. It is our duty to free the universe from the vanity of the blind and selfish use we make of it as sinners, and to see that it shares in the glory of the sons of God (Rom. 8:21), the glory which is an inseparable part of our union as brothers” (
Staniloae 1980, p. 212).
It remains to be clarified why Fr. Dumitru Staniloae sees pro-existence as a deeper engagement than service. Staniloae’s explanation resides in the way he defines pro-existence as compared to service: “The term ‘service’ expresses a voluntary engagement. It expresses the idea that, once I exist, I can and I am obliged to work towards others. Service is added to my existence; and through service I add something to others’ existence. The term ‘pro-existence’ expresses the fact that in my very existence is imprinted the dynamic reference towards the other, as a primary finality in this world, and that [this imprinted reference] is given and is being fulfilled through the reference of other existences towards myself. Service is nothing but the moral consequence of the ontological fact of pro-existence. If serving means working for the other, pro-existing means more: to exist for others. Pro-existence ontologically excludes egoism. Egoism is a perversion, an ‘alienation’ of human nature” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1027). If human beings can be forced to serve, they cannot be forced to pro-exist, since pro-existence is an ontological feature of humanity given from Creation. Moreover, we can learn how to serve, but pro-existence is fundamental to human nature. By their egoism, human beings merely deter pro-existence from manifesting itself in their hearts: “When we impeach the pro-existential impetus coming from our inner selves, we impeach the manifestation of other people’s pro-existence towards us” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1029).
This assertion is essential in the context of Staniloae’s advice to priests not to define the concrete problems themselves, but to wait for the persons affected by those particular problems to define them. The danger that the priest may generate is to spread fear or “individualistic” mentality among the members of the community, which would effectively deter the “pro-existential impetus” to be manifested towards those that the members of the community perceive as potential enemies. Staniloae is thus aware that an ideological reading of the neighbors’ problems may reorient towards a more limited or safer manifestation of love, limited only to those we completely know and trust. However, this means advancing towards a biased understanding of the Christian imperative of love for the enemy.
There is, indeed, an important risk associated with pro-existing towards, or communing with, the enemy. Staniloae gives a series of Scriptural arguments to show that Christians should embrace this calling and face the danger, even when this means being sacrificed (John 5; 7:19; 10:10; I John 3: 14–16) (
Staniloae 1963, p. 1029). Nonetheless, Christians should not be afraid of this extreme situation, because the extreme cases can be avoided by using the most characteristic medium of communication of human beings, the word: “The pro-existential character of the human person is probably nowhere manifested to such a high extent than in the word which constitutes the person’s most defining and comprehensive spiritual attribute, according to the Holy Fathers’ definition: the human being is an animal endowed with speech. [...] Through the word, human beings become attached to each other, they support each other, they weave connections and make communal advancements. Within the word, human beings themselves join each other, ceasing to be distant from each other. [...] This is adequately suggested by the Romanian term ‘cuvânt’, which comes from the Latin ‘conventus’, encounter, fusion, coming to the same place. [...] The word-command, when it is not covered by the authority of the whole community [...], represents an ‘alienation’ of the role of the word, an ‘alienation’ of nature from its thirst for communion and a deprivation of the chance to advancement in communion and meaning. [...] The human being has the power of refusing to serve and the capacity to use the word towards discord and disunion, and this tends to the weakening of the humanity” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1963, pp. 1027–28). The individualistic word does not reflect the communal liturgical experience and reasoning of the ways in which the pro-existential impetus should be expressed in actual service. Even if endowed with a special status and ministry, the members of the hierarchy cannot use the word towards strengthening their authority, and should not use their influence to predefine the problems to be tackled by the community. The concrete problems will be acknowledged directly from those who suffer and, according to the principle of sinodicity, the whole Church will become active in each particular local community thanks to an active consultation and reasoning among her members and a fraternal debate between the clerics of different localities, thus opening up the possibility of reaching a decision that would reflect the service involving all the love the community can give.
Serving Christ’s brothers in need, not necessarily through a preferential treatment of some of them, but rather by using the exchanged word in order to reach to the understanding of the concrete circumstances affecting their lives, may be a good opportunity to coagulate the Church as one body, able to follow the love commandment transmitted by Christ, her head. If Staniloae encourages the members of the Church towards an attitude manifesting itself through the word as a question awaiting an answer, one may ask if by this question and answer Staniloae means the predication of word to nonbelievers while serving them. To answer this challenging question, Staniloae responds that, besides the specific mission of preaching “the word of salvation”, there is “the other mission, carrying a larger significance, which has the role of the word spoken from the roofs, endowed with universal reach, a mission of service towards helping the entire world come closer to the Kingdom of heaven, the Kingdom of love” [Author’s transl.] (
Staniloae 1970, p. 415). Only after this is accomplished can Christians move on to the more specific mission of baptizing those who discover in their hearts a faith in Christ.