BISERICA ȘI SATUL ROMÂNESC/ROMANIAN CHURCH AND VILLAGE

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Abstract: Poporul român şi apariţia lui pe scena istoriei este o consecinţă firească datorată existenţei satelor româneşti, cu mult înainte de apariţia lor documentară. Aceste sate nu erau atestate în documente, fiindcă în acele vremuri grele ale protoistoriei poporului român erau tulburate de furtuna migraţiilor. Biserica şi preotul au fost, în tot acest timp, factori activi în viaţa satelor româneşti în jurul cărora (şi a celorlalţi intelectuali ai satului), generaţii după generaţii, au trăit, au gândit şi au rezistat tuturor vitregiilor. Reazemul şi puterea de rezistenţă în acele vremuri de aspră furtună, în care istoria se scria nu cu acte de cancelarie, ci cu sabie şi sânge, a fost şi Biserica şi slujitorii ei. În acele vremuri fără o istorie scrisă, am avut şi noi o organizaţie chiar modestă şi care era legată de Biserică. Aici în aceste biserici şi pe lângă preoţii lor s-a plămădit încet dar temeinic limba lui scrisă, Biserica contribuind astfel la afirmarea conştiinţe că aparţineau aceluiaşi neam. Pe baza acestor vechi şi trainice legături dintre Biserică şi popor putem înţelege şi justifica de ce încă de la început s-a acordat atâta încredere şi preţuire bisericii străbune.

Keywords: Romanian Orthodox Church, Romanian villages, priests, national language, safeguarding, national unity, priestly activity

Summary: The Romanian people and its emergence on the arena of history is a natural outcome of the existence of Romanian villages, long before they were attested to by documents. These villages were not recorded by documents because the harsh proto-history of the Romanian people was troubled by migrations. During all this time, the Church and priests (as well as other intellectuals of the rural areas) were active in the Romanian villages and around them; generation after generation lived, thought, and withstood all hardships. The pillar of support and the strength during those troubled times when history was written not in chancelleries, but on battlefields with the sword and blood, was the Church with her servants. During those times without a written history, we were still able to organize ourselves – however scarcely – around the Church. Here, in churches and near their priests, our written language evolved slowly but steadily, and thus the Church contributed to shaping the national consciousness. This is proved by the fact that, coming into contact with the Slavs and living close to them, we never changed what we already were: a people in its own right, with its own Romanian language and national awareness, like a strong tree with roots anchored deeply into the ancestral ground, whose sap incorported the Slavic elements. Generation after generation, our people learned to read and write in their own language, not a foreign one. These old and strong ties between Church and people prove and justify the trust and appreciation earned by our ancestral Church from the earliest times. The Church as been the matrix preserving and perpetuating our national language and consciousness. It is generally known that the priests shared the customs, language and life of the peasantry; outside the church they would wear the same clothes and they earned their living by working the land, growing cattle, doing the same age-old labor as the Romanian people. They shared the same vestments and language, and maintained their steadfast teachings: one God, one faith, one baptism and one right judgment. They preached the ancestral teachings and preserved the heritage passed down from fathers to sons, from mothers to daughters, so that no one presumed to think otherwise and go against these teachings. This sameness in thinking and living, by which the priests identified with the people, safeguarded the spiritual and national unity and overcame the alien factors that threatened this unity.

Articol publicat în original în Revista Biserica Ortodoxă Română, Anul XCVII (1979), nr. 3-4, pp. 511-525.

Pr. Ion Spiru (2 nov. 1914 – 20 febr. 1995) – preot, arheolog, filatelist, numismat și publicist

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– PR. ION SPIRU

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