Saint Priest Confessor Dumitru Stăniloae in Telegraful Român: Resolving the Authorship Issue and Mapping the Intellectual Influences

Through a systematic reading of all 421 articles that Dumitru Stăniloae authored in the diocesan weekly Telegraful Român (1930-1945), the o#cial publication of the Romanian Orthodox Church’s Metropolis of Transylvania, this paper aims to address the authorship issue and to trace Stăniloae’s intellectual influences. The authorship issue arises because not all the articles in Telegraful român when Stăniloae was the publication’s editor-in-chief are bylined. Lacking other sources such as diaries or correspondence, the intellectual influences on Stăniloae are documented in how he reviewed and quoted books, used various periodicals, and eulogized some of the prominent intellectuals of the time. An examination of the state of research shows that of the some 1,794 references to Stăniloae’s life and work in Romanian and foreign languages, only a handful of studies deal with the articles published in Telegraful român, despite the importance of his early journalism for his political, social, and later theological conception. The paper aims to make a preliminary contribution to the still unwritten history of Stăniloae’s ideas and to offer a new perspective on the more recent questions concerning the most prominent Romanian theologian’s engagement with the far right.