A brave and overdue challenge to the Romanian Orthodox Church

For the past 50 odd years I’ve been an agnostic. My father was a Presbyterian Minister whose pastoral work and care I respected but I found no need to believe in a deity and found easy anthropological explanations for the Jesus figure and stories. Religions with more hierarchical systems aroused stronger feelings in me – by virtue of their power hierarchies and deferences, they succumb easily to corruption and the hypocrisy which goes with that. Catholic priest abuse of children was just the tip of the iceberg!

The Romanian Orthodox Church is a rich and powerful organisation here. The dulcet tones of its high priest – Daniel – can be heard endlessly on their Trinitas Radio Station here. Since his elevation to the post less than a decade ago, he has used a very effective business model to turn the Church into one of the richest organisations in the country. In seems to practice a rather exclusive approach to love and does not radiate the ethic I respect in Lutheran and other Presbyterian religions.
In 2009 a brave young village priest dared,however, to ask what happened to the money he raised from parishioners and passed to his superiors. What has subsequently happened to him speaks volumes not only about the Romanian Church but about police, media and politicians here. Weeks after his impertinent query, word came that he was to be moved to a monastery, His refusal led to his being sacked but villagers (Reviga in Ialomita County east of Bucharest I think) rallied round him – not least because his replacement promptly raised the amount of the church collection   

Dismayed at the injustice of an unofficial tax they couldn’t afford, people started coming to Pandelic for support—at first just a few, then more and more in the following months.
Pandelic started giving services to disgruntled believers in his own home, preaching the same faith taught by the church but free from the pressures that the institution exerted upon its faithful. Quickly the congregation swelled and before long nearly all of the village’s population of 300 were attending. As many people crammed into his living room as they could, and the rest stood outside, listening in through open windows. On the other side of the village square, the church lay virtually empty.
In Romania, almost all churches belong to the state, to be loaned to whichever religious institution represents the demands of its congregation. With this in mind, Pandelic set about fulfilling the necessary legal requirements to grant his congregation official status as an autonomous religion and, with this accomplished, relocated his services to the village church.
Around the same time, Pandelic was approached by the Romanian Liberal Party (PNL) who, seeing his local popularity, asked him to stand as their representative in an upcoming election. He agreed, saying he knew that “to have any extensive impact in church affairs in Romania, you need to be involved in politics as well.”
Things moved smoothly at first, with his political position widely supported and his congregation growing as Christians traveled for miles to experience this new movement for themselves. Then, early one morning in spring, Pandelic was awoken by shouts and violent battering on the front of his house. Opening his door in a dressing gown, he found a group of Orthodox officials accompanied by military police. They had with them a presidential order that barred Pandelic and his congregation from use of the village church.
As Pandelic contested his charges from his doorway, villagers, also woken by the shouts and banging of the police, emerged from their houses and gathered in front of the church, its doors locked behind them. There were over one hundred people when the police moved in with batons, beating all those who refused to disperse and leaving two hospitalised. With the steps cleared they broke down the doors of the church and for the next two days kept it occupied, until new locks and an alarm system had been installed.
Just days later, Pandelic was dropped by the PNL. In the press, MP Cristina Pocora was quoted as saying, “If the church has dismissed Casian Pandelic for violation and disobedience of church rules, then this man is neither my colleague nor a representative of PNL.” With the church’s support vital to secure votes in rural regions, the motives for the party’s U-turn on Pandelic were likely to have been formed under pressure from the ROC.
For now, it seems Pandelic is locked in a checkmate. With all legal and political avenues blocked by the ROC and a local media that remains largely indifferent, there is no platform from which his voice, and that of the community that stands behind him, can be heard.
Pandelic talks of other examples across the country, where priests have stood up against the ROC and their congregations have followed. The church, he says, “has always come down with a maximum of violence. They are very aware that discontent will spread and quickly undermine the authority of the ROC.” In a country desperate to move on from its communist legacy, this is a move in the wrong direction.

Quite astonishing is the apparent failure of the Romanian media to cover the story. UK journals put me on to it - and I still find it very difficult to get a Romanian reference from any google search. At my third attempt I found this useful interview from April 2012 tucked away on page 8 of the google search. It is from an interesting looking leftist journal I have never heard of - CriticAtac. All credit to them for recognising the importance of this issue. But they should now have a follow-up article to deal with the story in its wider perspective (eg comments from the Church and others) and bring things up to date.

postscript; Sarah in Romania has just posted this item about how another courageous individual managed to end a 10 year scam the Orthodox Church in Sibiu was inflicting on those applying for driving licences (and, again, the curious role of the police)

Generalising about Art

What do wine and paintings have in common? It’s very difficult to write about each! They impact on our senses (palate and nose; eye and brain respectively). Hardly surprising therefore that writing about art and wine produces a lot of nonsense – with adjective heaped upon hyperbolic adjective in an effort to justify the writer’s arbitrary opinions. Books about these subjects, of course, are often very beautiful – but the text rarely keeps pace.

Since I began my serious collecting of Bulgarian realist painters, I’ve bought a fair number of books about art generally and about specific artists (even about collectors and dealers) but have to confess that I have learned very little. The three books on realist painting, for example, taught me only one thing – that the term is a slippery one!

My recent posts on Romanian realist painters of the early part of the 20^th century were inspired by 7-8 little second-hand books from the 1970s and 1980s about individual artists which I picked up in Bucharest recently. Charming books – thick paper, great fonts and mounted reproductions (modelled, it seems to me, on the great little Skira books of the 1950s and 1960s) – much easier to read than the 900 pages of Paul Johnson’s Art; a new history which I did however thoroughly enjoy. 

Simon Schama’s "The Power of Art" may also be a bit unwieldy in its 450 page coffee-table style but does adopt the same useful focus on individual painters rather than style or eras – Caravaggio, Bellini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gough and Picasso. And there is a nice blog which gives good detail on the background to individual paintings - eg some of Van Gogh's

For me, however, the most insightful stuff on painting remains the small book written in the 1970s by John Berger – Ways of Seeing. The link gives the full text. Although I did come across in a Sofia friend's flat a beautiful book about painting in 1920s Bulgaria which struck me as a great way to approach painting - capturing in one country how various painters relate to one another and the changing trends.

My viewings in the last few years of Bulgarian and Romanian art have led me wonder about the extent to which is it possible to generalise about a nation’s painting style. My little booklet on Bulgarian Realists ("Getting to know the Bulgarians through their paintings") gives brief notes about 140 Bulgarian painters – most of whom were born in the last decade the 19th century and before the First World War; I have not been able to find anything striking in Romania from the same period. The 10 great Romanian artists I mentioned in the last two posts were born some 30 years earlier (between the 1860s and 1880s) but seem to have been the last of their line. When Bulgarian landscapes and colours were blooming in their art, their Romanian colleagues were producing (for me) dark and insipid stuff.

If I am right, what is the reason? Romania was, of course, the larger country with a significant bourgeois class and attachments to French culture – Bulgaria more rural with freedom from heavy Ottoman rule going back less than two generations (the Romanian liberation was less significant for them because of the considerable autonomy they had won within the Ottoman Empire). The Bulgarian celebration (in their art of the early 20^th century) of their land and peoples perhaps reflected a pride and spirit absent in the more cynical and worldly Romanian bourgeois?
And the paintings in the Bulgarian Orthodox Churches are so much more colourful (indeed sensuous) than in the dull and serious Romanians.
The first painting of Rila Monastery is by Mario Zhekov - the second (in my collection) by an unknown 

Two more realist Romanian painters of the early 20th century

Two painters were missing from yesterday’s list of important Romanian painters of the early 20^th ;Century – one deliberately, the other because I was not aware of his significance.

I have never been particularly impressed with Theodor Pallady (1871-1956) but his name should be included in any such list.

Pallady was born in Iaşi, but at a young age, his family sent him to Dresden, where he studied engineering at the Dresden University of Technology between 1887 and 1889. At the same time, he studied art and was encouraged to go to Paris where he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts (Académie des Beaux-Arts). In 1892, he worked in the studio of Gustave Moreau, where he had as colleagues Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, and Albert Marquet.

In 1904, Pallady returned to Romania but maintained close connections with Paris, where he continued to hold many personal exhibitions, up until World War II. He also exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1924, 1940 and 1942. A good website gives some of his paintings.

Stefan Dimitrescu (1886-1933) is a new one for me – and most impressive. Most of Dimitrescu's paintings take inspiration mainly from the life of simple folk, and especially from that of Romanian peasants and miners; they attempt to portray Romanian traditions and way of life, drawing on his encounters with both Byzantine art and the work of Paul Cézanne.

Part of his art (between 1926 and 1933) was inspired by his travels to Dobruja, and have been considered to be the most accomplished synthesis between his craft as a draftsman and his art as a painter.

Born in Moldova into a modest family, he completed his primary and secondary studies in his hometown. In 1902, deciding to follow his passion for music, he left for Iasi, where he took cello classes at the Iaşi Conservatory.

In summer of 1903, Dimitrescu entered the National School of Fine Arts in the city, studying in the same class as Nicolae Tonitza. After graduation, Dimitrescu painted murals for Orthodox churches in Bacău County. Between 1912 and 1913, he studied in Paris, at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, during which time he was attracted to impressionism

Drafted into the army at the start of the Romanian Campaign of World War I, Dimitrescu was profoundly touched by the experience, and began painting tragic pieces that documented the misery brought by the conflict. Like his friend Tonitza, he began exploring social themes, such as the effects of bombardments.

In 1917, along with the painters Camil Ressu, Iosif Iser, Marius Bunescu, he founded the Art of Romania association in their Iaşi refuge. In 1926, Dimitrescu, with Oscar Han, Francisc Şirato, and Nicolae Tonitza, established Grupul celor patru ("The Group of Four").

He became a teacher at the Iaşi National School of Fine Arts in 1927, and, during the next year, he was named its headmaster (a position he held until his death). Towards the end of his life, Dimitrescu began expanding his palette to cover more somber colors, while exploring compositions in which the background was stripped of details and usually of a dominant white.
Some of his paintings can be seen on this website.

Romanian Realists of the early 20th Century

I’ve been a bit sniffy about the Romanian painting tradition. Compared with the Bulgarian it is certainly less accessible and more elitist – which is a reflection of socio-economic realities here. But it did have some real Masters in the late 19th Century  - starting with the classicist Theodor Aman (1831-91); the renowned impressionist Nicolae Grigorescu (1838-1907); and his friend, the tragically short-lived Ion Andreescu (1850-82)

The key realist painters who grew up in their shadow in the last part of the 19^th century number about ten – with many having passed through the Munich Art Academy which was such an influence on the Bulgarians. Few are well known outside Romania (apart from Luchian) and they cost about ten times their Bulgarian counterparts. For each painter I give a video link.

Nicolae Vermont (1866-1932) had great landscapes; Stefan Luchian (1868-1917) is better known for his still-lives.

Then three of my favourites - Stefan Popescu (1872-1948) a great colourist (the river scene here) who has many North African landscapes;

Camil Ressu (1880-1962) with wonderful peasant scenes ; and Jean Alexandru Steriadi (1881-1956) with a lot of inspiration from the Black Sea (the painting at the top is boats at Braila).

Iosif Iser (1881-1958) was a very colourful artist - who gave us great figurative work ...of racetracks and Ottoman figures.

Nicolae Tonitsa (1886-1940) is well-known for his portraits - and the curious dark eyes of many of his figures.

Samuel Muntzner (1884-1959) is also a favourite - with river or sea generally present in his paintings.

Ciucurencu, Alexandru (1903-1977) had more time under the socialist regime than the others and has another video here

A general video on Romanian painting seems to confirm my belief that the worthwhile painters were born in the latter part of the 19th Century - and that would include the painters from the Nagybany school most of whom were technically Hungarian.
And another article indicates that my own preferences are fairly similar to more professional judgements

Francophiles, Turkophobes.... and a Kipling poem

The Elephant (second-hand English) bookshop has now at last reopened in its more central location in Shishman St, Sofia. The books are more accessible – although still a few piled high. I emerged last week clutching 5 –one of which was Julian Barnes’ collection of essays on France - Nothing to Declare. He really is a superb writer!

You don't read Barnes to be transported into imaginary realms, or to encounter the struggle and pathos of humanity. You read him, rather, for that superior tone and for his voice; in many ways, his novels are all voice - amused, languorous, insouciant and arch. You read him for his hauteur, his gift of cultivated digression and for his riffs and anecdotes. Above all, you read him as an essayist, one of our best.
Nowadays, any newspaper columnist who can sustain an argument of more than 1,000 words is recognised as an essayist, but the popularity of the column or 'piece' is no more than an example of the cheap popularisation of the essay in a degraded culture. Dr Johnson called the essay an 'irregular, undigested piece'. That is right. The column is too regular, too finished; it's an easily digested piece. But the essay, as perfected by Montaigne, Charles Lamb and EB White, strives for literary permanence. It concerns the search for a personal voice, of the kind that animates the most successful offerings in Barnes's new book of essays about France.
Barnes first visited France in the summer of 1959. He was 13, on holiday with his parents, and was enchanted; he has been returning, at irregular intervals, ever since. France, it seems, is the idealised Other against which he measures all other countries, including England, and finds them, by contrast, a perplexing disappointment. He accepts many of the stereotypes about the French: that they are Cassanovan in sex and Machiavellian in politics; that they are 'relaxed about pleasure' and treat the arts 'as central to life, rather than some add-on, like a set of alloy wheels'.

Here you can actually read the opening essay - and judge for yourself.

Books about Turkey never fail to fascinate me and Tim Kelsey’s Dervish – travels to modern Turkey (1996)  was another book in my package. Most books I’ve read on the country are balanced if not positive – but

in vain will the reader search for passages on the splendors of ancient Ephesus, Cappadocia's fairytale landscape, pristine Mediterranean beaches, colorful bazaars or amusing anecdotes about friendly locals. Instead the author of “Dervish” paints an almost dystopian portrait of a country that, just a decade-and-a-half ago, appeared so full of contradictions that social, political and economic meltdown lay just around the corner.

It is, however, a gripping read - focusing on the marginal underside of Turkey - with chapters on transvestites and the minorities struggling for survival in the troubled south-east. It's all a good reminder of how far Turkey has travelled in the past decade. For those wanting a more rounded picture of the country, Hugh Pope recommends his best 5 reads on Turkey

The Sofia-Bucharest drive is one of the most civilised I know – and I know my central European roads! In 1991 I was based in Copenhagen and drove a lot to and from places such as Gdansk (when the first election campaign was underway); Berlin (in which I had an employer in 1992); Prague (where I worked and lived from 1991-93); Budapest (Miskolc and Nyíregyháza 1993-95); Bratislava (and Nitra 1996); and Bucharest.

Friday gave a superb, relaxed drive (despite the heavy snow of the previous days) – initially over the Balkans – arriving Bucharest at 4pm. And Saturday’s visit to the Humanitas and Carterescu bookshops bagged another 5 books – including a lovely poetry compendium (with CD) The Great Modern Poets ed by Michael Schmidt which contained this amazing 1917 critique of ruling elites written by a man usually associated with Victorian Imperialism – Rudolph Kipling

Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide--
  Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
  Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?

Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour:
  When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power
  By the favour and contrivance of their kind?

Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends,
  Even while they make a show of fear,
Do they call upon their debtors,  and  take  counsel  with  their
     friends,
  To conform and re-establish each career?
                         
Their lives cannot repay us--their death could not undo--
  The shame that they have laid upon our race.
But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,
  Shell we leave it unabated in its place?

I'm surprised this poem has not been dogging Tony Bliar as he is followed around by those wanting to have him prosecuted for war crimes for the death of so many people in the Iraq invasion and occupation. The poem was written in the aftermath of the British invasion a hundred years ago of...Mesopotamia

Balkan bites and Russian robberies

I’ve not been in the mood for blogging since a Russian theft, a Bulgarian dog-bite and a Bulgarian eviction last week.

Early Wednesday morning a Russian stole into one of the (Russian) sleeping wagons - which are the only ones now to ply between Bucharest and Sofia (the great old German rolling stock of Bulgarian and Romanian railways have been progressively taken off since 2009) – and stole money from my sleeping partner who was coming for a visit. She woke while he was replacing the purse! With the help of a Bulgarian next door she immediately phoned emergency services - and saw police enter the neighbouring carriage at Pleven station.

 I was initially impressed with the squad of 5 transport police who were waiting for the train as it arrived on Wednesday morning and corralled all the passengers – the Bulgarians are fed up with the frequency and scale of the theft on this line. But she then spent 6 hours at the police station making statements; waiting while the Russians (who had locked themselves in their compartment and came out only when ordered by their Embassy) were being interrogated; and then trying to select the offender from a line-up. 

That was Wednesday. 

Thursday morning I was moving some paintings from the old to the new apartment and was bitten by a stray dog just outside the new place. Fortunately I had a physiotherapy appointment at the Military Hospital an hour later and was therefore able to have an immediate swab and anti-rabies injection. Apparently everyone gets bitten here – Bucharest (despite Brigitte Bardot’s antics) seems to have been able to get the stray dog problem under control by a programme of sterilisation. Here in Sofia there is only talk – no action. 

That was Thursday.

Friday morning came a phone call from my new landlady who had entered my flat without warning or permission and found the cat who adopted us last summer. I had told the Agency to inform her – but they failed. “No cats” she now says –  a soulless, cold and noisy flat and wild dogs have already alienated me and we reach an amicable agreement to part. By the next evening I was ensconced in a much more amenable old flat in the heart of old Sofia (Khan Khrum St) for 270 euros a month!   

The painting is "Patriots" by the powerful Sottish painter - Peter Howson - who has done a series of harrowing paintings from his experience of the Balkan Wars.

Disaster facing Romania

A very tragic situation developing for Romania after Sunday’s parliamentary elections there – with the unholy alliance of ex-communists and liberals (???!!) getting 60% of a very low vote (40%) and the party associated with the much-hated and paranoid President Basescu getting only 16%. An Economist article puts the situation very bluntly -

According to the Constitution, Mr Basescu has the right to appoint the next prime minister, following consultations with the party that gained the majority of votes. (Art 103 of the constitutions says "The President of Romania nominates one candidate for the function of Prime Minister, after consulting with the party that has an absolute majority in the Parliament, or if one does not exist from one of the parties present in the parliament".)
The ruling alliance stated they want Mr Ponta to continue as prime minister for another four years( – but they are a coalition not a party). Basescu has repeatedly indicated that even if the ruling alliance gains a majority of votes, he will not nominate Mr Ponta.
Last week, Mr Basescu said he will appoint a prime minister who is pro-European, respects the Constitution and the rule of law and doesn’t have any hidden details on his resume that could make him an easy target for blackmail. Mr Ponta does not appear to fit the bill. The European Union has strongly criticised his government last summer following the cabinet’s attempts to take control of the judiciary and other public institutions. Mr Ponta was also accused of plagiarising his PhD thesis and lying in his CV. He denied all the allegations. 

One of the commentators in the subsequent discussion thread spells out what lies ahead -

Due to a friendly (and highly controversial) Constitutional Court ruling, the interpretation that the president operates under is that he can choose whoever he likes. But it’s clear that the spirit of the law, and of his constitutional role as a neutral arbiter are ignored. He is supposed to consult with the parties and assess which party's candidate has the best chance at forming a parliamentary majority. For the president to name whom he wish is aberrant and un-democratic. Why even consult with the parties if he can nominate whoever he wants? If we want to be technical, the president could even dissolve the parliament after two failed attempts at forming the government based on his nominations. This would mean that Basescu, based on this literal interpretation of the law, could repeated dissolve parliament and force new elections until the parliament (and thus the people) succumbed to his will and backed his nominee.
But alas, let's say the President is within his legal right to nominate as he alone chooses. Is this moral? Is this something that is in line with trans-Atlantic values? Are the people of Romania to be held hostage under the guise of respecting the Rule of Law where on the other hand democratic principles are being trampled? And I'm not even mentioning the issue of legitimacy. 7.6 million Romanians voted this past Sunday. 7.3 million voted for Basescu to be impeached in July. Reflect on this...these numbers are staggering!
However at the end of the day, Basescu has no leverage. If the president wants to be technical in his political fight then so can his opposition. If he doesn't nominate Ponta, the parliament will suspend Basescu again and the interim President will appoint Ponta. Another crisis, lost time, lost money, but ultimately the will of the people will prevail.

Poor Romanians! They face another impeachment of the President; attempts (as in Hungary) to make the Constitutional Court subject to corrupt parliamentarians and all other sorts of constitutional changes if the minority Hungarian party enters the coalition. What is left of Rule of Law is collapsing. And this is the country I'm driving back to in a few days (snow permitting!!)

Two years this time I had a post listing some of my favourite reading of all time.

You are where you live

A Samuel Pepys - (or Marcel Proust -) type entry today.

Thanks to a couple of recent moves in my accommodation I’m seeing another side of Sofia. At the weekend I moved a little but further from the centre – trying to keep the rental low since I’m here only for a few months (if that) but would ideally like to keep somewhere to have as a base for my things and for the occasional visit. But I’ve been spoiled in the places I;ve had and just cannot adjust to the soullessness of these cheaper rented places. 

The young woman showing me the various flats told me the impact I had made when I said I needed bookshelves – “no one reads here” she exclaimed “but it does make people respect you!” And the lack of reading certainly shows in the absence, in any of the flats I looked at, of reading lights. I just don’t understand how people can live in places with only overhead lights! And what is advertised as “furnished” often means little more than kitchen facilities (often with dishwasher!), a bed, table and chairs. No cooking utensils, bedsheets, lamps or radio. Fortunately I travel with cooking stuff, don’t need television and had bought a couple of antique carpets for the bare floors – but unfortunately I need storage space for bikes and car parking facilities not too far away. 

So I’ve had to settle (for 300 euros a month) for a rather tawdry and shoddy new build-flat – largely on the basis that it seemed reasonably clean and had the space for my wheels! But I’m not sure how long I can put up with the place. 

I also have a hateful heating system (hot air being blown through air conditioners) simple because the central heating here in Sofia I so expensive. A monopoly supplier has forced more and more people to disconnect – driving the prices for those who remain even higher. So it is much cheaper to have electric heating which you control – particularly if you’re living there intermittently. 

I continue to enjoy walking (and cycling) around Sofia – even in the snow and ice which have graced the streets this week – the small shops and galleries (and cheap and pleasant eating and drinking) invite so (the Elephant second-hand Bookshop with English books has relocated into larger premises in the centre and opens today!) But the cosy small flats in Bucharest and Ploeisti are definitely beginning to beckon. 

Trouble is that I would have to dump the bikes (no storeage or cycling conditions up there) and also some of the paintings! Choices!

I was hoping to add to my little library on Bulgarian art by a visit to the underground second-hand bookshop at the University last week. It did indeed have quite a range of 1960s-1990s books on particular artists – but at extortionate prices for battered and nondescript things of less than 100 pages. The average price was 30 euros. What Bulgarian can afford such prices?

But, just 5 minutes (and hidden) away in a courtyard at Vassil Levski 87, there is a small second-hand bookshop which offers a not dissimilar range at a quarter of those prices. I got a couple of nice little books on the satirist -Stoyan Venev - and the shaper of Bulgarian painting - Jaroslav Vesin