Tradiţiile sau parcursul de la temeiul adevărului la cununa frumuseţii
Tradition–from the Grounds of Truth to the Sign of Beauty

Summary/Abstract: For Christians, Holy Tradition is the matrix of any real tradition. Therefore, the text highlights several defi ning and coordinated characteristics of the Holy Tradition. Local traditions are often those that give color and charm of living, as well as a distinct identity. In this way, tradition is an exceptional component of a person or a nation’s identity. Every nation and every man defi ne themselves before God and establish an identity in the way they consider tradition. Tradition and history go together: tradition represents history processed and redeemed. In order to search the Romanian traditions in the past and to learn something about the spiritual identity of the Romanians, one has to delve into the village. According to good tradition, the Romanian peasant is Orthodox Christian. Old and truthful, coherent and consistent traditions come from the expression of liturgical life in the world. The work of Romanian traditions begins where the Creed ends (awaiting resurrection of the body, and life everlasting), as faith in resurrection and in the other life in the vicinity of God. But, prior to the Resurrection, the Romanian peasant assumes both the cross of Christ and the cross of his own existence into this world with everything it implies: sacrifi ce, suffering, endurance, and, in the highest situations, a declaration of faith with the price of life. Romanian language, with obvious theological virtues, should be considered a fundamental component of Romanian tradition. Romanian traditions belong to a couple of main categories, which, at least in the old world, worked together: fi rst referring to customs and traditions (an immaterial culture), the other made of objects surrounding and accompanying them (a material culture). Meeting traditions occurs especially during more or less important holidays, in the crucial moments of the day, in the agricultural and pastoral calendar, and at times of transition. Both communism and capitalism minimize tradition, ideologically and practically. Loss of traditions is mainly the loss of reasonable criteria of value, leading to the loss of the very traditional values. During modern times, the opposition between tradition and modernity is a diversion: in fact, tradition is but the result of a succession of detached “modern times”. Some have considered this opposition from the perspective of the relationship between village and city. In fact, what tradition intends and fulfi lls is to gather the present and the future into a perpetual present. For Christians, tradition and modernity are one, as modernity is guaranteed by the Holy Tradition! Questions arise. What is preserved today from our old traditions? What should we maintain? What is the future of our old and defi ning traditions? The trend of tradition loss will continue and will worsen. On the other hand, the need for continuity with tradition is vital. With an obvious nature of inheritance, the tradition is also a kind of will that ought to be value

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