Eliadian Refl ections on the Spirituality of the Romanian People
Eliadian Refl ections on the Spirituality of the Romanian People

Summary/Abstract: In his study The Romanians. A Historical Summary, Mircea Eliade makes reference to the material and spiritual culture of the Geto-Dacians and of the ancestors. Takingover the thesis of Vasile Pârvan, the Romanian historian of religions, believes that Zalmoxisand his cult will prepare the Daco-Romans for embracing Christianity. Characterizingthe Romanian Christianity, M. Eliade shows that his specificity is given by his presence on this teritory,by the Dacian-Roman heritage, by the serenity, naturalnessand the absence of any excess. The Romanians are considered to be a faithful, human,natural, vigorous and optimistic people who disregard any sickening exaltation of theso-called “mysticism”, having as a dominant feature the common sense, kindness,tolerance and hospitality, which they show through the long exercise of suffering duringhistory, these being also considered characteristics of the Romanian spirituality.A fundamental feature of the Romanian Christianity in Eliade’s vision is that of “thecosmic Christianity”, which he mentions in an early writing: “The fi rst duty of man”,he said, “is the fi rst parable of God: his cosmization” (Soliloquies, p. 20). For Eliadecosmization is the harmony of man with everything that is concrete and unique outsideof him, the ordination and the matching of the human rhythm with the rhythms ofnature, integrating into a hierarchy, cosmicizing all the chaotic experiences.

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