N. Steinhardt had a natural dignity and at the same time assumed everything we call the monastic order. He didn't spare himself, he didn't deviate from the rigorous scheme imposed on the people living there, but he did it with a decent serenity and joy. Nothing crossed the marking lines of the Orthodox ritual: service was service, confession was confession, the librarian's work flawless, the intellectual training of the serious monastic brothers... I think he would have been an excellent teacher if he had been allowed to teach lessons after leaving prison instead of working as a slave. He could move quickly from simple things to subtle interpretations. He gave and gave without hesitation. He had simultaneity in the distribution of his energy in such a way that none of those who were called or came as pilgrims felt forgotten or abandoned. Its motto could be summarized in these words: rigor, order, work and faith. Maria Cogălniceanu A quarter of a century after his passage to the eternal, N. Steinhardt, the monk-essayist, continues to be a discreet but constant presence in the Romanian cultural consciousness, both through his books and through his destiny, paradoxical and disturbing at the same time. The books published posthumously, some intensively publicized and always republished - especially Jurnalul fericirii and Dăruind vei dobîndi -, bring him back to our mind and soul through his not ostentatious culture, the altitude of his intellect and spirit, his amenity and, last but not least, his humility, perhaps too proudly confessed. Confirming the words of Georges Bernanos, according to which "converts are uncomfortable", N. Steinhardt inconvenienced - especially after he put on the monastic robe at Rohia - and will inconvenience in posterity, both some of his former co-religionists, and others, it is true that few and in ignorance, among the Orthodox, as well as those who feel frustrated that a personality of his intellectual stature did not choose their religion. Florian Roatis
