The Christocentric School of Rohia Monastery Around Father Nicolae Steinhardt (1912–1989) and the School of Păltiniș

The aim of the present study is to bring forward two cultural and spiritual phenomena that shaped the intellectual and religious landscapes of Romania at the end of the 20th Century and continue to influence them until nowadays. More precisely, the topic focuses on the School of Rohia Monastery gathered around the personality of the monk and man of letters Nicolae Steinhardt and the School of Păltiniș, led by the philosopher Constantin Noica. The option to treat the two phenomena in the same frame is imposed by the cultural and personal connections of the two leaders and by the similarities of the informal schools they created around them. Therefore, the research methods used in this study in order to offer a precise image of the two informal schools are the descriptive method and the comparative method. The comparative method will be used to highlight not only the similarities but, as well, the differences between the two schools and between their leaders. As this will become evident in the following lines, during the repressive regime of Ceaușescu, in the ’70s and ’80s, Steinhardt and Noica opted for a very different form of resistance: the first one chose a total refusal of adaptation and collaboration with it, while the second one accepted a formal association with it. However, both of them, in different ways, served the great ideal of culture, Father Nicolae Steinhardt from a Christian monastic setting and perspective, while the philosopher Constantin Noica from an ahistorical and purely intellectual perspective.