We invite you to the UK launch of Nicolae Steinhardt’s “Journal of Joy”, the first official translation of the uplifting and revelatory Romanian classic.
The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge (IOCS), in partnership with the Embassy of Romania to the United Kingdom and the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, are pleased to invite you to the UK launch of Nicolae Steinhardt’s “Journal of Joy”. This is the first official translation of the great Romanian classic, an uplifting and revelatory book written in the late 1960s, which includes notes from Steinhardt’s youth in Paris or Vienna, from before his arrest by the communists, the imprisonment years, as well as reflections on political, literary, and especially theological themes.
The event will feature individual presentations and a round table discussion moderated by Father Dragoș Herescu, the Principal of IOCS, in the presence of distinguished guests: Rt. Revd. Dr. Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and Revd. Prof. Bogdan Bucur, Associate Professor of Patristics, St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary. Dr. Răzvan Porumb, Director of Research & Vice-Principal of IOCS, will give a brief introduction on Nicolae Steinhardt and the “Journal of Joy”. The event will be opened by H.E. Laura Popescu, Ambassador of Romania to the United Kingdom, and will take place in the presence of The Very Reverend Archimandrite Macarie Motogna, Abbot of Rohia Monastery. At the beginning of the event, the audience will be able to hear a message from His Eminence Atanasie, the Romanian Orthodox Archbishop for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
“Journal of Joy” (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Yonkers, NY, 2024) was translated by Paul Boboc and revised by Peter Andronache, with further revisions and explanatory notes by Peter Andronache, Bogdan G. Bucur, Nicolae Drăgușin, Brenda Mikitish, and Răzvan Porumb. Foreword by Răzvan Porumb.
“This is the Journal of Joy, a joy founded on the Resurrection, unconquerable by the manifest powers of death. Now at last available in English, its joy can help transform the petty anxieties that beset us.” - Archpriest Andrew Louth, Professor Emeritus, Durham University
Nicolae Steinhardt was a landmark of Romanian culture and spirituality, known in his later monastic years as Father Nicolae from Rohia. He was born in 1912, near Bucharest, to Jewish parents. A refined scholar who had established himself as one of the most erudite voices of his generation, he was imprisoned by the repressive communist regime in 1960. Steinhardt asked to be baptised in his cell - “illicitly” - and eventually found profound joy amid the suffering and despair of imprisonment. After an extraordinary experience of Christ, the intense happiness accompanying him perpetually transfigured the cruel and gloomy surroundings into a luminous world permeated by God’s love and grace, which is why writing the Journal in the early 1970s was essential, even knowing it would be banned by the communists. Nicolae Steinhardt, then a monk at Rohia Monastery, passed away in March 1989, nine months before the 1989 December Revolution toppled the communist dictatorship.
SPEAKERS:
The Right Revd. Dr. Rowan Williams is a celebrated Welsh theologian, who was Archbishop of Canterbury between 2002–12. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in theology at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and was awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy in theology by Wadham College, Oxford, in 1975. After teaching at the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, he held a series of academic and ecclesiastical appointments, culminating in his Professorship of Divinity at Oxford (1986–92). Before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, he was elected bishop of Monmouth in 1992 and archbishop of Wales in 2000. A fellow of the British Academy since 1990, he published numerous books, which include: ‘On Christian Theology’ (2000), ‘Arius: Heresy and Tradition’ (2002), ‘On Augustine’ (2016), ‘Looking East in Winter: Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition (2021), ‘Passions of the Soul’ (2024), ‘Discovering Christianity: A guide for the curious’ (2025) and many others.
Revd. Prof. Bogdan Bucur represents St Vladimir's Seminary Press, the publisher of the ‘Journal of Joy’. Father Bogdan coordinated the teamwork that produced the English translation of this book. A native of Romania who came to the US in 2000 for graduate studies in Theology, Father Bogdan is currently Associate Professor of Patristics at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary near New York, where he also serves as an Orthodox priest.
Dr. Răzvan Porumb is the Vice-Principal and Director of Research of the Institute for Orthodox Studies in Cambridge, UK. Author of the Foreword of this English edition of the ‘Journal of Joy’, he is also the author of ‘Orthodoxy and Ecumenism. Towards an Active Metanoia’ (Peter Lang, 2019) and of many other journal articles and essays, many of which have been devoted to the work of Nicolae Steinhardt.
Father Dragoș Herescu is the Principal of The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS) in Cambridge and the parish priest for the Romanian Orthodox Parish of St John the Evangelist, also in Cambridge.
When: 23 May 2025, 18:00 – 20:30
Where: London, 1 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PH, UK
