Savantul Simion Mehedinţi (1868-1962) – mărturisitor jertfelnic al credinţei ortodoxe şi al patriotismului autentic
Scholar Simion Mehedinti (1868-1962) – self-sacrificing confessor of the orthodox faith and authentic patriotism

Summary/Abstract: Along with the homage paid to the clerical confessors, hierarchs and priests, it is also fitting to express our gratitude to the lay confessors, who have honorably inscribed their names in the list of opponents of the atheist communist regime. Some suffered hard years of imprisonment, while others were pursued and persecuted in a „freedom” not very different from the regime of detention. Among the latter is the christian scholar, Simion Mehedinți, who, with the establishment of communism, unwilling to “align himself”, was marginalized and mocked with boundless cynicism: although he was at the venerable age of 80, he was expelled from the academy, his house was confiscated, his library was scattered etc. When most of his colleagues and disciples avoided him for fear of being accused of “complicity”, he received solace only by finding shelter at the parish house of the Mavrogheni Church, under the care of the providential patriarch Justinian Marina. Simion Mehedinți’s name remains inscribed in the Golden Book of the Romanian elites as the most significant professor of geography and ethnography of all time, and as one of the most important Christian educators. As a geographer, he founded the Department of Geography at the University of Bucharest (1900) and published the treatise Terra (1930); as an ethnographer, he wrote a Course of ethnographic doctrine (1935), gave lectures and published many other books; and as a Christian educator and confessor, he left us several important writings: Creștinismul românesc, Parabole și învățături din Evanghelie, Altă creștere. Școala muncii, the magazine Duminica Poporului and others. The present study is a modest homage, but also a warm invitation to learn about the life and work of an exceptional personality.

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