ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at Petre Tutea's thinking on a number of broad issues: nationalism and the Romanian taran, freedom, the co-operative principle, and liberalism. Tutea's views on nationalism continued in the tradition established by Mihai Eminescu and further articulated by Dumitru Staniloae. Tutea's fundamental understanding of freedom is in terms of unconditional Christian love, which is not subject to the limitations of human emotions or political control. Although he was widely known as the Romanian Socrates, Tutea never had the freedom to employ the Socratic methods of self-discovery and education. He nevertheless firmly believed in the co-operative principle at every level, and sought to explain the basis for his approach. The theological understanding which he developed during his period of political imprisonment led him to discover an eschatological dimension to the agrarian socialist ideas of his youth. In 1936 Nae Ionescu seems to have persuaded Tutea to serve the Legionary cause.
