A martyr from Muscel: Father Nicolae Mănescu

Nicolae Mănescu was born on 30 November 1884 in Berevoești, in the family of Nicolae and Ana Mănescu. He studied law and theology. He was married to Lucretia Diaconescu, with whom he had two daughters. He was ordained priest on 10 December 1910 in the parish of Contești, from where he was transferred in 1912 to Apa Sărată, Câmpulung Commune, Muscel County. His wife died in 1944[1].

During the First World War, Father Mănescu, as a military priest, participated in the First Division Ambulance, where he distinguished himself and was appreciated by the doctors: “He was always among the troops and the wounded to raise their morale. He helped the doctors. He is at the height of a good and worthy military priest”. He was discharged on 20 April 1918[2].

In 1933, Fr. Nicolae Mănescu is listed as the parish priest of Apa Sărată, Câmpulung Commune, with the villages of Apa Sărată and Mărcuș, with 286 families and 1062 souls. He was an elected member of the Eparchial Assembly of the Archdiocese of Bucharest for the period 1932-1944, in the Commission of Organisation and Validation[3].

Militant peasant

During the inter-war period, Father Mănescu was politically active, joining the National Peasant Party in 1926. As a result of his intense activity, Father Mănescu was elected president of the delegation of the PNT-Muscel County Council and, during the Peasant Government, on 20 September 1932, he was appointed prefect of Muscel until 1934. He was on very good terms with the politician Ion Mihalache[4].

Father Nicolae Mănescu had to argue his political manifestations, as we can see in the meetings of the Eparchial Assembly of the Archdiocese of Bucharest[5]. In this regard, he had an intervention in the Eparchial Assembly of the Archdiocese of Bucharest, in the session of 7 May 1934, concerning the involvement of priests in politics, especially since it was on the agenda and had been discussed by the Patriarch Miron Cristea: “A distinction must be made. There are priests who honour the Church by the way they do politics, and there are those who degrade it. (Interrupted, the speaker promised to send to those interested a booklet containing the results of a priest-prefect in 16 months). Fr. Mănescu went on to say that Christ the Saviour went everywhere to guide and direct. To do politics is to govern well, to manage honestly, to exchange ideas. Priests are well educated, they have studied in seminaries and universities, even abroad. Why should they not be allowed to express themselves? Will we suffer to see the flock perish from all sorts of diseases, scabies, eating rotten maize, hunger and neglect? But whatever the political party, the role of the priest is to do good for the village and his flock, to build a church, a school, a dispensary, etc. He who has a healthy and satiated body will not turn to evil, but will only do good”[6].

At the same meeting of the Eparchial Council, Fr. Mănescu proposed that in parishes where clergy over the age of 70 serve, assistant priests should be appointed ex officio, who would then be promoted to parish priest upon the death or retirement of the elderly. This should be studied by the Eparchial Council and with the approval of the Patriarch, appropriate arrangements should be made.

Father Mănescu also proposed that priests who teach religion in several schools in distant places and who regularly participate in pastoral circles should receive financial aid to cover their expenses[7].

Member of the anti-communist resistance

After the full installation of the communist regime, Father Mănescu was to become involved in the anti-communist resistance movement in Muscel, initiated and developed by Colonel Gheorghe Arsenescu. Known as an old supporter of the Peasant Party, and apparently because of his kinship with the initiators of the Muscel resistance, Father Mănescu was contacted by Colonel Gheorghe Arsenescu in 1949 when the resistance groups were being formed[8].

In April 1952, Father Nicolae Mănescu was also contacted by the priest Nicolae Andreescu to receive a note from Toma Arnăuțoiu, describing the way of life of the mountain people and asking him to use his possibilities “to find a way out of the situation we were in”, as Arnăuțoiu confessed during an interrogation on 11 November 1958. “I asked him at Easter,” Arnăuțoiu said, “to contact a foreign legation to get us out of the RPR. However, Toma Arnautsoiu’s approach seems to have been in vain[9].

As early as January 1954, Father Mănescu, despite being 70 years old and suffering from tuberculosis – he could only go to the church where he served on holidays – was to be persecuted with the tools of the political police: he was placed under surveillance by the secret service in order to “determine who visited him, their movements, who they kept under various pretexts (servants), demonstrations and anything of interest to the State Security”. It was suspected that he was in contact with the Arnăuțoiu brothers in the mountains through Lucretia Arnăuțoiu[10].

Accused of terrorism at the age of 74

On 27 June 1958, Father Mănescu was arrested for his links with the resistance in Muscel and accused of “the crime of aiding and abetting acts of terrorism”, provided for and punished by Article 6, paragraph 1 of Decree-Law No. 199/1950[11]. Documents reflecting the priest’s political activity were also found and subsequently destroyed[12].

One year after his arrest, on 4 June 1959, the investigating authorities closed the case against the priest Nicolae Mănescu: “From the investigations carried out, it was established that the accused Nicolae Mănescu was active in the PNȚ-Maniu, which he joined in 1919, before 23 August 1944. The accused carried out extensive activities on behalf of this party, for which he was appointed prefect of Muscel County during the PNT government. After 23 August 1944, the defendant Mănescu Nicolae continued his activity in the PNȚ-Maniu. Being known as an enemy element of the popular democratic regime of the RPR, in 1952 the named Pâslaru Serafim (sentenced to 15 years hard labour in the case of the Șerban-Voican gang), who had been in contact with the Arnăuțoiu gang terrorists in the mountains, informed the named Mănescu Nicolae about his discussions with the Arnăuțoiu gang terrorists, about his conversations with the terrorists Arnăuțoiu Toma and Arnăuțoiu Petre, how he provided them with all the medicines from a forestry work in the mountains, and that, having made an agreement with the terrorists, he sent his greetings to Mănescu Nicolae on behalf of the named: Arnăuțoiu Toma and Arnăuțoiu Petre. In 1952, the terrorists: Arnăuțoiu Toma, Arnăuțoiu Petre, Jubleanu Constantin and Plop Maria, studied the possibility of crossing the border fraudulently and focused on Mănescu Nicolae, as they considered that he had the possibilities and connections to intervene with the diplomatic representatives of the capitalist states accredited in the RPR in order to facilitate the fraudulent crossing of the border. As a result, the terrorists Arnăuțoiu Toma and Arnăuțoiu Petre wrote a letter addressed to Mănescu Nicolae, which they sent to him through the gang member Andreescu Nicolae in the summer of 1952. To this end, Andreescu Nicolae went to Câmpulung Muscel and contacted the defendant Mănescu Nicolae at his home, to whom he gave the letter sent by the terrorists and held discussions with him about his links with the gang, and it was agreed that he would later respond to the terrorists’ requests. The above is proved by: the statements of the accused Mănescu Nicolae in the case file, in which he admits his actions, the statements of the terrorists Arnăuțoiu Toma and Arnăuțoiu Petre in the case file, as well as the statements of the priest Andreescu Nicolae”. For this he was charged with failure to denounce, as provided for and punishable under Article 228(1) in conjunction with Article 207(1) of the Penal Code[13].

Death in prison

On 9 September 1959, at the trial, Father Nicolae Mănescu admitted what he had said during the investigation, with a barely legible signature[14]. On 21 September, the Military Court of the Second Military Region, the Basic Court, pronounced sentence no. 174, in which Father Nicolae Mănescu was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for the offence provided for and punishable under Article 228(1) of the Penal Code, in conjunction with Article 207(1) of the Penal Code. At the same time, all his assets were confiscated and he was sentenced to imprisonment with effect from 28 June 1958[15].

On 26 November 1959, by decision No. 546 of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Moldavia, the Military College rejected his appeal[16].

Father Mănescu did not last long under the extermination regime to which he was subjected, and on 31 July 1961 he died in the Botoșani prison[17].

(Adrian Nicolae Petcu, “Un martir muscelean: Father Nicolae Mănescu” in Rost. Revistă de cultura creștină și politica, year IV, no. 42-43, August-September 2006, pp. 54-56)

[1] ACNSAS, Informative fund, file 675, vol. 22, f. 525; ***Anuarul Arhiepiscopiei Bucureștilor, cu data statistiche, pe anul 1941, Tipografia Sfintei Mănăstiri Cernica, 1941, p. 400. In the register of clerics in prisons drawn up by the Securitate in March 1960, the priest Nicolae Mănescu is listed with a date of birth of 1 December 1884 (Proba infernului. The religious personnel in the prison system in Romania according to Securitate documents, 1959-1962, ed. Dorin Dobrincu, Bucharest, Scriptorium Publishing House, 2004, p. 79).

[2] Grigore N. Popescu, The Romanian Priesthood and the Reunification of the Nation, vol. 1, Tipografia Vremea, 1940, p. 101, 129.

[3] ***Calendar of the Archdiocese of Bucharest, with statistical data, for the year of salvation 1933, Cernica Monastery Printing House, 1933, p. 61, 63, 190; ***Calendar of the Archdiocese of Bucharest, with statistical data, for the year of salvation 1940, Cernica Monastery Printing House, p. 56, 208.

[4] ACNSAS, Criminal fonds, file 50, vol. 28, f. 367-368; Idem, Informative fonds, file 675, vol. 22, f. 5-6.

[5] The Apostle, year IX, no. 3, 1 February 1932, p. 62.

[6] Ibid., year XI, no. 13-14, 1-15 July 1934, pp. 253-254,

[7] Ibid, pp. 257, 260.

[8] Ioana Raluca Voicu-Arnăuțoiu, The Fighters in the Mountains. Toma Arnăuțțoiu-Group of Nucșoara. Documents of investigation, trial, detention, Bucharest, Vremea Publishing House, 1997, p. 45.

[9] Ioana Raluca Voicu-Arnăuțoiu, op. cit. p. 453, 544.

[10] ACNSAS, fonds Informativ, file 675, vol. 22, f. 3-4. In the personal file compiled for him in March 1954, Fr.

Mănescu was presented as one who “poses no danger to State Security” (Ibidem, f. 6).

[11] Idem, Criminal fonds, file 50, vol. 28, f. 365.

[12] Ibid, f. 367-368.

[13] Ibid, f. 422-424.

[14] Ibid, vol. 42, f. 44-44v.

[15] Ibidem, f. 77v; The evidence of hell…, p. 79; Ioana Raluca Voicu-Arnăuțoiu, op. cit.

[16] ACNSAS, Criminal fonds, file 50, vol. 42, f. 537.

[17] In the criminal file concerning the resistance led by Toma Arnăuțoiu, a document dated 6 January 1962 states that the priest Mănescu had died and that his property was handed over to a relative (ACNSAS, Criminal fonds, file 50, vol. 28, f. 389); cf. Constantin Voicescu, Churchmen in the anti-communist resistance in the mountains and counties of Romania, in “Analele Sighet”, vol. 2, Civic Academy Foundation, Bucharest, 1995, p. 286; Confessors behind bars. Servitori ai Chiesa în temnițele comuniste, supplement of the magazine “Renașterea”, Cluj Napoca, 1995, p. 49; Cicerone Ionițoiu, Cartea de oro a resistência românești contro comunismului, vol. I, Hrisovul, 1995, p. 98, 338; Vasile Manea, Preoți ortodocși în prisonorile comuniste, ed. a II-a, Patmos, 2001, p. 163; “Memoria, revista gândirii arrestate”, nr. 12, p. 131. In Paul Caravia coord., The Imprisoned Church. Romania, 1944-1989, INST, Bucharest, 1999, p. 242 – states 31 July 1961 as the date of death.