A portrait of a Saint: Father Dimitrie Bejan
I have an unforgettable memory of that time, working in the prisoners’ clothing and personal belongings warehouse, full of admiration and deep respect for the priest Dimitrie Bejan from Hârlău. We were on the best of terms, even though there were about twenty-five years between us. That’s why he called me Aurică and I called him nea Mitică. He was the living symbol of a life dedicated to a cause, a righteous man, a character, a patriot with an immense love for the country and the people he came from. His modesty, simplicity and love for the people made him an example for all Orthodox priests throughout the country.
The son of a native of the region, with a degree in Literature and Theology, as a student he took part in the sociological teams of D. Gusti and participated with his colleagues in the research of the Romanian village in Bessarabia. He joined the Legionary Movement and played a role in the Legionary Aid in Moldavia. At the end of his studies, he was ordained a priest and, at the beginning of the war, he became a captain and military chaplain. He went with his unit to Stalingrad, where he was captured under the command of von Paulus. From that February 1943, as a prisoner of war, officer and priest, he experienced the most miserable life that the civilized mind can imagine: forced labour, low temperatures, endemic hunger. From the former monastery of Oranki, turned into a camp for prisoner officers brought to Karaganda from all over the world, to the coal mines near China, from logging in the forests of Belarus to unloading wagons on the Volga, from sweeping the streets of Moscow to building in the city of Kiev, he was no stranger of backbreaking, humiliating work, but also atheistic Communism at home and the new Soviet man. Father Bejan suffered terribly in prison, in silence, because he knew that suffering, like goodness, comes from God and that Christianity was born out of suffering and pain.
In 1948 he was sent to the country he loved so much and where he was registered as a casulty of war. He was free for about a month, during which time he was busy getting hold of the papers that proved he was still alive.
He was arrested again, not ‘guilty’ of any enemy activity, just because he was on old Securitate records. He hadn’t even had time to meet his wife, who was somewhere in Transylvania. He was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for legionary activity before 1938, when he was a student. Once again, Father Bejan was on his way to Calvary, to endless suffering.
I met him in 1952, after about nine years of imprisonment, and we were on the most cordial terms of mutual respect and friendship. From time to time I heard news of him from fellow prisoners. I learnt that in 1956, at the end of his sentence, instead of being released, he was sent with the militia to compulsory residence in the commune of Răchitoasa, in Ialomița, near the Luciu-Georgieni labour camp, a commune founded in 1951 by the Banat deportees and almost emptied in 1955, when they were allowed to return to their homes in Banat. Father led an exemplary life, working honestly and living in simplicity and humility, always under the watchful eye of the Securitate.
In 1958, during the massive arrest campaign, all the former political prisoners under house arrest were re-arrested, investigated, tried and sentenced on the most imaginative charges. Father Bejan and others were arrested and investigated in Constanța. Of course, the investigation had treated them as a ’61 organisation of former legionnaires under house arrest in Răchitoasa, but from among them they selected eleven people considered to be the most dangerous. That’s what the investigator wanted. The eleven needed a leader, and Constanța Securitate decided that it should be the priest Dimitrie Bejan. He was accused of “living as a legionnaire in opposition to communism” or, as a legal classification, of conspiring against the existing order. All eleven were sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, with Father Bejan receiving a life sentence of hard labour.
They were sent to Aiud, via Jilava, with chains around their legs. But it was in Aiud, in 1960, that the Securitate re-education began, in a different style, created by the famous Colonel Crăciun. Of the eleven at the beginning, eight were not “re-educated” along with Fr. Dimitrie , who knew from imprisonment what it meant to become brothers with the devil. (…)
In any case, Father Bejan always refused re-education, which is why he remained in chains in Zarca until his release in the last series in August 1964.
During the time of Ceaușescu, I read in a newspaper here in the USA about the persecution of the Church in Romania, and it was written about the persecution of priests, and there was a list of about eight priests, among whom was Father Bejan. From the time of his release until 1989, he was under constant surveillance.
After twenty-two years of external and internal imprisonment, he lived a modest life as a priest-monk in humility and prayer in his home town. (…) On 21 September 1995 he died, mourned by the whole settlement.
On 6 September 1940, Father Dimitrie Bejan was present when, in front of twenty high-ranking officers, Patriarch Nicodemus of Romania received the oath of allegiance from King Michael I of Romania, whom he then anointed as King of the Romanians. Marshal Antonescu was also present. A captain and military priest on the Eastern Front, he was taken prisoner at Stalingrad at the age of 32, under the protection of the commander of the German 6th Army, General von Paulus. On the Crimean front, he has given the Holy Communion to King Michael I and, in another situation, to Marshal Antonescu.
In the camp, the Russians found a manuscript written on birch bark stating that Bessarabia and Bukovina were Romanian territories, and he was sentenced to death by a military tribunal in Moscow.
The priest Dumitru Bejan told me that he was held in a Moscow prison for a year and that the regime there was more humane and better than that in Aiud and Jilava. Before he was due to be executed by firing squad, he cried out in court that he was a Romanian citizen and according to all international laws he should be tried in Romania. He was sent back to Romania with a criminal record, tried and sentenced to eight years in prison.
I have written about him, his journey to Aiud, his forced residence in Răchitoasa, and that he was among the last 5 released from Aiud prison on 21 August 1964, in chains, because he refused re-education.
The M.I.A asked the Iași Metropolitan to appoint him parish priest of the church of Ghindăoani, Neamț County, where he served for five and a half years. In 1970, the Securitate, the Party and the Metropolitanate forced him to retire within 24 hours and sent him to his hometown of Hârlău. There the Securitate told him that he was under their political surveillance, with FR in the family house.
As a priest in Ghindăoani, he was put on trial in the presence of sixteen priests from the region, two protopopes, a church inspector, the metropolitan council, the commander of the Neamt Securitate and the party secretary of Neamț County. All of them accused him and demanded his dismissal from the priesthood. No one defended him. He was accused of waiting for the Americans and of keeping the church open all the time. The FR in Hârlău wouldn’t even let him near the altar. In Ghindăoani, the Securitate forces were constantly present in the church where a pilgrimage was held, because the priest Dumitru Bejan was a missionary and because of his services a pilgrimage was created, which the atheist authorities could not accept. He was forbidden to serve and was constantly watched by ten fellow citizens and a priest who were informers for the Securitate, and a large Securitate guard kept him under surveillance until 22 September 1989 (…).
This was the patriot, the man of chosen sentiments, the saint, the priest Dimitrie Bejan. Nothing bothered him, no matter how many changes took place in the world while he was behind bars, how many events in his family he not only did not live to see, but did not even know about. He survived all the communist atrocities. With an unparalleled resilience, if you count his years of pain and suffering, it’s almost a lifetime. He died calmly, without hating anyone. He can be a model, an example for every Romanian Orthodox priest, and an honour for a nation that has such sons.
(Aurel Sergiu Marinescu – Prisoner in his own country, Vol. II, Du Style Publishing House, 1996, pp. 279-284)