An abysmal experience – dialogue with priest Gheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa and writer Marcel Petrișor
Father Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa (b. 1927), political prisoner for 21 years in communist prisons.
Published: “Seven Words for Young People” (Anastasia, 1996), “Prayer and Mystical Light. Essays and religious meditations” (Dacia, 1998), “War in the Word” (Nemira, 2001), “Homo americanus”. His Christian message, addressed mainly to young people, is inseparable from that of the nation, in the purest spirit of the Orthodox tradition. Father Calciu serves at the Romanian Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross of Alexandria, Washington D.C.
Marcel Petrișor (b. 13 April 1930), political prisoner from 1951 to 1964, with a few months’ interruption in 1956. After his release, he attended the Faculty of Philology and became a French teacher.
He made his debut with a volume of short prose entitled “Evenings in the village of Ocișor”. He published novels, travelogues, criticism, essays and translations from French and Russian. Member of the USA in Romania. Published memoirs from prison after 1989:
“Jilava. Fortul 13” (ed. Meridiane, Bucharest, 1991), “Secretul fortului 13” (ed. Meridiane, Bucharest, 1991), “La capăt de drum” (European Institute, Iași, 1997).
A selection of the three volumes, translated into French by Alain Paruit, will be published in France by Plon.
Father Calciu and Marcel Petrișor
We heard that Father Calciu was coming to Galați to give a conference in the Senate Hall of the University “Dunărea de Jos”. I had written about Father Calciu and even received a copy of the Seven Words for Young People, which I had published in a series in a Galațian magazine. Now it was time to talk to Father Calciu face to face. Next day, I followed Fr. Calciu and Marcel Petrișor around all day long. I had also read Mr. Petrișor’s essays and “Fort 13”. I reminded him that we had spoken on the phone several times in 1990, at Petre Țuțea’s request. Once he expressly asked me to come the next day to bring him the volume Styles and to shave him…
Marcel Petrișor, with the gift of storytelling. Tall, strong, with an authentic Transylvanian accent… In prison he had lost a lot of weight, he had become a 40-kilo sardine… When I hear such confessions, I tend to surround them with a kind of surreal halo. I can’t forget them, but I always remember them after a long time, as I do now: “In prison, some summers, there were so many prisoners and so little air in the room that if a fly got in, it would collapse to the floor without any air to sustain its flight… It was a miracle if one of them got an antibiotic, a tetracycline or streptomycin pill, which he would put in his mouth (knowing how to hide it) and give to the sickest cellmate. With 2-3 pills, the luckiest one got rid of the infection and the chronic diarrhoea”.
I can see how the facts connect and fulfil each other. Giving bread to a poor man, when he had the means to do so, was returned to him when he needed it most. “And that bread, received as if from nowhere, saved my life, Marcel Petrișor tells me. It’s bread and spirit, no doubt about it…”
Marcel Petrișor told these stories to me, who was still hunting for Father Calciu, and to those who were still in the hall of the Students’ Cultural Centre. But some radio reporter or newspaper reporter would appear to report on Father Calciu’s visit to Galați. The time came for the guests to leave and the train did not wait. So I decided to accompany them to Brăila and sit quietly in the compartment. Done and done. My two best friends, Marcel Petrișor and Fr. Calciu Dumitreasa, bought me a ticket and we occupied our seats. As soon as the train started moving, we started talking.
Father Calciu spoke quickly, even hurriedly, trying to skip or avoid moments that would highlight his past sufferings or “exaggerate” his sacrifice, as if he wanted to forget or forgive; he swallowed his words that suggested pain, dissatisfaction; those of hatred or disgust he completely suppressed; when it came to visions or abysmal experiences, he spoke to me more softly, but in silence, “afraid” that someone would hear us, or that someone else would think we were proud to talk about them. When he says “I prayed a lot” or “God”, he has a different modulation in his voice, as if everything that follows is useless. That’s it, boy! I talk to you like a little brother, I answer your questions, your perplexities, I show you the hidden paths, the unspoken things. But from his whole being springs joy and free, undestroyed love, joy for past sufferings and the knowledge that he is on the path God has asked of him. And all this beyond words, the things we are eagerly looking for. A great simplicity, next to a luminous conscience, a love for everyone and everything, for the past and the future, out of a supernatural trust in the pedagogy, the presence and the intervention of God in our lives, in each one’s body, soul and name, as well as in our historical existence, in the name of the Romanians, in whose name he doesn’t even want to think that he was a martyr…
Iulian Grigoriu: You were imprisoned by the communists from your first year of study, when you were in your second year of medical school. After 16 years of imprisonment (from 1948 to 1963), you studied at the Institute of Philology in Bucharest, French-Romanian section, and became a professor at the Theological Seminary, but also a student of theology. What was the significance of prison for your spiritual constitution? Did it change your choices? How did you resist?
Fr. Calciu: Imprisonment during communism was not a simple imprisonment, as in a normal regime, but it was simply a terrible experience. This prison, at a certain point, turned everything inside me upside down; everything that had constituted my basic moral system was destroyed and I had to rebuild it under completely new conditions and absolute determinations. There was no possibility of compromise: either I died or I was resurrected. Because in the situation I was in, I was neither dead or alive. The choice was absolute: die or be resurrected! To die spiritually or to rise in Christ and in the national truth. It wasn’t my choice either. It was a divine decision. God directed me to other ways that He knew better… and at the hardest moment, when I was close to death, close to destruction, I said, “Lord, if You will bring me out of this prison whole – spiritually and physically – I will dedicate myself to You!”
I.G.: That was the covenant…
Fr. Calciu: It wasn’t really a covenant. It was a cry of despair. But that cry of despair followed me all the time. Because going out and not being able to do what I wanted to do (I wanted to do theology), but I was graduating in letters – something behind me always reminded me and made me unhappy. I think God opened the way for me because no ex-convict was allowed to go into theology. Out of a sense of courage – I had no idea that this could be a solution – I went to the Patriarch. And the Patriarch received me without informing the Department of Religious Affairs.
I.G.: Justinian Marina…
Fr. Calciu: Yes, and for some years I worked both as a professor and as a student of theology, with reduced attendance (if you were a graduate, your attendance was reduced), until the fourth year. It was about April-May, in June I had to graduate. I don’t want to say that the Securitate discovered me then, but that the Securitate struck then. That is, they wanted to get me to the point of graduation, to the point of my licence, and then cut me off. And while the Patriarch was in Brussels, the Securitate came to the faculty, took advantage of the Patriarch’s absence, took our files – there were several of us – and we were summoned to the Ministry of Education. There I was told – either I give up secular education and stay in theology, or I give up theology and stay in secular education. The choice was very difficult, because if I gave up secular education, I could not support myself. I had no support from anywhere. But I stayed in my position, and the Securitate police took me out of teaching. But the Patriarch, who came to the country, was very upset, intervened with the Department of Religious Affairs and managed to get us, those of us who were in the last year (there were about 6 of us), to get our licences. The Patriarch appointed me as a French teacher in theology, and that’s how he got me out of that situation.
I.G.: You told me about a terrible experience in prison. I’m convinced that prison is not the only part of positive determination. It takes you through all the mud of existence, makes you know all the nooks and crannies…
Fr. Calciu: All hell…
I.G.: – It would be instructive if you could tell us how you felt about that hell that the saints speak of… but I would like to ask you if it was also there that you or someone else met the light of Jesus. What was your encounter with Him like, if you had a mystical encounter and if it can be translated into concepts?
Fr. Calciu: It cannot be translated into concepts. If I were to explain what it was like, I would only use symbols. I had this experience in the second prison. The other one was an experience of hard construction. It was not an enlightenment and suddenly I changed, I went from being a devil to being an angel. There it was a gradual experience: deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper, until you end up screaming: God, save me… and God lifts you up. But even this reconstruction is done with different plates than those of the fall. I mean, I didn’t fall from the seventh step and still come back. Maybe I should have started from the bottom, from the first step…
I had this experience you’re talking about during my second arrest. It was Easter, in Aiud, and during the holidays terrible things always happen: punishments, beatings, searches that humiliate you… In Aiud I was isolated in the zarca and subjected to a punishment regime. I mean, we ate every three days anyway… and on Easter night, before the Resurrection, on Easter Saturday night, the guards came and searched us. They found nothing, what could they find in our cell? Nothing! We were isolated all the time. But they took you out, stripped you completely naked, and then they made fun of you: that you were a skeleton, that you had this look, you brave man, and so on… that here was the “Christ”… insults… Insults and other things that offended us… but, anyway! then the cell was closed, they went away… And that night I prayed to God a lot.
That night I sang “Christ is Risen”, probably I sang too loud and the guard heard me, insulted me, but no, it didn’t bother me at all. The next day the worst guard came. I’ve never seen a worse guard, but with a more angelic face. He was a very handsome boy! He came from the country, with a white skin, rosy cheeks, always dressed very neatly, perhaps he was the only one who, when he came there, gave his clothes to be ironed, to the common guard in the hall, who polished his boots… but this man, if he didn’t beat two or three people a day, he wasn’t satisfied… And I prayed to God: “God, maybe he’ll get sick, maybe he’ll catch a cold, maybe he won’t come”… On Easter Day… of course he came… There were six wards where I was locked up. So there were six guards, one going in, one going out… Each guard in his section, went from cell to cell, did a superficial check: when the door opened, you had to turn around and face the wall, don’t turn around until you hear the door lock. And the other guards were in the corridors. It was not possible to have a conversation between the guard and yourself without the others hearing. This time I didn’t turn to face the wall. I stood facing him, which was a great insult, and when he opened the door I said: “Christ is Risen! I seemed to have hit him with something! He looked at me, turned back to the others, and then replied, “Indeed He is Risen!” At that moment I felt an angel touch my heart. I said, “This man, who is so evil, is telling me, confirming to me that Christ is Risen! He confirms it to me! Perhaps I said “Christ is Risen” with a certain ambition or shamelessness towards him. And his answer changed the whole atmosphere of my soul. It pierced my heart and after he left I had a mystical experience for the first time! I had had such a feeling once before in my childhood, but I didn’t even realise what it was. It was just like an escape from the world. This time there was no cell! Just a white surface… and some very precise details… I can’t compare it with a feeling, a logic or a physical sensation… And it was a state of happiness that lasted for I don’t know how long…
The presence of Jesus… it was the first time I had this vision… and I think it was the Light of Christ… The fact is that I no longer felt the prison, I no longer felt the body, I no longer felt anything. I couldn’t see myself, but I could see what was in front of me. And… then that light went out… and I entered the ordinary state of life. But I had an extraordinary peace and love…
(I am aware that the man in front of me is talking to me about the highest, the most precious, the most intimate and the most important moment of his life… I imagine that he is a witness, a messenger of the truth from beyond that has been preached to him, and I wish that this moment would be an intermediary between me and Jesus, understanding that the saints and martyrs, through their suffering and their mediating life, give meaning to existence, not antiquating its absurdity).
… then when the officer on duty came, who was a tough man when he was sober, but he didn’t really walk around sober… when he was drunk, he was busy… he came into the cell, he knew I was going to tell him “Christ is risen!”, I knew what he was going to say to me – it was like a rehearsal, we had known each other for a long time… I told him “Christ is risen” and he replied as I expected… “What, have you seen Him?”… “No, I haven’t seen him, but on the authority of those who have seen him and those who have died for this truth, I believe… What, have you seen the North Pole or the South Pole or even Stalin, have you seen him, no, but you know from those who have seen him and have told you, and you believe in them”… And then I felt that the angel had left me! Because I was trying to argue with him. Then I understood: how, to argue about the resurrection of Christ? I had to keep it simple, as I had done with the Guardian. I had to tell him about the Resurrection and he had to confirm it. I tried to argue. And I went out of the light. I became a theologian.
I.G.: Father, in “The Diary of Happiness” Nicolae Steihardt talks about three lay solutions that can help one to resist in a concentrationist system. They are the solutions of Zinoviev, Churchill and Bukovski…
Fr. Calciu: Churchill’s solution …. It doesn’t suit us. We didn’t go to prison for a social struggle, but for an ideal that is right in the divine plan. We accepted with confidence in God’s will that what we were going to do would be good, would be within the divine will. We had to accept whatever God sent us. That doesn’t mean that everything went very smoothly, that by accepting it, everything went smoothly. No! But as far as we could, we tried to do God’s will.
I.G.: Your ideal was Christian and national.
Fr. Calciu: Yes, we didn’t think otherwise. I didn’t join because I rebelled against communism, but because it didn’t correspond to the Christian and national ideal. We were in a struggle that was not on the material level, but on the spiritual level. Steinhardt says: “Perhaps Calciu’s solution was the best: “spiritual warfare”. War in the Word: this is in fact our struggle. Father Calciu’s solution is “war in the Word”.
I have said in my lectures that there is a war between evil and good that we have always lived. But it is fought in our hearts, not on a dead battlefield, but we decide the victory of God or Satan in our hearts. That is why Steinhardt says that Father Calciu’s solution is perhaps the best.
I.G.: Let’s go back to your biography. In 1977 you publicly deplored the fate of the churches, the demolition of the church of Ena, in 1978 you gave the series of conferences “Seven words for young people”. I would like to ask you how you see these words for young people today, from what impulse they came then, and whether they could still be called Seven or Other Words for Young People today?
Fr. Calciu: I’m sure there is room for many words. I think that those words were my life. Everything I wrote afterwards could not go beyond Seven Words…. It was a divine inspiration. I had the words in my hand on Wednesday night. Often, on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, I didn’t know what I was going to say. But then God would send me either a Bible text or an event, an event that was happening, and then I could write the sermon, and I would type it, multiply it, and send it to a few students because I couldn’t do much, and I would read the sermon, not say it. So that I wouldn’t be accused of saying anything other than what I wrote. And that way the Securitate couldn’t put anything behind me as far as words for young people were concerned. Well, they put all kinds of sins or misdeeds or crimes they made up on my back. But I wanted that period of my life to be clean. Nothing could be said about it except what was written. I knew they’d end up in the Securitate. Afterwards, I had personal conversations, but in discussions with students I didn’t come out of what I had written there. I mean, we were going in the same direction.
But I say that it was really an inspiration from God, an angel of God, who led me beyond all my sins and ignorance to the goal that God wanted me to reach.
I.G.: How did the young people react? I understood that they managed to come in large numbers.
Fr. Calciu: Very many. And they came out of conviction: the security closed the church – the young people entered through the porch; when they closed the students, they jumped out of the windows, jumped over the fences… in other words, there was an outburst like nowhere else.
Marcel Petrișor: Even the Bishop of Galați attended one of these sermons, because he was a student at the time.
Fr. Calciu: He told me that he was very afraid, but he stayed until the end.
I.G.: Would these words reach young people today? What would you say to the young people of today?
Fr. Calciu: These words were not just for the moment. The things about communism or the problem of the churches were temporary. But they contain elements of permanence: faith, love…
I.G.: “Appeal to faith”, “Faith and friendship”, “Clergy and human suffering”, “On forgiveness”.
Fr. Calciu: I used Christian virtues in general, applied to the historical moment in question, but in such a way that they could always be pronounced and heard with equal interest.
Of course, these “Seven words to young people” have a certain charge today, in a way they were the people who listened to them then, otherwise they are today, but for them it was a great consolation, a great comfort. It corresponded to the moment when they were spoken. But they still resonate today, without having the effect they had then…
I.G.: Following these sermons, a diocesan council suspended you from your teaching post. I would like to remind you here of the names of those who eagerly compromised you. Do you still know anything about them or how you see them today? Bishop Roman Ialomițeanu, from the Inspectorate of Religious Cults in the capital, Niță Pascu, the director of the Theological Seminary, Veniamin Micle, Father Moldovan, the priest Octavian Popescu, the cultural counsellor Ilie Georgescu, and all this under the silence of Patriarch Justin Moisescu? I even understood that you were later slandered in the press, including by Dumitru Popescu… who is now a respectable professor dean at the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest… What do you think of these people?
Fr. Calciu: Yes, it was a document that was requested. Later I found out one thing… that the document that the priests and some bishops signed against me, in which they said that I had in fact given neo-fascist training, a document addressed to external forums, was in fact not written by them, but by the Securitate, and then their names were added. But what they blamed themselves for – I don’t want to say who I spoke to – the only mistake they considered themselves guilty of, and for which they apologised to me, was that they didn’t deny it at the time. To say: we did not sign anything against Calciu. They didn’t have the courage to deny it. It’s their own fault. And I think that’s what happened. The Securitate forces put whoever they wanted, knowing that people would not say no. Maybe some of them were instigators. I don’t know. I don’t want to accuse anybody. I have no feelings towards them other than regret and forgiveness.
I loved the Most Holy Roman very much, very much… extraordinarily much… and I was sorry… but he didn’t have the courage… He was a man who had lived in a monastery from childhood, who was used to obedience and probably didn’t know the difference between monastic obedience and obedience to secular power. He was a man with a very good soul.
I.G.: But this is an ethical attitude. But don’t you have a moral duty to draw their attention in some way?
Fr. Calciu: Well, most of them are dead. I think now they should draw my attention to them… Ha, ha…
I.G.: So even if they have denigrated you in some way, you still have them….
Fr. Calciu: You know, I didn’t tell my friends either: Come to me. I didn’t ask him either,” says Calciu, pointing to Marcel Petrișor. But because he’s stupid, he came… we were always together.
I.G.: It’s certain that these “words” got you expelled from teaching and eventually imprisoned again.
Fr. Calciu: I think that if they hadn’t expelled me from the Church, I wouldn’t have been arrested. But as it was, I had no protection. And they arrested me, they sentenced me…
I.G.: In 1979 you were in Aiud, in Zarca, and in 1980 you said that you were at the end of your rope.
Fr. Calciu: At that time I was very ill…
I.G.: I know that there was a council that tried to defend you, even intervening with Ceaușescu. How did you manage to free yourself?
Fr. Calciu: Then many people intervened on my behalf. All the Western chancelleries. But the one who managed to do something concrete was Regan, his administration, because they had an instrument in their hands: the most-favoured-nation clause.
I.G.: I heard the story then on Free Europe and Voice of America.
Fr. Calciu: Ceaușescu didn’t react to the other interventions. Especially since he went to the Queen and gave her the royal carriage to go where Lenuța wanted to go. So there was nothing to it. But they had nothing to force Ceaușescu with, but the American administration had the clause.
I.G.: Under the threat that the clause would be lifted, Ceaușescu gave in…
Fr. Calciu: And he released me. There was a long discussion between me and the Securitate. Because they didn’t want me to be released by decree, but by a pardon request. In other words, they wanted me to apply for a pardon. Why are you so proud, be humble! they told me. Be humble, ask for forgiveness, he’s the leader. What does Saint Paul say? Submit to the supreme authority… they took from the Bible that the devil knows a lot of theology. And yet I did not yield. I confess that I had moments of doubt. That you can’t remain indifferent when you’re told you’re a fraud. A Christian is not an impostor. Julian the Apostate, when he began to persecute the Christian religion, when the bishops came to him to complain, he said to them: “Yes, but you have taken the vow of poverty; you want riches, you want monasteries, go to the catacombs. He replied with biblical arguments. As Satan did to Jesus Christ when he tempted Him. And I pondered for a long time (…) and I prayed and I hesitated. ….
(Father made me understand that he didn’t want me to write down what he was about to tell me. I didn’t know how to use the tape recorder, I hesitated until I found the pause button, he was talking to me, so I recorded it anyway…)
Fr. Calciu: There was a thing when Andrei, my son, who was 13 years old, the Securitate indoctrinated him and told him: look, your father doesn’t want to get out of prison. He has no love for you. He puts his pride first, to get out as a hero of the Church and a national hero, and he leaves you like that. That the family was watched by the Securitate, that the teachers were afraid, that even in the classroom the Securitate came and sat there… Andrei told me exactly that. I knew it wasn’t him. He said, “You’re proud, you care more about your pride than about loving us!” And that hit me right in the heart. But I didn’t give in. I don’t know, it was an angel who helped me!
I.G.: And in the end, Ceaușescu issued a decree… and freed you.
Fr. Calciu: And he freed me… I didn’t even know. The day before – (the priest gestures to me so that I can record)… the colonel called me, what was his name, Vasile, but I don’t know how, who was in the Securitate all over the country… it doesn’t matter, I forgot him too… and he told me that my bones would rot here, and nobody, not even my family, would know where my bones were…
I.G.: A day before they released you?
Fr. Calciu: Yes… And the next day they called me back to the prison and there I found the priestess… with clothes, with these… …. I couldn’t believe it…
I.G.: Where were you?
Fr. Calciu: At the Ministry of the Internal Affairs, in Bucharest. Whenever something like this happened, like when Bush came here… When Regan was president, Bush was vice-president. …. And when something happened, he would take me to Bucharest, he would send the priestess to Mahmudia, or I don’t know where, and the child too. Now I had been taken to be released. But at the last minute they tried to persuade me to apply for a pardon.
I.G.: Why were they so keen on this application?
Fr. Calciu: Because by applying for a pardon I was admitting that I was guilty. Well, let Ceaușescu come to me, not me to Ceaușescu… I didn’t do anything. I didn’t mention his name, I didn’t say anything about him.
I.G.: But you were implicitly doing something against materialism and the official doctrine.
Fr. Calciu: I could not be considered a personal enemy of Ceaușescu. And then they asked me to appeal to his goodwill – especially since a group of American congressmen had sent me a letter in prison, addressed to me personally, urging me to apply for a pardon, because they had talked to people around Ceaușescu who had assured them that if I applied for a pardon I would be released. So it was no longer a vague promise. I was convinced that they were telling the truth and that Ceaușescu would not dare to break his promise. And yet I did not ask for a pardon.
I.G.: What brought you to this decision?
Fr. Calciu: I didn’t want to sully a divine act. God had worked through me – I had no merit, I was a sinner – and I could not tarnish an action that God had inspired me to do and that I had done with purity of soul.
I.G.: Forgive me for asking… How did you know that God was working through you? How did you distinguish the spirit of the truth?
Fr. Calciu: By research! I asked myself: is what I am being asked to do good? Am I putting the love of God, the love of the family, before the love of God? Do I love my mother, father, wife and child more than God? The Bible has all the solutions. And then I do the research. Am I there or am I not? In ancient times, in Roman families, those who renounced their faith were called apostates. There were many, thousands and thousands of them. When the persecution was over, the question of the lapsed arose. What do we do with all these people who, under pressure, gave in, said yes, they sacrifice to idols, we throw them out of the Church? That they were all knocking at the door of the Church. They all stood outside the door of the church and asked for forgiveness. And they were pardoned and they went back into the Church. I didn’t want to be among the laity. I wanted to be among those who had died in prison… Also, when I went into prison, I didn’t question whether I would ever get out.
There was something in me, perhaps beyond my courage or my stubbornness, that kept me going.
…
Later, when I got out of prison, I went to live with my family. With my wife, with my child, I had 40 agents guarding me in three shifts. And there were also soldiers on duty, with guns, dogs and so on. I don’t know why they came, I think they came for her, not for me. Their purpose: to make sure that nobody got to me. And they did. And this one – Calciu says, laughing and pointing to Petrișor – this one, whatever he is (he didn’t call him stupid anymore), this one wasn’t afraid of anything. And we were together all the time, he came to me, I went to him. There were some people who were allowed to come to me, and some of the former students came, and they were very pessimistic. Father Peacock, for example, came and sat on the steps of the block and said: ‘I’m not leaving here until I see Father’. And finally they let him in.
I.G.: Could you go shopping in the city?
Fr. Calciu: I could go shopping, I could go to church, my wife went to work and shopping, the boy went to school and home, but everyone was supervised.
Marcel Petrișor: At that time I took care of him and took him to Ardeal. We were isolated in a house in the mountains, and one night around three o’clock (come on, that’s good, Fr. Calciu shines), someone knocked at the door. We knew that we were surrounded by the Securitate, but we said to ourselves, “Who can it be? I opened the door and found a farmer from Vidra, over the mountain, 50 kilometres away. It was winter, frost, snow, and the Securitate were watching the roads to us. The farmer came at three in the morning, when the roosters were asleep, and when I opened the door, the first thing I said to him was “Who are you?”. And the farmer said: “You know I didn’t come to Herod’s house”… (We laughed… Extraordinary, we all exclaimed again…)
He was a peasant of the Lord’s Army, continued Peter. And the brothers had heard that Father Calciu would be there, so they sent him to see him. That’s all, he wanted to see him and left,” says Petrișor. “Let him know that I’m healthy,” confirmed Father Calciu. That’s all, and he left.
I.G.: Is there a continuity in your concept of the nation, of Romanianism? What does it mean to be Romanian today?
Fr. Calciu: My point of view, for which I always argue with Marcel, is that nation is a political concept and nation is a mystical concept. The nation! I am for the nation. And I use the term “nationalism”, but in the Christian sense, that is, of respect for every nation and of our affirmation on an international or world level, through a “personal” presence of our nation and not through dissolution. Nor by aggression. This is my position, my belief, my resource: The Church, the Bible. Finally, in chapter 25 it says that at the coming of the Saviour the nations will be called to judgement, it does not say nations, but nations. If I could have invented another term instead of nationalism, from the derivation of “nation”, I would have used it. But you can’t.
Marcel Petrișor: In his case, it is the identity of the notion of nation with the notion of nation. At that time there was no concept of nation. But the nation has the ontological support to provide the overwhelming argument for nationalism. The nation is not a historical category. It appears in history, but its foundation is an ontological one, which is this nation.
I.G.: But as a historical ideal, for example, to be Romanian in 1918 meant to want Greater Romania. What would it mean to be Romanian today?
– Strong Romania… says Calciu proudly. But strong in spirit. You can’t mess with the Americans. Strong in your convictions and strong in your historical vision. (There is a free and unorganised discussion on the subject. I realise that a magazine with this title would be good… something stronger than Dinescu’s “Plaiul cu boi”)
I.G.: Father, in 1989 a part of the Romanian people was guilty. Did they have the opportunity to get rid of this guilt and to live according to the truth?
Father Calciu: They did, but there were diabolical forces that prevented it… I don’t mean international conspiracies, I know… there were diabolical forces within that prevented this expiation of guilt. And these forces also expressed themselves through deception, through moral weakness, through people who seized power…
They were just objects, instruments (of the devil). Even Constantinescu was an instrument. He deceived, in a way, the expectations of the nation, and the deception increased afterwards. Not that he was a man of bad faith. That’s not what I mean. It’s that he was incapable, he was out of step with the historical moment. Although many of us put our hopes in him at the time, and I’m not saying he should have worked miracles, but at least give hope, at least strengthen things? Although we later learned from those around him that he saw himself as a messenger of God. But a messenger of God who, I don’t know how to put it, didn’t understand the historical dimension of the moment. He betrayed this historical investment. And this was his “contribution” to the victory of the forces of evil.
I.G.: I once heard Ticu Dumitrescu say that the revolution was won by the Securitate. Let’s talk about Ticu’s law on the Church… you know the desire not to see the files of those who were in the bosom of the Church, so as not to discredit the mystery of confession and our faith, the faithful. Do you think this is a good thing?
(Marcel Petrișor answers): Let me tell you. It’s a very good thing, because if you look at our records…
I.G.: Have you seen your files?
Fr. Calciu tells me no, he’s not even interested.
Marcel Petrișor: I’ve seen my files and (that’s enough, let’s be clear), we’re all in the same pot…
At that time, every head of an institution had to give information and was investigated by a Securitate man. He had to write a report. For example: I have heard, Father, that there is a so-and-so in your parish. For example, Father Cristescu said: ‘Yes, sir, I’ve heard of him, but I don’t know what he does. And the Securitate officer wrote: “This man, whom we could ask, at a certain point did not want to give us any more information – even though the person we were following was from his parish – because he had fallen ill. He pleaded illness. The poor priest, for fear of not being asked again, pleaded illness. Can I now say that the priest in my village, this priest Cristescu, was an informer? No! But all priests were obliged to receive visits. What they said was important. If they distorted the information and if they said or signed something that the Securitate asked them to, then yes, there is a kind of guilt or cowardice, because they couldn’t say no!
I.G.: So things are so confused that they are no longer relevant?
I’m told: – Of course not!
I.G.: I wanted to ask you another question. You live in America. But how did you leave? A year after your forced stay, you left…
Fr. Calciu: One day I woke up and the American embassy came to me; they said, father, go immediately to get your passport, because they didn’t know if Ceaușescu wouldn’t change his mind… the wife and the child pressured me, we left, got our passports and in three days we left the country, the passport having been issued a few years before.
I.G.: How were you received in America?
Fr. Calciu: I was received very well, thank God, I had a bishop who took care of me, who didn’t care about my catechesis and I was a kind of missionary priest, in Detroit I went to the parish and spoke, I went to Europe, then I was accredited to the Church here in Washington, the boy finished his studies, he studied law and he is a lawyer…
I.G.: The Securitate probably still had you under surveillance…
Fr. Calciu: Yes, there was an attempt to assassinate me, then the CIA (FBI) told me to leave Washington, and I went somewhere in another state and stayed with some friends, then I learned from a defector, Liviu Turcu, who was with the secret service in America (he worked with the FBI? n.n.), that there was indeed a plot, but he, who was in charge, was against my assassination because it would spoil the face of Romania even more. I’m just saying what I was told. I think that if I hadn’t left, nothing would have happened.
I.G.: Talking about America today, as a world arbiter, as a force that defends peace, democracy – I sincerely sympathise with them, because during communism I resisted a little with their cultural products. I used to read them, listen to their music… without having the right, true and close teachers. Do you think what they are doing today is justified? Their interventions in different areas… of the world…
Fr. Calciu: What angered me was their intervention in Kosovo, and I wrote many articles and protested, and in writing, together with all our Orthodox bishops, I sent to the White House and to the newspapers, they didn’t publish anything, which means that the censorship is like ours. They did not publish, they did not respond in any way. And I was very angry with them. And on the war today, Bush, who is not a brilliant intellect, let’s face it, is under the influence of Protestant fundamentalists, but he is a believer.
I.G.: Yes, I’ve heard him quote a lot, from Isaiah, for example…
Fr. Calciu: Yes, but these are written to him by others, but he accepts them, so he is a man of faith. And they urge him to support Israel, because Israel must be purified in order to hasten the coming of the Saviour, as they claim. So he sees his action there as a kind of apocalyptic mission. That’s why he turned to Iraq, not because Iraq is the greatest danger, but because Iraq is a danger to Israel in terms of this cleansing. That in Iraq, for example, 3% of the population are Orthodox Christians, a minister and a deputy minister are Orthodox Christians… which you couldn’t be in Saudi Arabia, you’d be hanged immediately if you had a Bible. So it’s not the Christians who are being persecuted, it’s the enmity between Iraq and Israel that’s being threatened. Israel must be defended and cleansed, because until Israel is converted to Christianity, the end will not come. They are trying to do that; or to save Israel. This idea has been around for a long time. When I came to America I heard this idea and I was very disturbed. I mean, the Palestinians must be driven out of Israel, the cleansing of Israel of all nations must be accomplished so that the coming of the Saviour can be prepared. Of course, I am convinced that beyond this justification of fundamentalist circles in America, there are economic interests, political interests, those who play on this issue without believing in any of it. But I give Bush the benefit of the doubt. I think he is also driven by religious intentions, to a large extent…
I.G.: In the end they are good?
Fr. Calciu: They don’t bode well because the Church does not allow war. Otherwise the Roman army would have conquered the pagans and “Christianised” them by force…
I.G.: So Bush is a kind of zealot, like this?
Fr. Calciu: What happens then? In today’s wars it’s no longer just army against army. The whole civilian population suffers. Like in Serbia. The Serbian army suffered very little. They didn’t go out and fight, they didn’t fight face to face. And in Iraq I’m sure the civilians, the children, the women will suffer. Especially if they use the civilian population as a shield.
Marcel Petrișor: … they don’t even give you this respite, I mean they bomb you on Easter Day. And the pagans respected holidays, even meal times. Wild animals don’t attack at the waterhole. In the wars we had with the Muslims, the holidays were respected. Now they don’t respect anything. How can you agree with them when the ones you’ve waited so long for bomb you on Easter Day?
Fr. Calciu: When we protested, we demanded that the bombing stop on Easter Day. Because that’s how it was when Bush senior bombed Iraq, he stopped it on Bairam. That’s how it was invoked. If some pagans are given peace for their holidays, so should Orthodox Christians. On the contrary, the bombing was more intense. The height of cynicism: they dropped a bomb that said ‘Happy Easter’.
I.G.: Let’s end with some spiritual advice, with a bright word…
Fr. Calciu: Beyond all human ineptitude, beyond the cruel game of history, God has a plan! And I believe that the Romanian people can fulfil this plan, its divine mission, in the Eastern world. I am convinced that God will work in our country. Because I have thought: during the communist persecution, when compromises were made, on the part of the Church, on the part of each individual citizen, God sent the greatest teachers. The figures of abbots who have never been equalled: Fr. Cleopas, Fr. Paisie Olaru, Fr. Papacioc, Fr. Argatu, are extraordinary beacons. You should know that no nation – because I am connected with all these churches of American converts and I send them to Romania, to Russia, they went everywhere – no nation has had as many spiritual fathers as we have had. We have been favoured by God in spite of all the persecutions. And still God will take care of our nation. Let us believe in God and keep our hope….
– God help us!
– And love!” concluded Father.
During the discussion, I had the feeling that the two friends I saw standing next to me, as if in a favourable moment of destiny, knew each other so well that they knew not only the words and sentences they were about to say, but also each other’s thoughts. I turned off the tape recorder and, to fill the moment of silence that followed, I told the two guests that our generation considers them martyrs of the Romanian nation… To which Marcel Petrișor replied, under the knowing and shining eyes of Father Calciu:
– I say, take it easy with the martyrdom!
Marcel Petrișor saw the consternation on my face and said to me:
– This is what happened: there was the old man, elder Ierhan, in his cell with a younger boy. And at some point elder Ierhan was taken into the cell, I don’t know for what reason. Finally, after a few days, the guards bring him back to his cell. Poor, weakened at eighty… but the young cellmate couldn’t stand it any longer and out of rebellion he started to say: Look what you’ve done to this lion of Bucovina, you’re guilty and I don’t know what else, and you criminals… and then the platoon leader, the colonel, Gheorghiu or Goiciu, whoever he was, came out of the cell. … and elder Ierhan said to Costică Zmeu, that’s how he called the younger one, he said: “Hey, Costică, I really liked the way you spoke, but with the “Lion of Bucovina” you’d better take it easy…
That’s what I mean – you said you were martyrs and I don’t know what… Give me a break with the martyrdom thing!
(Iulian Grigoriu – ARGO Magazine no. 1, March 2015 | www.argozine.wordpress.com)