An Angel of Power? A Cherubim?

I was in one of the cells on the ground floor of the central building of Aiud prison, in solitary confinement, together with about 70 TB patients. We had been on hunger strike for several days, demanding that the shutters to be removed from our windows and that we be allowed to take a daily walk in the yard.

It was summer and the air had become unbearable and suffocating. After a few days they began to force-feed us… and those who resisted… had their teeth knocked out.

One of us heard the harsh voice of a militiaman whom he recognised as one of the beasts of the Canal. The prisoner who recognised his voice expressed himself by saying “If only he hadn’t recognised me…”.

At that time I was practising the Jesus prayer, during which I began to see, apart from the luminous cross in my heart, some lights of which I did not know what they were. I would see a lighted candle, pyramid-shaped wheels or wheels with wings spinning with fantastic speed, bluish.

At that time I longed to see such an angel, with a familiar face, as in iconography. I didn’t know then that angels can also appear on an ecstatic level, in symbolic form. For this reason, although I was seeing the glory of God in my being, I thought I was beginning to go mad, but with all my inner turmoil I continued to pray and sometimes to make these symbolic signs go away from me. But they persisted… and they came back to me.

When I heard what the one who feared the militiaman was saying, I began to pray for him and for all of us. It wasn’t long before the militiaman, our guard, appeared at the door and looked intently at everyone in the cell with me.

At that moment, as he watched us, the winged wheel that I could see spinning incredibly fast, along with the other symbolic divine presences, came to rest on the fiery guard’s forehead and then he began to smile…. And smiling, he said to the prisoner who was frightened by his presence: You recognise me, don’t you? Yes, replied the prisoner. That’s all he said, and he turned and walked away…

Apart from that moment, I never saw that militiaman smile, only swear and threaten.

Let’s see what happens next, one of us said… But I told them: I think no harm will come upon us! And I didn’t give them any explanation for what I had said, but since then I have been convinced that the winged wheel is beneficial and therefore of a divine nature. And indeed, nothing bad happened after that wonderful event, only the usual things of our life there.

Later, I learned from the priests, whom I tempted with all sorts of questions to clarify myself, and especially from the theologian priest Nacu from Bârlad, a very knowledgeable priest, that the wheels I saw were symbols of the heavenly powers and that the winged wheels were the cherubim that appeared to some of the Old Testament Prophets.

As I talked to him and told him about the things I was seeing, he pointed out that although I was now on the right path, it was still dangerous without support[1]. But where is that support, apart from God and His grace? I revealed to him the demonic trials I had been through, which were more terrible and dangerous than anything I had ever experienced.

I accepted that anything could happen to me, just so that I would not go mad, because then I understood that madness would be a danger to the salvation of my soul.

This frightened me because madness meant that a demonic power had taken possession of my soul and that I was being led away from God whom I loved.

But God’s grace strengthened me and kept me from evil and madness, guiding me on the good and true path, helping me to gain knowledge and to distinguish between the spirits I saw, to understand which were of divine origin and which were demonic.

It was only after liberation, when I read the volumes of the Philokalia, translated by Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, that I realised that the distinctions I made between the spirits were those made before me by other seers in the spirit and that they were real.

(The complete writings of Blessed Elijah the Seer of God and his life, commented on by his disciple and son in the Lord, Pr. Dr Dorin Octavian Picioruș. Vol. I, Theology for Today, Bucharest, 2010, pp. 298-300)

[1] That is, without the help of a man full of ecstatic experiences and theology.