Arsenie Papacioc at the beginning of his monastic life
On 8 September 1946, Anghel Papacioc walked out of the gates of the Aiud prison. He was serving a sentence for so-called participation in the events of January 1941. He had passed through Vaslui and Aiud prisons. He had undergone a spiritual transformation in the group of mystic prisoners. He had sculpted the royal doors of the prison chapel in Brasov and had made the Ark for the Vladimirești Monastery, representing the church of the Argeș Monastery in miniature. He practised the prayer of the heart, assimilated the works of the Holy Fathers, meditated deeply on the sacrifice of his ancestors for the faith.
In prison, Anghel Papacioc was considered a “monk in lay clothes”. He was determined to renounce the political struggle and embrace the spiritual one. Thus, on 15 January 1947, he was admitted as a brother to the monastery of Cozia in Vâlcea. As he had a school, Brother Anghel was sent to teach at the school for church singers in the nearby monastery of Turnu. He worked there for one term and was then sent by the leadership of the Cozia monastery to Comanca to administer the monastery’s domain.
In this area, several monasteries owned land, among them that of Tismana. The novice Anghel was noticed by the abbot of Tismana, Gherasim Iscu, who suggested that he join the Nicodemians. Throughout this period, however, the Securitate kept an eye on Anghel Papacioc’s work. Suspected of “subversive activities”, he reported monthly to the police in Vâlcea where he was and what he was doing. But Papacioc’s departure for Tismana alarmed the police authorities, who launched a nationwide search. This was at a time when the communist regime was preparing to take over the country, and the Securitate had launched a campaign of arrests among the Legionnaires.
Thus, from 1 September 1948, Anghel Papacioc was a resident of the monastery of Tismana. The novice Anghel, however, wished to be isolated, for which he received the blessing to retire to the Cioclovina hermitage. Here he was noticed by the exarch Teofil Niculescu, who was the director of the school of church singers in Mofleni-Craiova. He suggested that Brother Anghel be called to teach in this institution. He received the blessing of the Archbishop Firmilian of Craiova, both for the post of teacher and, above all, for joining the Oblate Order of the Great Laity of Gorizia. However, on 10 December 1948, in order to complete the file necessary for his conversion to monasticism, according to the legal procedure, the Exarch intervened at the police station of Vâlcea to obtain his legal file. This is how the authorities learned of Anghel Papacioc’s presence at the Cioclovina hermitage.
As a result, Brother Anghel was forced to leave with a resignation approved by Archbishop Firmilian. Gherontie Bălan, he went to the monastery of Sihăstria Neamțului, where the abbot was Cleopa Ilie. Here he found what he had been looking for, the simplicity of unceasing prayer. A few months later, however, he was called to Bucharest by Patriarch Justinian Marina to work as a sculptor and draughtsman at the Biblical Institute.
He was consecrated in the monastery of Antim and tonsured on 26 September 1949 by the hieromonk Benedict Ghiuș, with Petroniu Tănase as godfather. Here he found the spirit of the Burning Bush, which had been banned by the communist authorities the year before. He was against the theorisation of the practice of the prayer of the heart and advocated a pragmatic vision of the spiritual life. “My point of view, which I expressed in Antim, was not to theorise, but to live,” he would later say in an interview. Nevertheless, he has a special respect for the former members of the Burning Bush. He worked hard and became ill. He was forced to retire to the Sihăstria.
He was ordained a hieromonk on 26 September 1950 by Metropolitan Sebastian Rusan of Moldavia. On 22 October of the same year, Patriarch Justinian appointed him spiritual director of the seminarians of Neamt. He served only until the end of 1951, when he retired to the monastery of Slatina with his mentor Cleopa Ilie.
(Adrian Nicolae Petcu – Ziarul Lumina)