At Mușunoaiele, in the footsteps of Saint Evghenie Hulea
Fr. Evghenie Hulea, from the monastery of Mușunoaiele, was one of the most representative clergymen of the Church that fought against communism; the monk from the valley of Zăbrăuți is one of the “Saints of the prisons”. (…) The story of the Saint from Mușunoaiele is worth knowing for the generation born after 1989, which needs moral reference points in an amoral world. Situated in a corner of heaven, far away on the waters of Zăbrăuți, in a natural setting of enchanting beauty, the monastery of Mușunoaiele was the place where destiny sent Fr. Evghenie Hulea to encourage the bands of anti-communist fighters in the Vrancea Mountains. Let us imagine a Romania under terror, with Soviet soldiers everywhere and troops from the Ministry of the Interior searching the homes of the people of Vrancea for those who resisted the regime with a gun in their hands (…).
In that Romania of terror, where everyone was trying to save his own skin and protect his family, Fr. Evghenie Hulea was the confessor of these idealistic fighters. Not only did he listen to their confessions during the hours of silence in times of need, but Fr. Evghenie Hulea was the priest with the cross in his hand who protected them from the henchmen of the communist regime, who gave them their daily bread when those around them turned away from them in fear. Arrested for not revealing his thoughts from the confessional chair and for giving a piece of bread to a German prisoner, the Saint of Mușunoaiele was tortured in the prisons of Focșani and Galați until his death on 23 October 1962. It sounds like a story from the sad history of the communist gulag era, but it is so close to us that it is a pity not to know the people who held their heads high when everyone was afraid of their own shadow. In the monastery of Mușunoaiele, transformed after 1989 into a Civitas Dei by the gifted abbot Cleopa Nechita, there are still monks who knew the Saint of the prisons, and their stories allow us to escape spiritually from the misery of a world intoxicated by power struggles. Walk, dear readers, in the footsteps of the Saint of the Prisons of Mușunoaiele, leave behind the election broadcasts and you will discover a corner of heaven populated by stories of martyrs and heroes!
(Valentin Muscă – Ziarul de Vrancea)