Autobiography

I was born, according to my mother, in the commune Valea-Bradului, Brad county, Hunedoara region, on the Friday of Florii, in 1903, when the calendar commemorates the Pious Ilarion the New. If this date is correct, both the civil register of Brad, which gives my date of birth as 13 April (new style), and the baptismal register of the parish of Valea-Bradului, which gives my date of baptism as 31 March 1903 (old style), without giving my date of birth, are wrong.

My father, born in Ciuruleasa Abrudului, was a priest (died 21 January 1920, aged 62), and my mother Marta, born in Valea-Bradului, died in 1952, aged 86. They had 9 children (the tenth: Gheorghe, the eldest, died at the age of 6 in Ciruleasa), 6 sons and 3 daughters: 1. Ioan, Doctor of Theology, former priest in Pecica and confessor of the boarding school of the Theological Faculty in Bucharest, killed in the bombing of Bucharest by the British Air Force on 4 April 1944 and buried, without our knowledge, in a common grave in the Protestant cemetery of Ghiulești; 2. Victor (born in 1892) is a mathematics teacher in Oradea and Arad, with a degree in mathematics and a doctorate in law; 3. Maria, is the wife of the priest Miron Popovici from Mihăleni (Brad county); 4. Aurelia, married to the craftsman Ilie Paicu from Brad, both deceased; 5. Miron, doctor of law, was a lawyer in Pecica and Arad, now retired in Arad; 6. Elisabeta was married to Cornel Grozescu, former police commissioner; 7. I, Ilarion-Virgil; 8. Gheorghe, graduated in law, died in Odessa on 21 October 1941 as a major judge; 9. Traian, music teacher in Dumbrăveni, Arad and Cluj.

My first teacher at the primary confessional school in Valea Bradului, class I, was Valer Demian, son of the protopriest Vasile Demian from Brad. Then the teacher was Petru Mateș from Valea-Bradului, son of the cantor Ioan Mateș. In the autumn of 1914, when the First World War began, I enrolled at the Romanian Orthodox Gymnasium in Brad and graduated between 1914 and 1918. My teachers were Dr. Ioan Radu, Vasile Boncu, Ioan Cheri, Vasile Stoia, Ștefan Albu and Dr. Pavel Oprișa, the most loved and respected.

In the autumn of 1918, I enrolled in the 5th grade of the “Andrei Șaguna” Gymnasium in Brasov, where I attended classes until Christmas. With the unification of Transylvania and the Motherland (the Old Kingdom), I returned to Brad, where the 5th grade of the Avram Iancu Gymnasium was opened for the first time. In Brad I also finished the 6th grade of the gymnasium, classes VII-VIII, as well as the baccalaureate, which I did at the “Moise Nicoară” gymnasium in Arad (only in Brad classes VII-VIII were opened in the following years).

In the autumn of 1922 I enrolled at the “Andrean Theological Academy” in Sibiu, where I graduated in June 1926. This was what my parents and I wanted: to study theology and become a priest. This explains why I continued my studies, first at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in Cluj (1927-1929), until I was about to graduate with the subject “The Poetic Art of Horatius”, and then at the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest (1930-1932), where I graduated with the subject “Salvation from the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Perspectives”, in the autumn of 1932, then between 1927-29, for the Doctoral Examination in Theology, which I passed “Cum Laude” (9), in the autumn of 1939, with the printed subject: “Repentance, study of theological and psychological documentation” (Arhiedecezana-Sibiu Publishing House).

From 15 January 1927 to 31 August 1927 I worked as a substitute teacher at the “Avram Iancu” Gymnasium in Brad. I taught Latin, physics and psychology.

On the 23rd of July 1927, in the church of Crișcior, I got married to Valeria, the daughter of the confessional teacher and notary of Crișcior: Ioan Faur and Elisabeta born Toda.

Between 25 and 26 July 1927, in the chapel of the Metropolitanate in Sibiu, I was ordained deacon and priest confessor by Metropolitan Dr. Nicolae Bălan.

On the 6th of August 1927, I was installed a priest in my native commune: Valea-Bradului, where I served my people until the 31st of August 1930, when I was voluntarily transferred to Arad, in the district of Șega. Here I was priest until 1 June 1939, when I was transferred as parish priest to the centre of Arad, where I served until 31 March 1941.

In the school year 1937-1938 I was a substitute teacher at the Dogmatic Department of the Theological Academy in Cluj.

In the academic year 1938-1948 I was Professor of Dogmatic Theology, Apologetics, Mysticism (in some years I also taught Morals and Practical Homiletics) at the Theological Academy of Arad. From 1 July 1947 to 31 December 1948 I was Rector of the Arad Theological Academy, when it was abolished by the Law on Education and merged with the one in Cluj.

Between 7 III – 20 VIII 1945 I was interned in the camp for political prisoners in Caracal. Between 6. I. 1949 – 6. I. 1950 I was arrested and sentenced “for non-denunciation”; I was imprisoned in Arad, Timișoara and Aiud. I was removed from theological education and from the state budget “for undemocratic attitude”(?!). I remained priest of the cathedral and of the church in Arad, reinstated in the budget on 1 March 1952, and editor of the Eparchial Calendar (Îndrumător) from 1951 to 1956 (inclusive). 3-4 IX, 1952 – a new arrest. In total – three house searches and three arrests.

I published The Way of Salvation in 1935 (20 issues) and 1943-1947, and Church and School in 1939 (VI) – 1947, when it was discontinued. I collaborated with Telegraful Român (Sibiu), Revista Teologică (Sibiu), Viața Ilustrată (Sibiu-Cluj), Duh și Adevăr (Timișoara), Lumina Satelor (Sibiu) and the Arad newspapers.

Printed works:

Popularisation pamphlets: Beția Arad 1931; Icons Selected from the Life of Orthodoxy Arad 1933; The Way of the Cross in collaboration with priest F. Codreanu, three editions; Collections of Prayers and Songs for Christians Going to the Monastery, two editions; Orthodox Christian Catechism – until 1958 in four editions (43. 000 copies); Holy Sacraments Sibiu 1946; Church – Kingdom of God Sibiu 1947 (printed but confiscated, apparently not approved by the censors); Calendars with the translation of the feasts 1951 – 1956 – ready for printing: On Heretics and Heresies; Parables of the Saviour.

Studies and homiletical works:

Christian Conversion Sibiu 1935; Criticism of the Baptist Church Sibiu 1937; God and the Soul in Contemporary Romanian Poetry Cluj 1937; Theology and the Priesthood Arad 1939; Repentance (Doctoral Thesis in Theology) Sibiu 1939; Paisie and Paisianism Cluj 1940; Spirit of Truth, work awarded by the Romanian Academy, two notebooks Arad 1943 and Religion of Love, Arad 1946.

For Divine Worship:

Antologhion, Arad 1946 (10,000 copies); Prayer Book, Arad 1945 – in 50,000 copies (in collaboration with priest F. Codreanu).

For the catechesis, I initiated and wrote, together with priests F. Codreanu, V. Mihuțui, P. Bogdan, D. Tudor and C. Mureșan, the Analytical Programme of Religion in Primary School, and on the basis of it, approved by Bishop Andrei Magieru, we printed the religious manuals for primary school pupils, classes I – VII, Arad 1940.

For the future, if God helps me to prepare: Towards Tabor, a collection of sermons in four volumes: Preparation, Purification, Enlightenment and Perfection[1]; Religion and Culture; and By the Will of God: The Church Calendar with the Lives of the Saints. And, if there is time, a new edition of The Spirit of Truth and The Religion of Love.

Father Ilarion Felea, Arad, May-June 1958 [2].

Note: Father Ilarion V. Felea died a martyr in Aiud prison in 1961.

[1] The work Towards Tabor only saw the light of the press in 2007, thanks to the kindness of his son, Ioan Felea, and the last volume, Perfection, will soon be published.

[2] Extract from the diary of Father Ilarion Felea, in manuscript.