Constantin Oprișan, martyr of the communist prisons

I was very lucky because I was one of the sixteen people the Securitate took to Jilava prison, where my spiritual healing began. In Jilava they built a special semi-cylindrical cell. It was like a cylinder cut in half. I was underground; Jilava is built underground. There was seven metres of earth above the cell. You can’t see Jilava – the whole prison is underground. In this cylinder they built four cells, no windows, only one door. An electric light burned day and night. They put four of us in each cell. In each cell there was either a very sick man or a mad man.

In my cell was Constantin Oprisan – his lungs were completely weakened by tuberculosis. Twice a day he coughed up fluid from his lungs. We had to help him by giving him a hat or something, and he could cough up everything that had come out of his lungs – blood and everything else. It was horrible to see him. The first day I went to the cell, Constantin Oprisan, my friend who had saved me from suicide, and another student younger than us were with me.

Constantin began to cough up fluid from his lungs. I stood with my back to the door – surprised because I had never seen anything like it before. The man was suffocating. Probably a litre of mucus and blood had come out, and my stomach had turned inside out. I felt like throwing up. Constantin Oprișan noticed and said, “Forgive me!” I was so ashamed! Since I was a medical student, I decided to take care of him.

So I decided to take care of him and I told the others that I would take care of Constantin Oprișan. He couldn’t move and I did what was necessary for him. I put him on the bucket to urinate. I washed his body. I fed him. We had a bowl for food. We would take that bowl and put it right in front of his mouth.

He was like a saint. It was the first time I had been in contact with a man like that.

– Could you tell us more about him? How did he teach you and strengthen you?

He didn’t speak much. He would talk to us for an hour or two every day because he couldn’t talk very much. But every word that came out of his mouth was a holy word – all about Christ, all about love, all about forgiveness. He said his prayers and to hear him say those prayers, knowing how much he was suffering, we were deeply moved. It was not easy at all. In addition to his gentleness of soul, he tried to protect us – not to expectorate too much so as not to put germs into the atmosphere. He was like a saint in a cell with us. We felt the presence of the Holy Spirit around him, we felt it on him. Even in his last days, when he could no longer speak, he never lost his kindness towards us. We could see spiritual light and love in his eyes. His face was an outpouring of love.

– Did he tell you about the time when he was head of the “Brotherhood of the Cross”?

Yes. He told us how he worked with young people. I’m sure he loved young people very much and that they loved him too. He was totally devoted to people. He was a very intelligent man – amazingly intelligent. He was so kind to us. He didn’t talk much about himself. He talked about faith, about love, about prayer. He was praying all the time. You know, it’s not easy to sit in a cell with the same people all the time. When there were certain conflicts between us, he would pray. And his prayer worked. We were ashamed because he was praying and we knew it. He wouldn’t pray out loud, but his face would change completely. We understood that he was praying for us and we stopped fighting.

He was in such a bad physical condition because he had been tortured for three years in Pitești. They beat him on his chest, on his back, until they destroyed his lungs. But he prayed all day. He never said anything bad about those who tortured him, but talked about Jesus Christ. At that time I didn’t realise how important Constantine Oprișan was for us. He was the justification of our life in that cell. During that first year he became weaker and weaker. I felt that he was nearing the end of his earthly life and that he was going to die.

Once a week we had to laugh. I used to watch Constantin Oprișan and my friends shaving. Then I would shave and one of the others would watch him, because I watched him day and night. If anything happened, they would tell me to go to Constantin Oprișan, because I had told them that I was the only one who would look after him, because I had hurt him on the first day. I’m sure I hurt him, and so I felt very, very guilty. While I was shaving, Marcel, the student who was younger than us, saw how Constantin Oprișan was ready to die. He said: “Go and see Constantin Oprian, he’s dying”. I looked at him. His face was completely emaciated.

His eyes were open, but I saw that there seemed to be a curtain of mist over his eyes. His eyes were rolling back in his head. I was so frightened, I was so afraid. I felt he was going to die and I’d be alone in the cell. I put my hand on him and said, “Constantine, don’t die; don’t die! Come back; come back!” I shouted loudly! Immediately he came back. His eyes became clear. I don’t know what happened in his soul, but I saw immense horror on his face. I felt that he was ready to enter the other world and I asked him to go back to his cell. His eyes were full of horror and he began to cry. Tears streamed from his eyes. His face had become the face of a child, a newborn baby. He was crying like a newborn baby who had just come out of his mother’s womb. Constantin Oprișan was crying because I had forced him to turn back. He died in a few minutes.

– How long were you with him in the cell?

– One year. After he died, everyone felt that something in him was dying. I understood that sick as he was, who had been in our care as a child, was our pillar of resistance in the cell. Then we were alone, without Constantin Oprișan.

We took a towel and washed his body to prepare it for burial. Then we knocked on the door and told the guards that Constantin Oprisan had died. They came three hours later. We had never left that cell. This cell, which had no light, no windows. Water was dripping down the walls, the straw mattress was rotting under our bodies. So after another two hours, for the first time, the guard ordered me and my friends to take Constantin Oprișan’s body and go outside.

It was so beautiful outside. Flowers and trees and a blue sky. As long as I was in the cell, I forgot the beauty of the world. When I came out, I saw that the world hadn’t changed. This vegetation, these flowers – it hit us. They were like an insult to us because we were suffering, dying… but the universe didn’t care about us! The sun was setting and there was a golden light. Everyone shone like gold. I put Constantine Oprisan on the ground. He was completely naked, because we had to return his prison clothes. His body was completely limp. We couldn’t believe that he was alive. He was completely weak, just skin and bones. And I thought that fever must have entered his bloodstream at the moment of death because he was completely yellow. My friend took a flower and put it on his chest – a blue flower. The guard started shouting at us and forced us back into the cell. Before we entered the cell, we turned around and had another look at Constantin Oprișan – his yellow body and the blue flower on his chest. This is the image I remember – Constantin Oprisan’s body completely emaciated and the blue flower on his chest. He was nothing but skin and bones – no muscles. Nothing else… his body lying on the ground with a blue flower.

It was very difficult after that. Maybe I have sinned, because before he died Constantine Oprișan said: “I will die, but after my death I will pray to God for you. All my prayers will be for you, because I don’t want you to die in this cell. And I’m sure he prayed for us, because all three of us managed to leave that prison and go to Aiud. I’m sure Constantin Oprișan prayed for us. The sin I committed was that all the time I was thinking and calling for Constantin Oprișan’s soul to come and give us light. I think I committed a sin because I may have disturbed his rest. I am sure he was very kind to me because I took care of him. I’m sure he loved me very much. He loved everyone. But I think he had a special love for me because I had a special love for him.

– Was he older than you?

Yes, he was about six or seven years older. And I didn’t have any animosity towards him after that first moment. I looked after him with love and respect. He was like a child in my hands. I’d put him on the toilet, wash him – do everything for him. I thought that for this love that bound us, he had to come to us and give us God’s light.

– I’m sure he prays for you. You probably pray for him all the time.

Yes, all the time. At every Holy Mass I remember him and all the people who died in prison. But I have a special prayer for him…

There are no limits to prayer. In my cell – during my second imprisonment – from time to time other prisoners would pass under my window and shout: “People know you, people are praying for you”.

Sometimes I had moments of great spiritual joy in prison. You know, there’s no explanation for it. I was tortured, I was isolated, I was alone, I had no connection with the world. Sometimes I felt completely lost in prison. I had no prospect of being released. The only prospect was to die in prison. But I had moments of spiritual joy. I wasn’t laughing – there was something inside me – a joy inside me. Not all the time, but from time to time. Then I heard that there were groups of people all over the world praying for me, and I’m sure that this joy was moments of communion in prayer with these people, because there are no barriers, no guards to stop the prayer. So I had moments of spiritual joy.

– Anyone who has talked to people who have been in prison says the same thing.

It is impossible for someone outside the prison to understand. We are free and we are very happy to be free, but we have a kind of nostalgia for prison. And we can’t explain it to others. They say we are crazy. How can you miss prison? Because I had the most spiritual life in prison. We reached levels that we can’t reach in this world. Isolated, anchored in Jesus Christ, we had the joy and enlightenment that the world cannot offer. There are no words to express exactly what we felt there. Those who have not had our spiritual experience cannot understand that we could be happy in prison. When I took care of Constantin Oprișan in the cell, I was very happy. I was very happy because I felt his spirituality penetrating my soul. I learned from him to be good, to forgive, not to curse those who tortured me, not to consider anything in this world as wealth. In fact, he was living in another world. Only his body was with us – and his love. Can you imagine that? We were in a windowless, airless, damp, filthy cell – yet we had moments of joy that I had never experienced in freedom. I cannot explain it.

(Interview by Father George Calciu, 6 November 1996, California, published in the magazine “Taina Dragostei”, number 2, year 1, April 1998 and in the book “Christ Calls You!)

This text also appeared in the magazine “The Orthodox Word”, a bimonthly publication edited by the monks of the Orthodox Monastery of Platina in California, very close to San Francisco. After this interview and other discussions about Constantin Oprișan, these American monks consider him a martyr of our time. His photo is placed next to the icons of the saints and is venerated with honour. As in ancient times, martyrs are simply venerated, their lives and sufferings for Christ being enough to be duly honoured. It is touching how, although in this country certain names are still sullied by those who do not love our nation and our faith, here in America the sincere newly converted souls of the monastic people honour the martyrs after their sacrifice for Christ. May their prayers guide us along the paths of faith to continue the struggle begun with love for Christ and nation.