Elder Vasile Ungureanu – he was walking on the footsteps of the Eastern Saints

Under the name of Maglavit we knew Elder Ungureanu, who was arrested in Iași and imprisoned in Suceava, then arrived in Pitesti in the forced labour sections, and in particular in the cellar of room 3.

He was given this nickname because, in 1935-1936, he had walked from Iași to the south of Oltenia, to the village of Maglavit, to see the miracle of the shepherd Petrache Lupu. Vasile Ungureanu was from Târgu-Neamț, a church singer or teacher, as it was called in the area. He was arrested in the church of Tălpălari in Iași, where Father Tatulea, a well-known legionary and priest of exceptional moral character, a great theologian and composer, was parish priest. All the elite of Iași came to his church, where he had a wonderful choir. He too was arrested in 1948 and sentenced to years in prison.

Maglavit had fought in the war and afterwards, being talented in music, he enrolled as a student in the Conservatory of Iași, where he had Father Tatulea as a teacher. In 1948, at the age of 46, he was arrested and, after a very difficult investigation, sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in Suceava. Maglavit then gave himself up as a student in order to come to Pitesti, although he was part of the “Răzleți” organisation. He did this to be, as he said, “with the boys”.

Raised in the orthodox spirit of the monasteries of the Neamț region, where he came from, he was a deeply Christian man, with a way of life that could be taken as an example.

A good and peaceful man who did not accept violence, he was horrified by war with all its atrocities. For this reason, the tortures inflicted on him in Pitești also frightened him. In room 3, in the cellar, he belonged to Pintilie’s group and was distinguished by his gentleness and kindness, but above all by the mystical experience that impressed everyone in the room. Because of the warmth with which he surrounded each young man, I also became very attached to Father Vasile, seeing in him the example and the life of the Eastern Fathers.

Because he took part in the legionary meetings led by Pintilie and initiated the mystical circle, he was the target of Zaharia’s tortures. He endured the tortures like a martyr, but what moved him to tears was the sight of the young men being tortured. At every blow of the club, he flinched as if he had been hit.

If he wasn’t killed in the room, it was because of Măgirescu, who had great respect for him. Because he was older than us – he could have been our father – he was listened to, respected and loved to such an extent that I could see some of the people on the prices crying in pain when he was being tortured.

But he never hit anyone and, thanks to him, neither did Măgirescu, who used to tell him he was mad with so much mysticism.

Elder Ungureanu looked like a Byzantine saint from Eastern iconography and was one of the few comrades I met in prison who fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays, leaving his food to others. Thanks to this experience, he was one of the few ascetic comrades – apart from the group of Valeriu Gafencu and the lawyer Trifan from Brașov – whom I saw with my own eyes and in whom hunger could not sink its fangs.

For them, earthly life was less important, they were floating in other spheres. And then, how could I not believe in the life of the saints and Eastern ascetic martyrs, when I saw my comrades living a life according to their example?

Easter 1951 was approaching, and one evening when I saw Blessed Basil crying, I don’t know who asked him why he was crying. His answer was simple: “I am crying for the pain of the brothers”. They were his brothers who had been beaten. Zacharias, angry, intervened brutally:

– Like me, mystic bandit, these are your brothers, not bandits? Ungureanu replied with Christian simplicity:

– For me they are not bandits, because they have not stolen anything from me, nor have they done me any harm.

– What do you mean, they didn’t beat you?

– They didn’t beat me, Ungureanu replied.

Zaharia shouted at him in anger:

– Tell me, what do you think of another mystic like you, the bandit Bordeianu?

Everyone in the room expected Ungureanu to paint a portrait of me in a tone of denial. But he replied:

– Brother Bordeianu is a gentle man.

It was the simplest characterisation anyone had ever given me. And now, as I write these memories, his words ring in my ears.

Enraged to the point of madness, Zacharias then jumped on the poor man, trampled him and crushed him so badly that you didn’t know whether he was a man or a mass of bleeding flesh.

(Dumitru Bordeianu – Confessions from the Swamp of Despair)