Father Alexandru Mazilu, martyr for Christ during the communist regime
We have very little information about this priest, details only becoming available after 1944, when he experienced communist persecution.
In October 1944 he was taken from his home and sent to Tg. Ocna, Bacău County, without explanation. From there, in January 1945, he was transferred without trial to the Bacău prison, to be released at the end of the year. After his release, he was closely monitored by the Security and Gendarmerie.
In 1948 he was arrested again and sent to Bacău prison, only to be released after several months of investigation and torture. But not for long, because on 20 July of the same year, the house was brutally searched (the floors were opened, the walls were broken, etc.), the father was blindfolded and thrown into a van. He was to end up in Bacău prison for the third time. After several months of investigation and torture, he was sent to hard labour on the canal, at the Poarta Albă colony, and then to the Galeș colony[1].
In 1953, he was transferred to the Borzești labour colony (Onești, Bacău County), where he did hard labour in the construction industry until May 1954, when he was released. When he returned home, very ill, he was always followed, harassed and called to the Securitate until the last moment of his life.[2]
Professor Sivoglo Neculai remembers Father Mazilu as follows: “When I came as a teacher to Dofteana Commune, I had the opportunity to get to know Father Alexandru Mazilu up close, who was working in the Orthodox parish of Dofteana. I was deeply impressed by his piety, his goodness of heart, his constant desire to help the needy in the parish, and I must point out that there are many of their kind in the parish.
He showed moderation and modesty in all the circumstances of his life. One could read in his nature a strong spiritual experience, a great joy when he succeeded in helping someone, after which he returned to a state of sorrow that he carried like an unhealed wound. […] With an impressive morality, he made great material efforts to raise and educate his three children. […] Most of the time he did not pay for the services he rendered to the parishioners”[3].
As a result of the forced labour, the investigations and the torture to which he was subjected in prison, Father Mazilu contracted a very serious illness called polycythemia, a type of blood cancer. Hounded by the Security Service and ravaged by illness, Father Alexandru Mazilu died on 5 October 1978[4].
(Adrian Nicolae Petcu – Martyrs for Christ in Romania during the communist regime, E.I.B.M.B.O.R, Bucharest, 2007, pp. 465-466)
[1] Letter of the priestess, Alexandrina Mazilu, to the AFDPR, March 18, 1990, in Martyrdom of the Romanian Orthodox Church, pp. 115-116.
[2] Adrian Nicolae Petcu, Orthodox Martyrs of the Roman Diocese during the Communist era, in “Theologos”, year I (2006), no. 1-6, p. 85.
[3] Letter of the presbyter, Alexandrina Mazilu, to the AFDPR, 18 March 1990, in Martyrdom of the Romanian Orthodox Church, p. 117.
[4] Ibidem, p. 116; The Imprisoned Church, p. 252; Orthodox Priests, p. 162.