Father Atanasie – a confessor on the Calvary of the Romanian nation
In the third week of the Triodium, which is called the week of the Terrible Judgement of the Saviour Jesus Christ, on a Friday, 29.02.2008, Father Atanasie Ștefănescu, monk of the Petru Vodă Monastery, known by the monastery’s inhabitants and pilgrims as the monastery’s doctor-priest, went to the Lord. Father Atanasie, who reached the age of 86 after 20 years in communist prisons, crowned his beautiful life with a higher one by taking the monastic habit in 2005. After three years of spiritual life in the Oblate community of Petru Vodă, marked by the eternal cadence of the sacrifice and resurrection, Father was called to the Lord to experience the joy of the eternal resurrection in heaven with the saints.
Father was a small and serene old man, with a gentle gaze, with a noble and scholarly air, always smiling and open to exchanging a few words with anyone, even in passing, radiating a peace that came from his complete reconciliation with God, with himself and with others. Looking at him in all the beauty of his face, transfigured in Christ, it was hard to believe that such a man had been labelled a bandit of the people for a good part of his life, hunted down and thrown behind bars, humiliated, beaten, starved and kept in heavy chains by the criminals of the red age who desecrated and tore down the holy altars of Christ.
Father looked kindly on the people who came to the monastery, and it was a joy to meet him in the monastery courtyard. Leaning on his stick, humbly and quietly walking among the pilgrims who came and went without disturbing the gentle smile on his face, Father Atanasie gave himself completely to God and to the service of his neighbour. The chapel of His Holiness had a double function: that of a doctor’s office and that of an infirmary. The door of Father Atanasie’s cell was always open to all who needed it. Father Atanasie helped everyone, consulted them, gave them medicine, encouraged them and prayed for them.
He would always greet you with a warm and friendly smile that would ease the burden of physical or emotional pain, then he would invite you to sit down and begin a natural and counselling dialogue as if he had known you for a long time. Father enjoyed the presence of each visitor, listened attentively to what each one had to say and then made some observations, often surprising, which helped you a lot to know yourself, to know your illness, to realise that every physical suffering is the result of a suffering of the soul, a result of sin, and that illness is an opportunity to turn to God, that it is a proof of God’s mercy towards man. Father sacrificed himself for his neighbour. He never said he didn’t have time to help someone. Although he was old and sick, Father Atanasie radiated optimism and strength of spirit. Father had a saying: “He who complains is not healed”. He was very active. He was always asking what more needed to be done, always ready to help, reading, writing articles, being present at all the religious services.
He loved young people and Christian families, whose problems he knew, understood and could advise. He was in a living communication with them through prayer and word, urging them towards true spiritual and cultural values. He gave them books with very deep and delicate dedications, suitable for every soul, which highlighted the thoughts and the loving heart of Father. Father was a very cultured and sensitive man. He knew a lot. He was a living history. A discussion with Father ennobled you, made you think, gave you a high perspective because it was a lived culture, a culture put at the service of God, of the neighbour and of the Romanian nation, Father possessed that “Culture of the Spirit” as Father Rafail Noica says.
Now, at the hour of his difficult farewell and departure for the great journey to eternity, the circumstance in which I met Father Atanasie, then, that is 44 years ago, our brother and comrade Alexandru Ștefănescu, comes back to my soul, from the darkness of time. I met him when I was imprisoned in Onești. During my painful wanderings through the communist prisons, I met special people who did special things. Among them stands out the tough and fearless face of our comrade Alexandru Ștefănescu, always ready to make the supreme sacrifice to defend his convictions and the cause of his nation. There were moments of tragedy and urgency, but also moments of divinity. I pay tribute to these men and their deeds. […]
The most special and beautiful moment that comforted my soul and gave me hope was the Passion Week of Christ in 1954, a moment that bound my soul forever to Brother Alexander. Alexandru Ștefănescu, with the help of other comrades, brought Holy Communion, wine and anafura into the camp, and the worthy priest Niki Lascăr from Asău administered to us the sublime sacrament of confession and communion in secret, in a deep cellar, without sky, without sun, without a ray of light, on a construction site of the besieged house. The comrades were brought to confession by Alexander at a distance, so that they would not know each other, and taken down to the catacomb, where Father Niki Lascăr was waiting for them. There, in that silent and frightening darkness, the merciful angels collected the confessions of those who hid from the eyes of the persecutor in the depths of the earth, and took their fervent prayer up to heaven and placed it at the feet of the divine throne for forgiveness. […]
From that year on, I never saw Brother Alexandru again, because I was isolated in the Onești penitentiary, then taken to the Bacău Securitate, where the investigation continued for almost two years. […]
Although many years of hard trials have passed since then, our friendship has remained eternally inscribed in the heavens of our souls and is always relived in the sacred moments before each confession. In our struggle for truth, faith and nation, Brother Alexander remained forever in my heart as the one who accompanied us on the path of repentance and the nation’s Calvary. […]
It was God’s will that we should escape alive from the ordeal of the prisons and meet again after 44 years. Brother Alexander had become an Athanasian monk in the Petru Vodă monastery. The joy of our reunion was great. We embraced like two brothers, we reminisced and relived holy moments. Father remained the same great comrade, ready to sacrifice. […]
He served his faith to the last moment of his life, confessing the divine truth.
(Petru Baciu – Hidden Crucifixions, Volume II, Buna Vestire Cultural Foundation, Bucharest, 2009, pp. 209-213)