Father Aurel Bazilescu, Martyr for Christ in the Communist prisons
Priest Aurel Bazilescu was one of the most prominent priests of Craiova in the middle of the last century, a fact established by the Romanian historiography after December, which gave him the attention due to such a personality of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the hard years of the totalitarian communist regime[1]. There are almost no repertories dedicated to the victims of communist terror[2] in which the name of Father Aurel Bazilescu does not appear, with the errors inherent in such efforts.
He was born on 13 August 1907 in the commune of Tălpaș, Jud. Dolj, in the family of the teachers Ștefan and Ioana Bazilescu. He attended the parish church since primary school and, thanks to his inclination towards the Church, was encouraged by the village teacher to attend the Theological Seminary.
With a lot of effort, since his parents had a relatively modest material situation, he managed to graduate from the St. Gregory the Decapolite Seminary in Craiova, class of 1928. Anghel Pârvănescu as director and Grigore Popescu-Breasta and Dumitru Preoțescu, among others, as teachers. He was a colleague of the priests Marin Pretorian from the Church of St. Apostles and teacher, Elefterie Marinescu from the Church of St. Spiridon, teacher and director of the School of Singers in Craiova, Gheorghe Demetrescu from the Church of St. George the Elder and Ștefan Băzăvan from the Church of St. Elias.
In 1933 he brilliantly defended his bachelor’s thesis on the doctrine of the soul in the first three Christian ages, with Irineu Mihălcescu, the future Metropolitan of Moldavia, as dean.
On 5 April 1934 he married Elisabeta I. Vasilescu (born in Puțuri-Dolj on 26 March 1915), from a line of teachers, priests and officers. Elisabeta Bazilescu’s uncles were the priests Marin Gronea from the church “Sfântul Ioan Hera” and Ștefan Gronea from the church “Harșu”, and another uncle, Colonel Gheorghe Vasilescu, was a hero in both wars[3].
After graduating from the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest, he was ordained on 18 May 1934 as the second priest of the future Metropolitan Cathedral. After the departure of Fr. Gheorghe Barbu as a military priest in 1938, he was appointed Protos (parish priest) of the Cathedral. From 15 March 1939, he received a new assignment – protopriest of the 2nd district of Dolj – Craiova. According to the Decree No. 221 of 1 December 1939, he was raised to the honorary rank of Stavrophore econom with red belt and red sash. He was a frequent contributor to the magazines “Renașterea”, “Creștinul ortodox”, “Cultura”, “Vatra” and the newspapers “Jurnalul”, “Presa Olteniei”. He spoke French, German, Greek, Latin and Hebrew. Together with other priests from Craiova, such as Sebastian Chilea, Victor Marghescu, Ion Popescu-Cilieni, Ion M. Stoian, Dumitru Morega, Elefterie Marinescu and others, they wrote numerous memoirs, in which they pointed out the need to re-establish the Metropolitanate of Oltenia with its headquarters in Craiova. As such, we find him in contemporary photographs and documents as one of the main animators and organisers of the ceremony for the installation of the first Metropolitan of Oltenia – Nifon Criveanu on 21 December 1939.
Together with priests Gheorghe Barbu, Constantin Begu and others, Father Aurel Bazilescu succeeded in making the future Metropolitan Cathedral the spiritual and cultural centre of Craiova. It is worth mentioning his collaboration with priest Prof. Dr. Ion Popescu-Cilieni, priest Dumitru Cinciu, priest Constantin Zamfirescu and many others, who contributed to the publication of the magazine “Renașterea” in excellent graphic conditions. The quality of the material published made “Renașterea” a reference for all theological periodicals of the inter-war period. In this context, Father Aurel Bazilescu contributed to the launch of another great priest-teacher, with whom he had a sincere friendship. This was Father Dumitru Bălașa, “the patriarch of Drăgășani”, as he was called by those close to him.
A graduate of the University Pedagogical Seminary “Titu Maiorescu” in Bucharest, class of 1939, Father Aurel Bazilescu was also an excellent teacher of religion. He distinguished himself in this capacity at the Craiovian schools “Obedeanu”, “Traian”, “Trișcu”, at the elementary commercial school “Gheorghe Chițu” and at the professional course for apprentices for professional schools, between 1933 and 1942. From 1945 he taught at the School of Church Singers in Craiova. Here is what a school inspector wrote about him: “He taught Christian pupils the path of goodness and truth, based on the teachings of Christian morality”.
At the same time, from 15 May 1934 to 22 December 1938, he was a confessor in the Craiova prison. This is how Irineu Mihălcescu, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Craiova and the metropolitanate of Oltenia, described him in September 1939: “In this capacity he worked uninterruptedly, honourably fulfilling the mission entrusted to him with great benevolence, kindness, tact and skill, regularly celebrating the Holy Mass, giving spiritual guidance to prisoners who were in error, and giving them religious and moral lectures”. The same prelate, for his outstanding merits, granted him the rank of Stavrophore econom and the right to wear a red belt and a red sash, as well as a cane and a cross, according to Foundation No. 3935/1939.
From the beginning of his activity as Metropolitan of Oltenia, Nifon Criveanu appreciated the support given by Father Bazilescu to the organisation and the complete success of the concert given by the Christian Youth Association (ACT – Romanian branch of the YMCA) in favour of the school canteen “Iubirea Aproapelui” on 7 March 1940[5]. This canteen functioned until it was abolished by the communist regime in 1954, in the parish house of the church “St. George the Elder”, with the priest Gheorghe Demetrescu as its president. “We are grateful to have such hardworking and devoted collaborators at our side,” said Metropolitan Nifon Criveanu after the event[6].
An important event in the life of Fr. Aurel Bazilescu was his installation on Sunday 12 October 1941 as parish priest of the Church of St. Archangels in Craiova (according to the Order of the Archdiocese of Craiova No. 18.292, he had been transferred here from the Cathedral of St. Dimitrios), a very small parish with only 81 families (324 parishioners), but many of them were noblemen or noblewomen of good material status[7]. The ceremony was attended by two former parish priests of the Church of the Archangels: Grigore Popescu-Breasta and Victor Marghescu[8].
The earthquake of November 1940 seriously damaged the structure of the parish church. At the repeated request of the parish priest Aurel Bazilescu, the Historical Monuments Commission made the necessary arrangements for the preparation of documentation by the architect Iancu Atanasescu for the repair of the place of worship. However, due to the state of war in Romania, the steps taken to repair the church were almost ineffective in terms of material support from the Dolj County authorities and the Historical Monuments Commission.
On 9 May 1943, after a visit to the Church of St. Archangel, the Metropolitan of Oltenia, Nifon Criveanu, declared orally and in writing that “The church must be repaired because of the damage caused by the earthquake.”9 The steps to restore the church began in the summer of 1942, when the architect of the Historical Monuments Commission was called in to make the necessary estimate. At the same time, Father Aurel Bazilescu met Paulina Vârvoreanu, the “first founder”, to whom he was confessor and friend, and who agreed to bear the cost of the repairs to be carried out on the church’s behalf. The parish priest was guided by Paulina Vârvoreanu to contact his son – Costinel Vorvoreanu, who together with Eng. Otto Hesselman, and the restoration work began. The church was finally restored in the second half of 1943 and during 1944.
For his tireless work dedicated to the service of the church, Father Aurel Bazilescu was appreciated by his colleagues and archbishops since his lifetime.
The dean of Craiova, Fr. Elefterie Marinescu, who served at the Church of “Saint Spiridon”, made a beautiful characterisation of Fr. Aurel Bazilescu: “as a shepherd of souls, he showed meekness, patience and understanding of all situations. He serves with care and faith. He preaches quietly, convincingly and close to his listeners. He offends no one. He is not flattering, nor clever, nor scheming. He is serious in his actions, he carries out any assignment given to him. He complains about nothing. He is a man of duty, a man of character. He follows the Lord’s exhortation: “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ (Matthew 5:37)”. He doesn’t chase after early gains. He works selflessly, that is, he does his duty.” As parish priest of the church “St. Bazilescu” succeeded in mobilising the priests of Dolj County (1945-1950), in years of great hardship for Romania (1940-1946), to collect numerous offerings to help widows and orphans, he encouraged his confreres to visit the hospitals for the wounded in Craiova, Calafat and other places and he travelled to Transnistria, where he installed many missionary priests, Dolj ranking first in the country in this respect. Thanks to his particularly fruitful work, thousands and thousands of prayer books, icons, various priestly vestments, incense, myrrh, etc., so necessary where the Bolsheviks had destroyed the churches and turned them into stables or granaries, were distributed in Transnistria and to the military units on the front line. Together with the priests Dumitru Cinciu and Dumitru Bălașa, Father Aurel Bazilescu organised and took care of numerous cemeteries of the Romanian heroes from the territory of Ukraine and Russia, he erected numerous roadside crosses throughout Dolj county and he imposed that on all holidays the fallen heroes on the battlefields be remembered with great pomp. Together with the priest Alexandru Șterfenitu from the parish “St. Nicholas Ungureni”, he organised the heroes’ plot in the Ungureni cemetery, collecting by public collection the money needed to furnish the graves of the heroes who died in the Military Hospital, placing at the grave of each one a sturdy cross which had inscribed the main data of the one buried there, so that his descendants could recognise the place of burial. He also intended to build a church for heroes at the Ungureni cemetery, for which he had managed, with the help of other colleagues, to raise a large sum of money. However, as most of the heroes had died on the Eastern Front, this project was abandoned, following the intervention of the Romanian communist authorities and the Soviet occupiers. He was a Good Samaritan to the refugee priests in Bessarabia and Bukovina, helping them materially and morally. The article on the priest Petre Ababii (1903-1944), a former minister at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Chișinău, who was a refugee in Oltenia in 1940 and 1944 and died of a sudden illness, is moving[10].
Throughout the war, together with his close friends Gheorghe Demetrescu, Elefterie Marinescu, Marin Gronea, Alexandru Șterfenitu, Dumitru Cinciu, Teodor Mirescu and others, Father Bazilescu collected food and various sums of money from the faithful, which he distributed together with church books to the war wounded in Craiova’s hospitals, a fact also recorded in the press at the time. Thus, for example, on 2 and 9 July 1944, Father Aurel Bazilescu and his parishioners visited the hospital for wounded soldiers at the “Elena Cuza” High School, and on 16 July 1944 the hospital at the “Petrache Trișcu” School[11].
As parish priest of the “Saints Archangels” church, he founded an important parish library and started an intense activity for the help of war widows and orphans. In the magazine “Renașterea” he published numerous reviews of books by Simion Mehedinți, Radu Gyr and other foreign theologians, especially French-speaking.
After 23 August 1944, Aurel Bazilescu continued the same prodigious activity. In March 1945, he collected the important sum of 10,000 lei to help the population of Moldavia and Ardeal, areas affected by the fighting between the German, Soviet and Romanian armies. Thus, after the death of Father Victor Marghescu on 24 January 1945, former parish priest and teacher of religion at the “Frații Buzești” high school, Father Aurel Bazilescu taught religion at the “Regina Elisabeta” girls’ school in the first and second classes from the autumn of 1946.
He could no longer tolerate the political interference in the life of the Church, and in May 1946 he resigned from the post of Dean of Dolj County, but was elected by his colleagues as a member of the Metropolitan Consistory of the Ungrovlahia Metropolitanate, on the proposal of Archbishop Lieutenant Eugeniu Laiu.
In 1947, Fr. Bazilescu was appointed assistant priest at the Antim Church in Bucharest, where he gave some highly appreciated lectures at the “Burning Bush” meetings.
The new Metropolitan of Oltenia, Firmilian Marin, who knew his work before 1947, praised him “for his beautiful pastoral work and the good management of the parish property, noting with gratitude the method he used in catechesis”, after his visit to the parish of “Saints Archangels” on 12 October 195012.
On 23 July 1954, Father Aurel Bazilescu was elected by his colleagues as a titular member of the Disciplinary Consistory of the Deanery.
Although the times were difficult, on 10 June Aurel Bazilescu addressed a printed manifesto entitled “Appeal to the parishioners of the Church of the Holy Archangels in Craiova”, asking for their help to save the church, which had been severely damaged by the earthquake of 10 November 1940 and by the consequences of the intense traffic, which caused the walls of the church to shake constantly. The parishioners, bound to their pastor, responded to the call with enthusiasm and promise, and on 20 June 1948 the 37 members of the parish set up the “Committee for the Repair of the Church”. Among the members of this committee were Constantin and Maria Calețeanu, Prof. Ion Scântee, Colonel Săulescu, Dr. M. Chiper, General Emanoi Săvoiu, O. Nicolaescu, D.. Dăbuleanu, N. Nicolaescu, Antipa Popa, Tudor Neamțu (son of Constantin Neamțu), Paul Stănescu, P. Georgescu, Mihai Ionescu, Dr Em. Graur, Ionel Huștea, Colonel Dr. Gheorghe Ioan and others. On 8 June 1948, the architect I.L. Atanasescu, from the Technical Service of the Archdiocese of Craiova, drew up an “Estimate of the Maintenance and Consolidation Works to be Carried out on the Church of St. Archangel of Craiova”[13]. A little later, on 8 July 1948, a “Small Committee for the Repair of the Church of the Holy Archangels” was formed, with Fr. Aurel Bazilescu as president, Florea Iliescu as treasurer, Mihail Foișoreanu and N. Antonescu as members, who were to go to the parish and collect, with receipts, the money needed for the repairs. Unfortunately, June 1948 was a rainy month. “The water from the continuous rain, which penetrates through the defective ceramic roof, endangers the painting and even the walls of the sanctuary,” read the notes of 19 July 1948. Political pressure increased, as can be seen from the work of Father Aurel Bazilescu, who removed from the parish library books and magazines considered anti-communist and reactionary.
Despite the material difficulties of a parish with a small number of families and no resources, in October 1948 Father Bazilescu gave Father Baciu an epitrachelion and an omophorion. Between 27 July and 28 November 1948, the first phase of repairs was carried out, and according to the estimate of the Historical Monuments Commission, the second phase was to be carried out between 2 and 30 May 1949 14.
Despite the hardships caused by the recently established communist dictatorship, the parishioners, at the urging of their pastor, managed to collect 710 lei for the restoration of the Gura Motrului monastery, and Elena C. Jormescu donated a chandelier in memory of her husband[15].
The social composition of the families in the parish changed dramatically after 1949, the place of the former landowners, industrialists and merchants, arrested and expelled from their homes, was taken by numerous members of the local nomenclature, Securitate officers, among whom we remember the former shoemaker and then well-known torturer, Constantin Oancă. Fr. Aurel Bazilescu, a man of prayer, asked and received the permission of his good friend and collaborator, the Metropolitan of Oltenia, Firmilian, to spend his 26 days’ holiday in the Crasna-Gorj hermitage, starting on 12 September 1949. After only 6 days, on 18 September, he broke the upper part of his upper arm and returned to Craiova. According to the statistics of the parish from 1953, in which the individual streets are presented with changed names (Karl Marx, Ilie Pintilie, Elena Pavel, Simion Bărnuțiu, Roza Luxemburg streets), there were still 167 families in the parish, and some members of the parish from the interwar period had no work or, although highly qualified, were listed as unqualified workers at best[16].
Despite the hardships caused by the Communist-Stalinist dictatorship, Father Aurel Bazilescu had posted the following notice on the church door: “The church is open every day for prayer”.
Despite the numerous threats he received from the party organs and the Securitate, Father Aurel Bazilescu, together with the priests Teodor Mirescu and Dumitru Cinciu, continued to study the history and problems of contemporary theology. The meetings of a strictly theological nature, held in the parish house of “Sfinții Arhangheli” and attended by the most prominent priests of Craiova, had become famous.
The year 1959 was full of trials and repressions by the communist regime and its instrument of coercion – the Securitate – for the clergy and parishioners of the parish of St. Archangel. On the orders of the Department of Religious Affairs, all parishes in the country were searched for publications and periodicals considered hostile to the repressive communist system, which were sealed and in most cases destroyed in “consultation” with the parish council. This aberrant measure caused immense damage to Romanian theological culture. According to the minutes of 21 June 1959, 863 titles of books and periodicals with Orthodox theological content were removed from the parish library, including, for example, the magazines “Romanian Orthodox Church” and “Renaissance”, practically five days before the Securitate forces raided the parish house and detained the parish priest and the church cantor without trial. Shortly afterwards, Securitate forces were stationed in the parish house and in the parish community to monitor all the activities of the clergy and parishioners. As a sign of solidarity with the priest Bazilescu, who was arrested on 26 June 1959, Prof. Dr. Marin Baculescu, a leading figure in Romanian medicine, and another colleague resigned as parish councillors[17] .
All these actions were no longer tolerated by the Securitate authorities, who arrested him on 26 June 1959 and imprisoned him in Craiova prison, together with Stefan Birtu – the singer of the Church of St. Archangel[18], the priest Teodor Mirescu from the St. Nicholas-Brândușa church, and the priest Dumitru Cinciu from the Mântuleasa church in Craiova, implicating them in a scenario from which it emerged that they had plotted to overthrow the regime.
In reality, the three Craiovian priests met in the parish house of the “Sfinții Arhangheli” church in Craiova to pray together and to discuss theological issues, as they were known in Craiova for the quality of their preaching, their Christian life and their power to transmit the noblest Christian ideas to the faithful[19]. The meetings of the three priests in Craiova were similar to those of the “Burning Bush” in the monastery of Antim, with which Father Aurel Bazilescu was in direct contact.
In a personal file drawn up by the Craiova Securitate on 6 June 1959, Father Bazilescu was presented as a member of the Legion, active since 1937, known for “hostile manifestations”, having “worked in group information actions, together with Cinciu Dumitru and others suspected of current Legion activity”. A month later, it was proposed that he be arrested and interned in a labour camp for 36 months (from 26 June 1959 to 26 June 1962), which he was, on the basis of Decree-Law No. 89/1958 and HCM No. 282/1958. However, according to the documents in his criminal file, it seems that Father Bazilescu never left Craiova and was only detained in the local prison until his release.
His arrest was followed by endless investigations at the Securitate headquarters in Craiova, coordinated by Major Constantin Oancă, using the harshest methods: beatings with sandbags and the crushing of his liver and spleen. Eyewitnesses testified that after his release from prison in the summer of 1962, Father Aurel Bazilescu could hardly move because he had been beaten on the soles of his feet with iron rods, and X-rays taken by his nephew, the doctor Nicolae Bazilescu, showed serious damage to his spine and throughout his nervous system. The testimony of the coroner and other medical specialists showed that these conditions were caused by blows with hard objects, which destroyed segments of the spine and internal organs. In this context, we recall the dramatic diagnoses made by the forensic doctors after his release, led by Dr. Arsenie (“traumatic cirrhosis”), which they were not allowed to make public: bone TB, decalcification, mechanical jaundice, the bones of his fingers, broken during the beatings, were welded together with nodes, and X-rays showed that the bones of his fingers and toes had been crushed. Because of these serious deformities, he was forced to wear a kind of corset which allowed him to move, but with great difficulty, according to the medical certificate No. 2085/1965 issued by Hospital No. 3, Craiova.
There are some notes in the criminal file which show how the parent was ordered to move from one cell to another for investigations that lasted from morning to evening[20]. From the testimonies of survivors of communist prisons and indirectly from other documents, it appears that the long duration of the investigations was due to the numerous physical and moral abuses carried out by the investigating officers and sergeants according to Soviet methods.
Throughout his imprisonment, the family was unaware that Father Aurel Bazilescu remained in Craiova prison, although he was administratively imprisoned and therefore not tried and sentenced, and was kept in solitary confinement. From the testimonies of some of the subordinates of the torturer, Constantin Oancă, as well as those of some of his fellow sufferers, it appears that Father Aurel Bazilescu, despite the endless beatings to which he was subjected, the solitary confinement and starvation, and the fact that he almost lost his sight because he was kept in a cell without light, continued to confess and defend his Orthodox faith.
During her husband’s imprisonment, the priestess Elisabeta Bazilescu was expelled from the parish house and given no employment, suffering severe material deprivation and forced to work as a tailor.
Eugen Eschinasy, a Jewish refugee from Craiova, who had taken refuge in Switzerland after his political imprisonment at the Canal, and who had noticed Father Aurel Bazilescu’s attitude in defence of the Jews in the years 1938-1944, made the case of Aurel Bazilescu known in the Swiss press and on the radio stations “Vocea Vaticanului”, “Vocea Americii” and “Europa Liberă”, which led to his not being prolonged in prison and to his release with the release ticket no. 55/1960, dated 26 June 1962, by order of the Minister of the Interior Affairs, Alexandru Drăghici.
After his release, Father Aurel Bazilescu, considered “dangerous” for the communist regime because of his great faith and authority over the faithful, was not allowed to return to Craiova and on 1 September 1962 he was assigned to the parish of Pleșoiu, Dolj County, where he found it difficult to move around due to the many illnesses he had contracted as a result of the prison beatings. He was forced to spend years in hospitals in Eforie and Mangalia being treated for generalised tuberculosis of the bones. However, he remained under constant surveillance by the Securitate.
In a report written in December 1963, the Inspector of the Department of Religious Affairs, Grigorie Gherghinoiu, stated: “As is clear from the above descriptions, he was a legionnaire with a responsible charge and, after 1944, polarised around him former legionnaires and other suspicious elements”. “He is suffering and is preparing for retirement by staying only in hospitals. He asked to be taken to Craiova to be near the hospital where he needs medical treatment. At the moment he has had the Metropolitan’s support to move out of the parish house of the Church of the Holy Archangels in Craiova, where he worked until his arrest, and to bring in tenants from his personal house instead. Metropolitan Firmilian is personally in charge of this matter and has given instructions to the current priest, Ciobanu Vsevolod, to help him leave and receive his tenants”[21]. Although very ill on 8 November 1969, he served with great effort at the consecration of the church he had pastored for so long, as a sign of devotion to the ideal to which he had dedicated his whole life – the service of Christ.
He died on 24 March 1970, after suffering great pain, and was buried in the Sineasca cemetery in Craiova. 18 years later, on 28 December 1988, he was joined in eternity by the priestess Elisabeta Bazilescu, who died of lymphatic cancer.
(Ana-Maria Rădulescu – Oltenia Magazine. Studies. Documents. Research, Series IV, No. 2, 2014, Sitech Publishing House, Craiova, 2014, pp. 354-363)
[1] Toma Rădulescu, Father Aurel Bazilescu (1907-1970), in Revista “Cetatea Creștină”, Craiova, year III, no. 12 (32), December 2004, p. 3; Idem, Bazilescu Aurel, in vol. Martyrs for Christ in Romania during the Communist Regime, Publishing House of the Biblical and Missionary Institute of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, 2007, pp. 75-79; Ana-Maria Rădulescu, Orthodox clergy in communist prisons: Dolj County: A-B, “Aius” Publishing House, Craiova, 2001, pp. 117-126.
[2] Cicerone Ionițoiu, Victims of Communist Terror: Arrested, Tortured, Imprisoned, Killed: Dicționar A-B, “Mașina de scris” Publishing House, Bucharest, 2000, p. 135, where he is listed as originally from Bucharest and arrested in 1959; Octavian Roske (coordinator), Mecanisme represive în România, 1945-1989: dicționar biografic A-C, National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism, Bucharest, 2001, p. 211, where he is erroneously listed as having died in Periprava in 1961, when in fact he was not imprisoned in that labour camp; ***, Romanian Spiritual Landmarks. A dictionary of personalities from Dolj, “Aius” Publishing House, Craiova, 2005, p. 30. Ștefan Iloaie, Paul Caravia, Virgiliu Șt. Constantinescu, Confessors behind bars. Slujitori ai Chiesa in temnițele comuniste, supplement to the journal “Renașterea”, Cluj Napoca, 1995, p. 11, where he is erroneously mentioned as having died in Periprava in 1961, information adopted and uncorrected from the new publications by Vasile Manea, Cicerone Ionițoiu, O. Roske and others; Paul Caravia, Virgiliu Constantinescu, Flori Stănescu, Biserica intemnițată. Romania (1944-1989), National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism, Bucharest, 1998. p. 70, where it appears with the same error; Vasile Manea, Orthodox Priests in Communist Prisons, 3rd edition, revised and added, Reîntregirea Publishing House, Alba Iulia, 2004, p. 35, where he erroneously assumes that C. Ionițoiu died in Periprava in 1961; Ana-Maria Rădulescu, Orthodox Clerics in Communist Prisons. Preliminary study, I, in “Mitropolia Olteniei”, LVI, no. 1-4, 2004, p. 125, no. 16; Firescu, Alexandru-Toma; Pătularu, Ionuț-Adrian, Biserici și ațezări doljene-file de istorie, “Mitropoliei Olteniei” Publishing House, f.a., p. 222, where he mentions that “he was schingiuit in several prisons in a row”, in reality he served his entire detention in the Penitentiary and Security in Craiova; Pr. Sergiu-Grigore Popescu, Participation of the clergy in Oltenia in the social and national struggles of the Romanian people (XIXXX centuries), “Aius” Publishing House, Craiova, 2010, p. 256, where he is relatively erroneously mentioned as a priest of the Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Dumitru, in reality at the time of his arrest he was a parish priest of the Church of St. Archangel in Craiova since 1941.
[3] Archive of the Archdiocese of Craiova, file no. 141, Pleșoiu-Dolj parish, unnumbered; personal archive of Dr Nicolae Bazilescu, Craiova.
[4] Fr. Ștefan Băzăvan, Collegium, “Mitropolia Olteniei”, XX, 1968, nos. 9-10, pp. 808-810.
[5] See “Renașterea”, XIX, no. 3, 1940, p. 363.
[6] Collection of the Oltenia Museum, personal archive of P. Aurel Bazilescu, see also address of the Mitropoliei Olteniei no. 1986, 7 March 1940.
[7] ***, Ecclesiastical Life in Oltenia. Yearbook of the Mitropolitanate of Oltenia, Ramnic and Severin for 1940, Tipografia Sf. Mitropolii a Olteniei, Râmnicului e Severinului, Craiova, 1941, pp. 145-158.
[8] Archives of the Church of the Holy Archangels of Craiova, file 65/1941, unnumbered; register for the minutes of the Council, Epitropy and Parish Assembly 1926-1949, f. 62 v..
[9] Archive of the Church of the Holy Archangels of Craiova, file 67/1943, f. 76.
[10] Aurel Bazilescu, priest died in a wandering, in Rev. “Renașterea”, XXII, no. 4-5, 1944, pp. 238-240.
[11] ***Data from the work of the Craiovian priesthood in the war hospitals, report of the I Dolj deanery, in rev. “Renașterea”, XXIII, no. 9, p. 513; ABSA, file 68/1944, f. 13.
[12] Bulletin “Mitropoliei Olteniei”, III, 1950, no. 5, p. 37 and no. 6, p. 5.
[13] C.M.I. archive, f. 137.
[14] Register for minutes of the Council, Epitropy and Parish Assembly 1926-1949, f. 82, 85-87, 90, 92, 93 v, Pictura file, unnumbered; see also the estimated estimate in the chapter on church documents; Ioan Opriș, op. cit., p. 442.
[15] Archives of the Church of the Holy Archangels of Craiova, file 75/1951, unnumbered.
[16] Archives of the Church of Saints Archangels of Craiova, register of minutes 1950-1957, f. 80-92.
[17] Ibidem, f. 27-30, 54.
[18] See at length Ana-Maria Rădulescu, Orthodox clerics in communist prisons: Dolj county: A-B, “Aius” Publishing House, Craiova, 2001, pp. 243-245 with related bibliography.
[19] AMJDIM, Criminal fonds, file 48.022, f. 2-4.
[20] AMJDIM, Criminal file, file 48.022, f. 23-24, 26-27.
[21] AMO, Department of Religious Affairs, file no. 37/1962-1964.