Father Benedict Ghiuș – “A man of a formidable spirituality”

Costion Nicolescu: How did you discover Orthodoxy?

Father Marc-Antonie Costa de Beauregard: (…) The Romanian Church also helped us a lot in the beginning. I travelled to Romania, I met Romanian spiritualists, I met Father Benedict Ghiuș when I was in the monastery of Cernica… A man of immense spirituality! He was a man of culture and he gave me a lot. Sometimes we sat without talking, but a spiritual force flowed from him like flowing water, like a spreading light. I tried to ask him some questions, but I had the impression that he wasn’t very interested in them.

He stayed for a long time without saying anything, but it was extraordinary the silence that came from him… But he did talk to me about how to do it, about the Church, about theology… He spoke very, very little, but the impression of his knowledge was extraordinary. He spoke a little, rather bad French, and used an old Romanian language. I didn’t really understand what he was saying, but I was impressed by his way of being. I think this is essential in Orthodoxy, not so much the words people say, but their way of being (which seems to be primarily spiritual!).

(excerpt from an interview published in “Alpha and Omega” magazine no. 9 of 16 July 1997)