Father Benedict Ghiuș – on enduring suffering with gentleness
Archimandrite Benedict Ghiuș is one of the “mysterious” figures of Romanian Orthodoxy. Although he lived most of his life in the midst of crowds, he managed to hide himself with discretion and modesty, and to live permanently as a true monk. For this reason, there are few testimonies about his life, the only consistent information being found in his criminal record since his arrest and conviction in the “Burning Bush” conspiracy. In fact, most of the information presented below comes from this file.
Father Benedict Ghiuș was born on 21 October 1904 in the village of Domnești, Pufești commune, Vrancea County, and was baptised Vasile. The religious vocation of the young man from Vrancea became apparent at an early age and inevitably guided his life. After completing his theological studies at the Faculties of Theology in Chișinău and Bucharest with distinction, Benedict Ghiuș was proposed for a scholarship at the Faculty of Theology in Strasbourg, from where he would return to the country with a doctorate, becoming one of the best educated theologians in Romania at that time.
On his return to the country, he was appointed Prefect of Studies at the Theological Boarding School in Cernăuți. Here he came into direct contact with the theological students who were sympathetic to the Legionaries and took part in some of their meetings. He did this with the agreement of the Metropolitan of Bukovina, Visarion Puiu, who was interested to know whether these meetings were discussing matters that could affect the Church. The rigorous spirituality of the meetings in the boarding school nest awakened the young teacher’s sympathy for the Legionary cause, but this would never lead him to join the Movement. Throughout his life, however, he maintained his desire for a deeper and more demanding religiosity, an attitude expressed in his 1940 book: “Înnoiește-te, noule Ierusalime”, written with the monks Antim Nica, Ioil Babaca and Nicodim Ioniță: “We dealt with the problem of a better organisation of the Church on the basis of mystical-religious principles, and we made proposals in this regard”.
In 1938 he moved to the seminary in Balti as a teacher, from where he was forced to flee to Bucharest in 1940 because of the surrender of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. His intellectual and moral values, as well as the links he had established with the people of Bessarabia, were the reasons why he was elected Bishop of Hotin in 1943. However, his election was annulled by Mihai Antonescu, for reasons that remain unclear. It seems, however, that Ghiuș’s “legionary” past played a role in this decision. Humbled, the young monk would accept his fate and would never try to become a hierarch.
In the “Burning Bush”
At the end of the Second World War, Father Ghiuș began the spiritual adventure of the “Burning Bush”. Here is what Father Benedict recalls (in the 1958 “translation” of the Security Security): “I, the undersigned, became acquainted with the meetings of the “Burning Bush” and began to participate in them, as far as I remember, in 1946 at the Antim Monastery in Bucharest.
The idea of this form of religious activity “The Burning Bush” was brought by the priest Ioan Culâghin, who came from Rostov – USSR, being brought by the fascist troops during the anti-Soviet war and settled in the monastery Cernica.
The priest Teodorescu Alexandru-Daniel, who was a brother in the Antim monastery at that time, had been to Mount Athos – Greece and had studied this activity, so he became the leader of the “Burning Bush” association.
At first they were members of this association: Teodorescu Alexandru – Daniel, the undersigned, the priest Mihail Avramescu, who at present has a parish in the city of Tulcea, the professor Mironescu Alexandru, the priests Sofian Boghiu and Dubneac Felix, who at that time were monks in the monastery of Antim, and other monks from the monastery, whom I do not remember at the moment.
During the “Burning Bush” meetings, which took place in Antim Monastery between 1946 and 1947, there was an exclusively religious activity. The Russian priest Ioan Culâghin was also invited to these meetings, and during these meetings he gave lectures on the Christian experience and life of the Optina abbots, and he also taught us how to have such an experience”. When asked by the investigator what kind of experience this was, Father Ghiuș replied: “It is a spiritual experience which consists in the exhortation to faith, prayer, self-discipline, work, acts of love towards one’s neighbour and others”.
Continuing to recount the activities of this association, Father says: “The meetings of the “Burning Bush” in 1947 became very large in the sense that more and more people began to participate, including a number of visitors to the Antim Monastery.
During these meetings, a series of conferences on religious themes began to be held, according to a programme well established by the members of the group, namely: priest Teodorescu Alexandru Daniel, myself, professor Mironescu Alexandru, priest Vasilache Vasile, Stăniloae Dumitru and others.
We also organised choirs with the monks from Antim Monastery, who sang at these meetings.
We carried out this activity in the above mentioned form until 1948, I don’t remember the exact date, when we were forbidden to organise and hold such meetings, having received instructions from the Archbishopric that such meetings were forbidden by law.
After receiving the orders we stopped holding such meetings and in March 1950 I went to Neamț Monastery as a teacher in the local theological seminary and stayed there until January 1955.
During this period, the undersigned continued to come to Bucharest on a regular basis and to visit the monk-priests Sofian Boghiu and Felix Dubneac, as well as Professor Mironescu Alexandru, with whom I had been active in the “Burning Bush”.
It was also during this period, after 1950, that the priest Teodorescu Alexandru was arrested, I do not know for what reasons, and I did not see him again until 1953, when he was released and settled in the Sihăstria monastery in the Neamț region, where he visited me at the Neamț monastery.
The party did not want him as hierarch
Insisting on the theme of the “Burning Bush”, which was of particular interest to the investigators, Benedict left out some important facts of his life after 1944. It is worth mentioning his contacts with Monsignor Vladimir Ghika, thanks to whom he was described as a “Catholic” in some Church circles. Then, on 5 February 1949, he was appointed Patriarchal Vicar, following the persistent efforts of Patriarch Justinian in the face of the Party leadership. The Patriarch also wanted Ghiuș to become a full bishop. Unfortunately, the rulers’ lack of confidence in the person of Archimandrite Benedict meant that the vicar’s status would only last for a short time. Both he and the other Patriarchal Vicar, Bishop Partenie Ciopron, had to resign their posts at the meeting of the Holy Synod on 25 February 1950.
In January 1955, he returned to Bucharest as pastor of the Patriarchal Cathedral. At the beginning of 1956 he met Daniil Sandu Tudor, who had become abbot of the Rarău monastery, who suggested that he take charge of a group of young Bucharest students who wanted to deepen their faith: “After I had accepted Alexandru Teodorescu’s proposal to take care of the religious education of some intellectual elements among the youth he knew, a number of young students came to me, sent by him… With these elements I organised meetings at my home, at the home of Professor Mironescu Alexandru and at the Plumbuita Monastery. I would like to point out that the meetings at Mironescu Alexandru’s house and at the Plumbuita monastery were organised by Teodorescu Alexandru and that I also took part in some of these meetings”.
Arrested for faith
At the meetings at the Plumbuita monastery, the young students took part both in religious services and in discussions on religious topics. At the first meeting, Fr. Daniil and Fr. Benedict spoke about a key issue: the attitude to be adopted towards young communists: “Sandu Tudorta pointed out to the respective young people that they attend courses at the respective faculties together with people who are not believers, and they must know what attitude to have towards such people, in the sense of mutual respect and collaboration where possible, and the undersigned, elaborating on this issue, pointed out that Catholics, unlike Orthodox, reject communism and do not collaborate with it, and I supported Teodorescu Alexandru’s point of view, in the sense of adopting the system of collaboration where possible”.
We will not dwell on the reasons for the arrest of the “Burning Bush” group, as this has been discussed many times in the pages of ROST. Like most of the members of the group, Father Benedict Ghiuș was arrested on the night of 13-14 June 1958. After exhausting investigations and painful confrontations, he finally “confessed” to his “crimes”. In the “conclusions of the indictment” of 26 September 1958, it was said of Benedict Ghiuș “The aforementioned joined the Legionary organisation in 1937, established contacts with a number of Legionary elements and participated in the Legionary meetings and actions carried out during that period.
During the Legionary government of 1940-1941, Ghiuș Vasile Benedict, in collaboration with Legionary priests: Nicodem Ioniță, Antim Nica and others, wrote a work for the reorganisation of the Romanian Orthodox Church on the basis of Legionary principles, entitled “Înnoiește-te Noule Ierusalime”.
In 1945, Ghiuș Vasile Benedict, together with the former journalist Teodorescu Alexandru (Sandu Tudor), who later became a monk and abbot of the Rarău hermitage, and others, founded a group called “Rugul Aprins” (Burning Bush) and organised a series of meetings at the Antim monastery in Bucharest.
During the meetings, they discussed not only mystical-religious issues, but also a number of political issues, making hostile comments about the democratic regime in the country.
In April 1948, the activities of this group were banned by law, but Ghiuș Vasile Benedict continued to maintain contact with the members of the group, and in 1955 they resumed their subversive activities, forming a clandestine group composed mainly of elements recruited from among the students, with whom he organised and held subversive meetings, both at his home and at Mironescu Alexandru’s one, as well as at the chapel of Plumbuita monastery in Bucharest.
During these subversive meetings, Ghiuș Vasile Benedict, Teodorescu Alexandru and the others gave the members of the group a nationalist, anti-democratic education and held a series of hostile discussions, making counter-revolutionary agitation against the democratic-popular state order in the P.R.R.
Ghiuș Vasile Benedict also took part in several clandestine meetings held at the home of Mironescu Alexandru, where they listened to the broadcasts of imperialist radio stations and made spiteful comments against the democratic popular regime, predicting its change as a result of an intervention that would come from the imperialist powers and restore the capitalist order”.
Therefore, as in the case of the other detainees, some weak biographical elements were demonised and the stereotypes of the communist regime in the criminal field were expanded. On this basis, Benedict Ghiuș was sentenced to 18 years’ hard labour and 10 years’ deprivation of liberty.
He served his sentence in prison “C” MAI, in Jilava from 3 April 1959, in Aiud from 19 May 1959, and was transferred to prison 0957 Ostrov from 16 May 1962. He was released on 25 June 1964 and pardoned along with many other political prisoners. He spent the rest of his life with the same discretion and humility, becoming a true model of spirituality for many generations.
(George Enache – Rost Magazine, year V, number 47-48, January-February 2007, pp. 19-22)