Father Constantin Sârbu – a great servant of the altar

Constantin Sârbu was born on 10 January 1905 in the commune Cavadinești, Covurlui County, in the family of Gheorghe and Maria Sârbu, poor and good Orthodox farmers. At the age of one, his mother died and he was taken in by his grandparents, after his father, who were also hard workers. When he was three, they all moved to Galați, where they earned their living by working for others. After graduating from primary school in Galati as a prize winner, his grandparents moved to the commune of Smârdan, near Galați, and took their son (his father’s brother) with them. Shortly afterwards, his grandfather died and he and his grandmother were thrown out by their daughter-in-law and found a home in an uninhabited little house in the village churchyard. Here, his grandmother works during the day and he works as a slave for the unsympathetic people of the village, receiving no payment, just for food. So he misses four years of school until he is 15.

In 1919, at his grandmother’s insistence, he took the entrance exam for the St Andrew’s Theological Seminary in Galați, coming third out of 500 candidates in the first intake after the First World War. Although he was the best student in every class, he was not exempted from paying the tuition fees and, in order not to be expelled from the seminary, he worked in the sawmill at night and in some shops during the day, tutoring the boys of rich men. Under these conditions, he managed to finish the higher course in two years, passing two classes in one year, the last class, the 8th, graduating from the seminary in Roman.

In the autumn of 1925, he enrolled at the Faculty of Theology and the Music Conservatory in Bucharest. For two years, until he found a means of subsistence, he slept on the floor of an attic in Amzei Square, and when his hostess no longer received him, he slept around the North Railway Station, in the waiting room, then in the V. Bolnavu, secretly after 11 p.m., when the caretaker went to bed, instead of the boys who were out partying or sharing a bed with a merciful colleague. He ate in the Gutenberg canteen after 2.30 p.m. from the leftovers of those who ate on a food card. Later, in 1927, he joined the STB Athenaeum (Bucharest Tramway Company) as a music teacher and volunteered in the missionary work of the Zlătari church, as administrator and collaborator of the two parish magazines “Ortodoxia” and “Fântâna Darurilor”, and he led a choir of believers that sang in this church for over 30 years.

Evidence of his worthiness

After completing his studies in 1929, unable to find a parish within the Archdiocese of Bucharest, he accepted a position as a singer at the Lucaci Church in the capital, where he worked for almost five years, until 1934. In this parish, the young Constantin Sârbu organised a choir and taught music at the Lucaci girls’ school. At the same time, as the successor of Nicolae Lungu, he was involved for a year in the missionary activity of the “Patriarch Miron” Association in the choir.

In 1934, he moved to Huși, where, at the request of Bishop Nifon Criveanu, he was ordained a deacon on 15 August, and the next day he became the third priest of the Episcopal Cathedral of Huși, living in the courtyard of the diocesan centre. Later, because he had “a very beautiful voice” and the necessary training, the same bishop appointed him director of the school of singers in Huși and professor of Sectology, Catechism and Vocal music, and at the administrative level member of the court of the deanery of Fălciu.

As director, he reorganised the school along the lines of a seminary, with boarding (for 45 of the 105 students enrolled), a canteen, a library, a repeater and a pharmacy for the students. At the same time, he increased the school’s resources and began collecting wood and bricks for the construction of modern buildings. Pending the construction of the planned building, he rented a one-storey house, called “Vasuta House”, for the four classes, which were housed in two derilect cells in the bishop’s palace.

On the social level, Father Sârbu made a great contribution in 1934 by founding and coordinating the “Fraternity of Saints Peter and Paul”, which was considered by the people of this diocese as “the Lord’s Army”. He was the active president and honorary bishop, who sometimes attended the meetings held in the Cathedral.

For his outstanding work in the pastoral mission and in the training of church singers, the bishop conferred on him the rank of Ikonom and, on 1 March 1938, he was appointed second protopriest of the county of Fălciu.

Another merit of Father Sârbu in Huși is the creation of the home for the elderly and orphans, which the town so desperately needed. It all seems to have started with our father himself, when “a group of the faithful from Huși, gathered in the house of the priest C. Sârbu, in Ghica Vodă Street, No. 10, for a meeting about the local needs”, decided to set up an “initiative committee” to raise the necessary funds for the construction. A delegation led by our priest was to sensitise the local authorities in order to obtain the best possible land. He was to receive it from the parish priest himself, after the town hall had returned the piece of land near Hușilor, known as “la Dealul Schitului”. The bishopric would also provide several products needed for the construction of the building. In this initiative, the priest was also greatly helped by his wife, with her “woman’s work”. By the time he moved to Bucharest, the priest would have built an “imposing building” in red, with 22 rooms, and would begin to rebuild the church of the former hermitage, the plans and estimates having been approved.

Since his wife, Maria Sârbu, a graduate in literature and philosophy and a writer, was employed as a teacher of German and French at the “Nicolae Bălcescu” Gymnasium in Bucharest, he was transferred from Huși to the newly founded parish of Călărași Park, in the district of Vergului, without a church or a parish house, in a poor working class district (at the intersection of Călărașilor Way and Mihai Bravu Street).

At first, thanks to the kindness of Doctor Victor Gomoiu, founder and director of the Regina Elena Hospital, he set up a chapel in the basement of this hospital, where he served without salary for two years, until 1 April 1940, when the post was included in the budget of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. In the building at the entrance to the hospital, says Maria Dumitrescu, a devotee who knew Father Constantin, “the sick person would first go down the few steps leading to the small chapel in the basement, kneel before the altar, receive Father Constantin’s blessing and then, with hope in his heart, enter the office of the famous surgeon Victor Gomoiu. At the ringing of the bell in the Vergului Barrier, the small place of prayer was filled with the faithful. This was the beginning of the desire to build the monumental church of St. Constantine and Helen.

In this chapel, for seven years, until the church was built on Muncii Boulevard – Vergului Barrier, he would serve as a doctor of the souls of those being treated by doctors – as a doctor of the body – and of the parishioners.

First of all, he had great difficulties in obtaining the land for the construction of the church, at the intersection of Mihai Bravu and Călărași Way streets, which he managed to remove from the green zone and move to the building perimeter, but encountered difficulties in expropriating the owners. He appealed to the courts and made representations to the authorities, reaching the Head of State, General Ion Antonescu, who looked favourably on the case and personally intervened with the City Hall and the Arbitration Commission. It was not until 1942, with the support of Patriarch Nicodemus, that the situation of the land was resolved.

In addition to the sacrifice he had to make, his wife died in 1941, leaving him to be both father and mother to his two daughters.

The Marshal – Founder

Marshal Antonescu accepted Father Sârbu’s proposal and ordered the necessary support for the Foundation. He thus became the founder, as he also took part in the laying of the foundation stone.

The first stone of the future church was laid on 28 July 1943, in the presence of Marshal Ion Antonescu, his wife and other representatives of the state authorities, with a choir of 15 clergy led by Archimandrite Melchisedec, delegate of Patriarch Nicodim Munteanu.

In his speech, the parish priest, Constantin Sârbu, thanked the Marshal and the Town Hall for their help and announced that the new church would also have an imposing basement with reading rooms and a conference room, in other words, “the church of culture”. “Above it,” the priest continued, “under the great canopy, there will be the Church of Faith. And later we hope to build an orphanage for little girls, a canteen for the sick and the elderly, on which the veils of this shrine will shed their soothing light”.

In addition to the difficulties inherent in such an undertaking, there will be others. One would be provoked by the protopriest himself, the priest Gheorghe Georgescu-Silvestru, who, in an address to Marshal Antonescu on 25 June 1943, offered to build the church “at his own expense”, claiming that he was “encountering difficulties from the parish priest C. Sârbu”. At the same time, in order to achieve his aims, the priest slandered Father Sârbu, claiming that he was a “disciple” of the priest Toma Chiricuță from the church of Zlătari, who himself was a disciple of the “heretic” Tudor Popescu, and that “in his priestly and missionary behaviour hides an unorthodox side, which works camouflaged in the Lord’s Prayer, the faction which represents a Protestant deviation of the former priest Trifa and which is also cathartic”. To back up his allegations, the priest requested an audience with the Marshal.

On 11 August 1943, Protopriest Georgescu received the following reply from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers: “Following the investigation carried out in the parish of Parcul Călărașilor in Bucharest, the Ministry has decided that Fr. C. Sârbu should continue the work begun and that your P.C. should be instructed to place your dania elsewhere, for example in the parish of Mihai Bravu, which is in the immediate vicinity and is in urgent need of a church”.

In this way, Marshal Ion Antonescu was to be very supportive of the construction of the church. Between 10 April and 1 December 1943 alone, according to a report submitted to the Head of State by the Head of the Cabinet, the following funds were allocated to the church 5 million lei; 7,866,600 lei worth of materials from the army stores; 5,200,000 lei worth of transport in military trucks; 6,051,000 lei worth of work carried out by military craftsmen and prisoners; and by the end of 1943, the dome had been completed.

Cinema for catechesis purposes

At the end of January 1944, Father Sârbu asked the Head of State for a cinema, a slide projector, a piano and an organ from the Army Capture Service to be used for missionary purposes in the basement of the church, which was soon to be completed. The completion of the church was planned for 20 November 1944, for which another 50 million lei were needed.

In 1947, during the famine in Moldavia, he organised collections of food and clothing from parishioners, which he transported in two wagons to the starving villages of Dancu and Cârlig near Iasi. The Metropolitanate of Moldavia thanked him in writing and the Romanian Patriarchate awarded him the Cross of Ikonom Stravophore.

In order to complete the work on the church, Father Sârbu will try to raise funds by organising religious and cultural events. Thus, on Sunday 17 February 1946, at 4 p.m., he organised a concert by the choir of the “Călărași Park” Vergului parish, with soloists from the Romanian Opera and the Radio Society, followed by a conference, accompanied by “light projections”, held by Olga Greceanu. All this was preceded in the morning by a Holy Mass celebrated by a choir of priests led by Bishop Nifon Criveanu, former Metropolitan of Oltenia. The action was “in aid of the construction of the church, according to the invitation from which we have extracted this information.

Between 1946 and 1947, in order to support religious concerts on behalf of the parish, but also to respond to the services that were held, Father Sârbu, with the support of the singer Damian Constantin, created a parish choir of 80 members. The second conductor of this parish choir was the music teacher Victor Giuleanu, until 1948, when the choir split. Professor Giuleanu went with part of the choir to the Calist Church, so that the composer Gheorghe Bazavan came to Bariera Vergului as conductor, until 1949, when he was sent by the authorities to the Canal. The conductors were paid and the choir members were volunteers, some of them pensioners, intellectuals or even an official of the Ministry of the Interior. The choir functioned until 1952, when it was dissolved under pressure from the authorities. Rehearsals were first held in the cellar, then in the church. Some concerts were broadcast on the radio.

On 28 November 1948, this parish choir gave a religious concert in the church. According to the note given to the Securitate describing this moment, the priest Sârbu “had a little girl recite ‘Jesus is an eternal traveller’, which was not on the programme” and then, after the concert, “asked the choir to sing ‘Praise be to You, Lord, composed by Sabin Drăgoi'”. At the end of the artistic moment, the priest “invited the faithful to come to the church to listen to the religious concerts”, especially the one scheduled for 19 December, on the occasion of the Christmas celebrations, when “a Christmas tree will be made for the children who will receive presents”. At the end of this concert, Olga Greceanu “spoke to the faithful about the word ‘sin’, pointing out that once a Christian has made a mistake, God has turned away from him and no longer helps him, giving some examples from the Psalms of David. The aforementioned, the MC’s note continues, also pointed out that “life is so hard and we must prepare ourselves for the coming hour”.

On other occasions, Olga Greceanu has held conferences in the Vergului church on “mission”, “saints” or presented the film “The Shroud of the Saviour”, in which Father Gala Galaction (at three events), Professor Teodor M. Popescu, also participated. Toma Chiricuță, with two sermons on Gospel themes, Professor Constantin Pavel and the publicist Gheorghe Lungulescu, former journalist for “Universul”, with a word on Christmas carols in Romania.

In addition to these events, from 1948, with the approval of the Patriarchate, Father Sârbu initiated and maintained a “Christian Evangelisation Meeting”, which gradually became the Lord’s Host, since many of the participants were former members of this religious organisation. Its activities took place in the basement of the church until 1951, when it was banned by the authorities.

After the work was interrupted by bombing in 1944, the church continued to be built with the help of the faithful and was completed in 1949. The great consecration of the church was celebrated on Palm Sunday of the same year (17 April) by the former Metropolitan of Oltenia, Nifon Criveanu.

Securitate’s concerns

We have several testimonies about Father Constantin’s work at the church in Călărași Park. According to a memo from the Securitate dated 27 September 1948, 21 couples were religiously married in this church on Sunday 26 September, a service presided over by a choir of priests led by Bishop Pavel Serpe. In the above-mentioned note, the Securitate forces were concerned that the priests were giving the newlyweds the opportunity to be instructed in the Christian faith and encouraged to bring up their children in accordance with Christian teaching. Thus, the Archbishop mentioned “gave a sermon in which he exhorted the couple to be faithful, just as our ancestors built their strength on faith”. Then the priest Gheorghe Iliescu spoke, “who, like the Archbishop, urged married people not to forget the advice and teaching of Christ. He stressed that their marriage should produce children whom the future mothers should bring up in the faith of our ancestors. “You future mothers have a great mission to awaken in the conscience of your children the faith in our Church. Especially today, when the Church is at the crossroads of the winds, I warmly recommend that you develop in your young mothers the awareness that they are Christians and, above all, Romanians”.

The series of sermons was concluded by the parish priest of the church, Father Constantin Sârbu, “who emphasised even more the need to raise young people with respect for the faith, giving the example of a Polish mother from the time when Poland was under Russian-Austrian-German occupation: Chancellor Bismark, during an inspection of a school in the German-occupied territories, asked a pupil to say the Lord’s Prayer in German. The Polish pupil said the Lord’s Prayer in a stern, righteous manner and was then asked to say the Lord’s Prayer in Polish. When the Polish pupil heard that he was going to say the Lord’s Prayer in Polish, he knelt down in front of Chancellor Bismarck, took up the position with his eyes turned to heaven and his hands folded, said the Lord’s Prayer so movingly, and when he came to himself, “…and lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil”, his eyes filled with tears. When Bismarck asked the child who had taught him to say the Lord’s Prayer so beautifully, the child replied that it was his mother. And, Father Sârbu continued in his homily, “I recommend to you the example of the Polish mother, so that young people are brought up with respect for the faith, because she gave us strength in the past and she still gives us strength today”.

In 1951, Father Sârbu set up a canteen in the basement of the church, “where we served the poor”, as he himself said in an interrogation during the investigation orchestrated by the Securitate in 1954. It operated until the end of that year, when it was closed under pressure from the authorities. The parish also had a religious library from which the faithful could borrow books.

All this prodigious pastoral and missionary activity obviously did not go down well with the authorities, and our father suffered as a result. Since 1948, he had been followed by several informers sent by the Securitate to “monitor” the ecclesiastical activity of the Vergului Church. There were rumours that Soviet prisoners were being used to build the church. Obviously, the Securitate needed a few reasons to arrest the priest Sârbu.

One such reason was the “miracle” in the summer of 1949, when a “cross” appeared in the form of a “shadow” on a window of the Vergului church. After the appearance of this “miracle”, a pilgrimage to the church of Vergului began to develop. The rumour of the time was that the event was linked to the man who had built the church, Marshal Antonescu, who had been sentenced at the instigation of the Soviets, and so the phenomenon took on a political, clearly anti-Communist character. The whole situation made the state authorities nervous, especially as the church was close to the centre of the capital.

The Securitate searched for the priest between 15 and 21 June 1949. However, he was released, probably after the intervention of the Church authorities.

His next arrest, and the one that would mark the rest of his life, took place on 12 January 1954, when his home was also searched. He was accused of “conspiracy against the social order”.

He was subjected to many harsh and interminable interrogations, in which he was questioned about several aspects: his activities as a student; the Huși period; his relationship with Constantin Dărășteanu, the initiator of the resistance movement “The Saviours of Romania”; his pastoral activity in the parish of Bariera Vergului; the construction of this church; the functioning and purpose of the canteen, the church choir with the concerts it gave, and his relations with other priests and theologians. Practically his whole life is caught up in these interrogations, which are recorded in the criminal file. An example of this is the priest’s weekly schedule, which reads as follows: “Monday, cleaning the church; Tuesday, in the afternoon, disfellowshipping, molitve, etc.; Wednesday, sometimes vespers and Holy Mass, and in the afternoon vespers and acatist; Thursday and Monday, from 5 to 8 p.m., participation in the priests’ choir in St. Catherine’s Church; Friday, morning vespers and Holy Mass for the faithful. Friday, morning vespers and Holy Liturgy; Saturday, morning vespers, Holy Mass, memorial services and afternoon vespers; Sunday, Holy Liturgy, sometimes afternoon vespers.

He was questioned incessantly about the support he had received from Marshal Antonescu for the construction of the church, whom he had remembered even after 23 August and for whom he had performed memorial services, as well as from Corneliu Codreanu (interrogation of 8 July); that he had initiated and organised the activities of the Guild of the Lord in Huși and in Bariera Vergului, since 1951 (21 April); that he had initiated “legionary baptisms”, i.e. the baptism of children by legionaries, which was common especially during the National Legionary Government (15 January); that he had employed a legionary cook, who had previously worked in the canteens of the “Legionary Aid”, in the canteen he had set up in 1951 (14 January).

The investigation focused on the father’s relationship with Constantin Dărășteanu, a former member of the National Peasant Party and initiator of an anti-communist resistance group. According to the interrogation on 14 January, Dărășteanu visited Father Sârbu 2-3 times in the church in 1951. “I concluded,” says the priest, “that he was a nationalist from the fact that he appreciated the work of building the church and running the canteen, as well as its organisation, saying that it was useful for the nation.

In the interrogation of 19 April 1954, the priest tells us that Dărășteanu visited him in the parish office and showed him a stamp with a circle in the middle with the name “Tito” and a cross underneath with the inscription “Be with her”. He wanted to multiply this symbol through manifestos, with the help of Father Sârbu, who refused, saying: “Let him spread among the population whatever signs he wants, and only the sign of the cross should not be spread, because it puts the Church in an unfavourable situation”. “Father Dărășteanu continued during the interrogation, “Dărășteanu told me that he spread them in order to create among the population a state of mind unfavourable to the regime in the RPR, and that by his actions he was ‘saving’ the nation and the Church. He also told me that he had told his friends my name as a priest. The suspect asked me if religion allowed bloodshed. I replied that it did not. To this Dărășteanu replied indignantly, “What kind of religion is it that does not allow bloodshed when it comes to ‘defending the nation’, and he remained very dissatisfied with the answer I gave him”.

In addition, in the summer of 1951, Hintermeyer Bertha, the woman in charge of the canteen, hid the weapons received from Dărășteanu, which she had in her possession and kept in an insecure place, without our father’s knowledge.

In order to paint a picture of a convinced legionnaire and anti-communist, the investigators also accused the priest of having built the Vergului church with the help of the legionnaires, when in fact they had only put out the lime, and of having used Soviet prisoners to build the parish fence.

Sentenced for his faith

On 9 October 1954, Father Constantin Sârbu was sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment and 3 years’ deprivation of liberty by the Military Tribunal of Bucharest, under sentence No. 2168, for “conspiracy against the social order”, as provided for and punished by Article 209, point 4, and for the crime of “possession of currency and failure to hand it over to the RPR”, as provided for and punished by Articles 1, 2, 3, 5 and 14 of Law No. 284/1947, together with

23 other defendants for their participation in the resistance movement “Saviours of the Nation”. Subsequently, on 10 December 1954, his appeal was rejected by decision no. 2447.

After his conviction, Father Sârbu was sent to the prisons of Jilava (1954-1955), Gherla (1956-1962) and Dej (1955), and to the labour camps of Poarta Albă (1955-1956) and Salcia (1959). At Gherla, he was considered a true “legionnaire”, although he was neither a member nor a sympathiser of the Legionary Movement, and was punished on 15 February 1957 with 6 months’ suspension of his right to receive parcels, because a search of his cell had found “forbidden objects”, and on 14 June 1958 with “7 days’ solitary confinement”, because “a written notebook” had been found.

As a result of the torture and starvation regime, the priest fell ill in Gherla on 19 September 1961 and was diagnosed with “ulcerative duodenal disease”. He had also been severely tortured, as he would later confess to someone close to him: “They burned me with a red-hot iron, they pulled my beard, they beat me, but I told them: ‘You can torture me as much as you want, but I will not deny Christ'”.

At Poarta Albă, he could receive parcels from his daughters Ana and Irina Sârbu. This happened on 23 June 1955, when Irina brought her father more food, a gesture repeated on 22 October and by Ana on 23 November of the same year.

Although he was due to be released on 8 January 1962, Father Sârbu would never know freedom. On 4 December 1961, he was sent to “compulsory residence” in Viișoara for 24 months by decision No. 16.333 of the Ministry of the Interior. In his new imprisonment, the priest asked to be treated for his rheumatism with a spa treatment in Govora. He was only allowed to go to Amara for 21 days.

We have the precious testimony of Fr. Calciu, who found him when he was also sent to the same place with compulsory residence.

On the 9th of January 1964, when his compulsory residence was about to expire, the Ministry of the Interior issued an address stating that Father Sârbu had not been reported for “hostile manifestations” and therefore proposed his release. This was done on 25 February 1964, when our father declared that he had taken up residence in Bucharest, at 2 Boulevard Muncii, probably thinking that he would be able to see the church he had built and served in the past.

But he was not allowed to return to the church of his soul. Nevertheless, he wanted to serve the Lord at all costs. So he asked the hierarch for the poorest church in Bucharest, and Patriarch Justinian asked him: “What shall I give you, Fr. Sârbu? – The poorest church in Bucharest, Your Beatitude! – I know, said the Patriarch, that whatever church I give you, you will turn it into a garden!” And so it was.

And so, on 8 April 1964, the priest began to serve again, this time in the church of Sapientei, which had been closed for 40 years. According to one of the parishioners of Sapienței, the church was in an advanced state of decay: “The keys to the church and the parish house were given to the priest a few days after his arrival, but he could not move into the parish house because it was in ruins; the roof was broken, the wall facing the garden was damaged. Until the spring or summer of the following year, 1965, the priest lived in the little house we had built in the courtyard. When we entered the church we saw that it was also damaged. Through the walls you could see outside, it was raining in the church. Inside there were statues piled up without hands, stone slabs on the floor, some leaning, some missing, spiders on the walls. We removed the statues and tidied up. Father prayed a lot, on his knees and with tears for his work”.

Here, in the church of Sapienței, Father Sârbu will also set up a lending library with many religious volumes, much sought after by those who visit this place. This situation, however, attracted the attention of the authorities, who closed it temporarily, on the pretext of controls, and then permanently.

Father Sârbu was a social worker who cared for the poor, as he had done in Huși or in Bariera Vergului. Moreover, he was able to involve his faithful, creating a true community in which love for one’s neighbour was found. Thus, according to the testimony of one of the faithful, we learn that “Father despised earthly possessions, but cared for those who suffered: the sick, widows, orphans. He did not like beggars at the door of the church and did not accept them, but he did look for the elderly who had no pension or support. He looked for them all over Bucharest, kept a record of them and regularly sent them help. The faithful of the Church and others close to us had gained unlimited confidence in the many actions of Father Sârbu, so that they responded to all his requests, without knowing the distribution of funds and aid”. On another occasion, Father Sârbu celebrated a candlelight service in the home of a poor parishioner and exclaimed: “I feel so much at home in the house of the poor!”

The last period of our father’s life was marked by the ulcer caused by the imprisonment of the regime, but also by the persecution of the Securitate. According to the testimony of one of the faithful from the church of Sapienței, at the end of each service, during the anointing, Father Sârbu would invite the parishioners to go to the library and borrow books for the enlightenment of the soul. This was noticed by the men of the Securitate, who closely monitored the cultural-religious phenomenon in the Church of Sapientia and ordered the library to be closed. At the same time, the priest was frequently summoned and interrogated by the Securitate.

Hospitalised and operated on, the priest foresaw his end. He asked for a priest to give him his last communion. Father Ilarion Argatu was found in the Antim monastery. The last moments of Father’s life are described in the testimony of one of the faithful from Sapienței: “At that time I didn’t understand why Father Argatu, it seemed, kept trying to put down his pillow. Only then did he tell us that when he gave him communion he saw a halo around his head. At first he thought it was the colour of the pillow. But then he realised that it was the halo of a great “chosen one” of God. Years later, whenever Father Argatu spoke to a member of the faithful of the Church of Sapienția, he would always recall this discovery, which God had given him to make known to everyone: the halo with which God had crowned Father Constantine Sârbu”.

Thus, on 23 October 1975, Father Constantin Sârbu was called by the Lord”.

(Adrian Nicolae Petcu and Gheorghe Vasilescu – Rost Magazine no. 32 of October 2005)