Father Dimitrie Bejan – Biography
Whenever I come across memorable pages about little-known personalities, I remind myself how poor we are. Spiritually and culturally. Because out of carelessness or ignorance we remain strangers to the values of our nation, we do not seek their work and we do not try to learn from their lives. Such a person was Father Dimitrie Bejan from Hârlău, a priest – martyr, an enlightened spirit, a model of honesty and Christian life.
With our meagre resources, we have come a little closer to the life and writings of Father Dimitrie, not so close as to claim to know him, but enough to open a door to him. It is important to get to know our saints, our heroes, our intellectual elite, in order to heal ourselves of all our complexes and to see the path we must follow.
The following pages are simply an invitation to get to know Father Dimitrie, not an exhaustive documentary.
Father Dimitrie Bejan was born on 26 October 1909 in Hârlău – Iași. He attended the Veniamin Costache Orthodox Theological Seminary in Iași, then the Faculty of Theology and, in parallel, the Faculty of History in Bucharest. He had great teachers such as Nichifor Crainic and Nicolae Iorga. After graduating from these two faculties, he had postgraduate scholarships in Jerusalem and Athens. On his return, he became an assistant lecturer in Nicolae Iorga’s department, while also teaching history at the “Carmen Silva” girls’ high school in Bucharest.
Eager to learn more about the Romanian people, he joined the sociological research teams of Professor Dimitrie Gusti, with whom he travelled to Bessarabia.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Father Dimitrie Bejan joined the army as a military priest with the rank of major. He returned to Bessarabia, this time to defend the Romanians there. He was captured by the Russians in 1943 and deported to Oranki in Siberia. All Romanian and German officers captured by the Russians were sent to Oranki, a former Orthodox monastery turned into a prison. After five years’ imprisonment, he was tried by a Moscow military court and sentenced to death for claiming that Bessarabia was Romanian land.
Father Dimitrie challenged the sentence and asked to be tried by a court in his home country. Surprisingly, the Russians, who are notoriously insensitive to human rights, sent him back. In the documents accompanying the prisoner, the Russians warned the Romanian authorities to be careful with Father Dimitrie because “he has great power of persuasion, being a great enemy of communism”. The military court in Bucharest sentenced him to life imprisonment. On 23 August 1964, after 25 years of imprisonment, he was released by Aiud with the decree of general amnesty. He suffered in the camps and prisons of Jilava, Văcărești, Aiud, Canal, Minele Cavnic (1948 – 1956), Bărăgan, Răchitoasa.
In prison, he made friends with some of our great inter-war intellectuals: Nichifor Crainic, Radu Gyr, Mircea Vulcănescu, Paul Zafiropol, and with spiritual fathers such as Benedict Ghiuș, Arsenie Papacioc and Dumitru Stăniloae.
After his release, the authorities tried to win him over by offering him a parish in Ghindăuani – Iasi, where he stayed for only five years. The Communists, furious that he remained firm in his nationalist and Christian beliefs, tried to poison him several times and finally organised a mock trial, after which he was banned from the ministry and placed under house arrest (in Hârlău) until December 1989. His Holiness continued to receive visits and gave many useful pieces of advice to those in need.
On the night of 22 December 1989, he performed a remarkable act: he saved the guard from being lynched. After the revolution, Father Dimitrie continued his preaching with greater pathos, leading many to the path of faith. During his lifetime, he published his book The Joy of Suffering and later his books: Oranki. Memories of Captivity, The Great Vifornița, The Boundary of the Fortresses, The Cursed Village and Simple Stories.
He died on 21 September 1995, and with his dying words he asked that no speeches are to be made at his catafalque and that no flowers are to be placed on his grave. A last sign of humility.
(Horia Brad – Rost Magazine)