Father Diodor Todea – an admirable altar server

Theodoris had a man who used to carry the excrement from the camp in his sack and dump it in a huge pit in the field. By chance, the man who did this dastardly work was a monk from Scărișoara (Gîrda), Apuseni Mountains, Ioan Pașca. He had a sister who was a teacher in Turda and we knew each other very well from outside, through our parents. The man had been imprisoned with the local Orthodox priest, Diodor Todea, an admirable acolyte and a wonderful man. Both had been badly beaten by the guards after being ill with tuberculosis. Father Todea was sent back from the canal to the prison in a special regime, while poor Pasca took on the pestilential job of cleaning the cesspools.

(Ion Cârja – The Death Canal, Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1993, p. 303)