Father Dumitru Iliescu-Palanca the Confessor

Born in 1903, Dumitru Iliescu came from a peasant family from the village of Palanca, in the commune of Nemoiu in Vâlcea, and attended the theological seminary in Râmnicu Vâlcea, then in Roman. In 1929 he was appointed priest of the suburban parish of Oltenița, where he worked hard to rebuild the church, one of the most beautiful on the left bank of the Danube, founded a cultural centre under the patronage of St. Nicholas, with a library and a hall for festivities, and organised parties and cultural-artistic evenings to bring young people as close as possible to the altar.

Together with his parishioners, Father Dumitru participated in the introduction of electricity in the village and in the establishment of a dispensary. From 1932 to 1936 he studied at the Faculty of Theology in Chișinău, graduating magna cum laude.

In 1938 he was appointed professor and director of the Theological Seminary of Curtea de Argeș, but only for a short time, as he was transferred to the Monastic Seminary of Cernica. In 1940 he was appointed to the church of Stavropoleos, which had been closed for 40 years. With great patience and with the help of a group of faithful, Father Dumitru set about restoring this beautiful house of prayer in the centre of the capital and inaugurated it on the feast of St. Nicholas in 1940.

After the communists came to power, Father Dumitru was constantly harassed, especially as the newly founded Union of Democratic Priests tried to establish its headquarters in Stavropoleos. In 1948, the priest was arrested and tried for his involvement in the resistance group “Vlad Tepes II”.

On 6 August 1948, he was sentenced to 20 years’ hard labour for “conspiracy against the social order”. He experienced the world of communist concentration camps and was always condemned to solitary confinement for his dignified behaviour. On 1 March 1963, Father Dumitru Iliescu-Palanca died of severe tuberculosis.

(Adrian Nicolae Petcu – Ziarul Lumina)