Father Eugen Berza, “a deified mystic, a Christian hero, a saint”

I got to know Fr. Eugen Berza better after his release from communist prisons in 1964. I had heard of his struggle and admired him for his courage in taking up this dangerous fight. You had to have a great spirit of struggle and sacrifice to take part in such an action. When I knew him personally, he was a priest, a servant of the Lord. But not just any priest, but a chosen priest, rarely met with a deeply Christian strength, with strict observance of all the ordinances of our Holy Church, to bring the image of Christ our God into her, to place our Saviour in his heart.

The fighter on the national barricades in defence of the motherland and the ancestral law has now entered the arena of battle in the inner, spiritual realm to defeat all the passions that would turn him away from God. The battle with himself.

He was now a deified mystic, a Christian hero, a saint. He didn’t like to talk about himself, he was reticent and reserved. But if you looked at him as a servant, you immediately understood what was in his heart.

He stood on a high pedestal, captivating with his humility and piety. A mystical aura emanated from his entire attire, creating a holy thrill in those around him. He was imposing not only by his deeds but also by his silence. But his rhetoric was the rhetoric of action.

He founded a family and succeeded in introducing an air of purity, of sanctity, that few priests manage to do. A priest on the path of suffering was able to lead his wife and daughter on the same path. This shows that his ministry was thorough and blessed by God.

(Fr. Nicolae Grebenea, excerpt from the letter read at the commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the death of Fr. Eugen Berza – Petru C. Baciu, Hidden Crucifixions. Mărturii, Buna Vestire Cultural Foundation Publishing House, Bucharest, 2004, pp. 379-380)