Father Evghenie – a humble monk, admired by everyone

At Canal we had a spiritual father, Fr. Evghenie, Abbot of Mușunoaiele… and he led me to become a monk, because I didn’t become a monk when I was young. (…) I became a monk when I was 34 years old, after my first imprisonment. I became a monk when I was 34 years old, after my first imprisonment; you must know that I also had a leave, I didn’t stay so long in prison, in Romania; they gave me a leave of 5 years, during which I was only arrested at Easter and Christmas; I didn’t spend Easter or Christmas outside. That’s why Patriarch Justinian forced me to leave the country. God forgive him! He was a great patriarch and one who understood suffering very well. (…) My confessor at the canal, Father Evghenie, was also a simple man. That’s why I became close to him.

But what kind of simple man? He knew the “Ladder” of St. John by heart. And the Catholic priests and monks came, and we were very good friends with them… We were there in the prison, we united the Church, we disunited it… But nobody understood us, and when we came out of prison they didn’t look at us; but we prayed together with the Catholic priests, with the united ones, with everybody, and Father Evghenie, a humble Orthodox monk, was the centre of their attention. Everyone admired him. He didn’t read, but he recited the Holy Fathers. He had an extraordinary memory. Like Father Cleopas. And that influenced me. Because he said to me: “Know that God has put you in prison for a purpose”; like every man, when I was in prison, in certain difficult moments, I asked myself, “Why God?”, “Why me?”; I was also like the thief on the left of the Cross, who asked: “Why should I suffer and not others? If you are the Son of God, do something! But God put some people on my path who made me understand that God had put me there for a purpose.

(Fr. Roman Braga – Monks’ World Magazine)