Father Florea Mureșan in the Securitate files
The Securitate files – this “Pandora’s box” left as a legacy from the darkest period in the history of the Romanian people – constitute a truly demonic universe. Anyone who enters this universe without being aware of this fact is exposed to immense dangers that can shake his very spiritual foundations.
Lies, falsehood, slander, misinformation, manipulation, hatred, violence, the search for and exploitation of any weakness in order to morally and physically destroy any opposition – real or imagined – and much more, are the laws by which this universe is governed. That is why, in the hands of the malicious or indiscriminate, these files can be a deadly weapon.
Unfortunately, today the Securitate files have often become the final blow, the blow from beyond the grave, that communism delivers to Romanian society.
However, used with discernment and knowledge of the realities behind them, the files can be a useful tool for tracing the paths of sacrifice and suffering of great personalities, for uncovering various valuable documents, or for better understanding the mechanisms used by the Securitate in its work of destroying Romanian souls and society.
The same is true of the case of Father Florea Mureșanu, a leading figure in the ecclesiastical and cultural world between the wars, Orthodox protopope of Cluj, professor at the Theological Academy of Cluj, who was arrested twice and died in Aiud prison. In the autumn of 2009[1], I had the opportunity to research this file, which until recently was unknown and inaccessible1. In fact, it consists of two different files, one of informative persecution and the other of criminal persecution[2], and it sheds light – as I said, through a negative prism – on the whole of Father Florea’s life, but especially on the period after the rise of communism in Romania. These files will enable us to clarify and fill in certain unclear or unknown points in his biography and, above all, to sketch his anti-Communist struggle, which ultimately led to his arrest and martyrdom in Aiud prison. We would like to point out from the outset that we will try to highlight only the positive elements in the files that are useful to the soul, leaving aside the negative ones, based on the fact that the Securitate files are a universe of lies, slander, betrayal and manipulation.
On the basis of the information contained in the files, which begin between the wars, around 1933, with various notes from the Securitate, the life of Father Florea Mureșan can be divided into several main periods:
1. the interwar period
2. the period of the Horthy occupation of northern Transylvania;
3. the period after the communists came to power (1945-46) and until his first arrest in 1952;
4. his liberation (1953), his move to the village of Suciu de Sus and his activities there until his second arrest in 1958;
5. his arrest, trial and final imprisonment, culminating in his death in 1963.
We will try to analyse each of these periods in turn.
1. The inter-war period
The first references to Father Florea were taken by the Securitate from the inter-war Securitate files. Most of these first notes, which are few and varied, refer to Father Florea’s links with the Legionaries.
The priest was investigated for months after his arrest in 1958, but the statements he made during the interrogations must be taken with great caution, as they were certainly made under pressure or torture.
In the summer of 1932, shortly after his marriage, Father Florea Mureșanu was ordained a priest and sent to the parish of Râșca de Sus, Cluj county, in the Apuseni Mountains. He stayed there until 1934. From this period, more precisely from 19 March 1933, there is a note from the Securitate on a letter addressed to Corneliu Zelea Codreanu in which “a priest from the Mounts region, namely Florea Mureșanu, asks for instructions and permission from the head of the Iron Guard to organise a movement in the Mounts region, as the population is ready and is only waiting for the permission of the head of the Iron Guard” (I235975/1). (I235975/1, 83)[3]. It is not known whether Codreanu replied. In the same year, the priest made efforts to build a school in the hamlet of Dealul Negru, which belonged to his parish. “In the summer and autumn of 1933”, he explained during an interrogation, “I insisted a lot with the Prefecture of Cluj to build a school in the hamlet of Dealul Negru, but since I did not receive a positive answer, I decided to approach the leaders of the Legionary Movement in Cluj and ask for the creation of a work camp for the construction of this school. [The camp was set up in the summer of 1934 and lasted until October 1934, when I finished the school”. (P695/1, 37-38). This work camp on the Black Hill was even the subject of a legionary song.
In the same year, the priest was transferred to the Orthodox Cathedral in Cluj. It was here that he began his extensive publicity work, which was also documented in the files of the Securitate. Thus, in the spring of 1934, at the request of the legionary commanders Ion Banea and Emil Șiancu, Father Florea took steps to found a weekly newspaper in Cluj called “Glasul strămoșesc”, which he would lead as editor-in-chief until 1935. He continued to collaborate regularly with this journal until 1938, publishing “several articles in which I combined religion with legionary ideas, attacked communism and glorified nationalism”[4] (ibid., 41).
Some of these articles were found by the secret police in the priest’s personal archives and constituted charges against him. The informer “Cantemir” also writes about his public activity in a note dated 11 May 1955: “A member of the Legionary Movement and a prominent journalist was the priest from Cluj, Florea Mureșanu, who, besides being a permanent collaborator of the newspaper “Glasul Strămoșesc”, the organ of the movement in Transylvania, […] also collaborated with the ideological organ in Cluj, “Revista mea”. Fr. Florea Mureșanu was also the link between the legionaries and the current bishop of Cluj, Colan. Thanks to this connection, Bishop Colan made the proclamation in the square of the Cluj railway station when the bodies of Moța-Marin were brought back from Spain in February 1937″. (I235975/1, 152)
Other records from this period show the priest’s participation in various conferences held by leading members of the inter-war intelligentsia, such as Nae Ionescu, Radu Gyr, Mihail Polihroniade, Ionel Moța[5] and others.
It is necessary at this point to dwell for a moment on Father Florea’s legionnaireism. Although his records do not show that he was a member of the movement, his Legionary sympathies are obvious. However, it is this sympathy, characteristic of a large part of the Romanian intelligentsia and elite in the inter-war period, including the ecclesiastical elite, which stemmed from an ardent patriotism and which saw in the Legionary Movement “a movement of Christian and national revival in Romania”, “the only theologically founded right-wing movement”. “[6] We believe, therefore, that it is not so much a question of a programmatic attachment to Legionnaireism as of an attachment born of the enthusiastic and idealistic nature of the father and his ardent patriotism. Moreover, his wife, Eugenia, appears in most of the notes to be more committed to the Legionary cause: “I am convinced that the wife of the priest Mureșan was more active than he, because whenever a Legionary came to their house, she was the one who discussed the most”. (P695/1, 133)
The priest also distanced himself from any excesses of an anti-Semitic nature in a statement he made in 1946 while in custody: “I have never approached chauvinism, racism or anti-Semitic pogroms, nor have I ever condoned them… No Hungarian or Jew could ever rise up against me to remind me of a single gesture by which I had manifested anti-human convictions. Instead, I can point to deeds that I have done, at the risk of my personal life, for the benefit of others, strangers to me, to my nation and to my religious faith. [In May 1944, when the fascist pogroms against the Jews began in Cluj, I evacuated 6 Jewish children with a Jewish woman to Iclod. According to Gestapo orders, if I was caught or denounced, I would be executed immediately”. (I235975/1,113, 116-117)
2. The period of the Horthy occupation
After the capitulation of North Ardeal in 1940, the priest decided to remain in occupied Cluj in order to – as a note from the Securitate dated 18.01.1958 makes clear – “maintain the morale of the Romanian element remaining under the rule of Horthy Hungary”. (Id., 1)
Father describes his relationship with the Hungarian authorities as follows:
Were you persecuted during the Hungarian occupation?
Yes, I was persecuted immediately after Cluj came under Hungarian occupation, I was almost arrested because of my Romanian nationalist feelings.
Who protected you during the Hungarian occupation?
After the intervention of the priest Laurențiu Curea, the [Reformed] Bishop Vasarhely gave me a letter of recommendation to the Hungarian authorities, which helped me not to be arrested” (P695/1, 48). (P695/1, 48)
During this period the priest continued his previous activities, especially in the pro-Romanian and anti-Communist press. He was editor of the newspaper “Tribuna Ardealului”, contributor to the magazines “Viața ilustrată”, “Viața creștină” and others, publishing anti-Soviet articles in which he called communism “the red arrow of the apocalypse”, and the Communists – “Satan’s servants and Stalin’s slaves”, who “tear down the beautiful cathedrals on the territory of the former Prussian Russia or turn them into cinemas, cabarets or warehouses”. (id., 61) Needless to say, all these articles were further indictments of Father Florea.
A 1943 Securitate memo suspects Father of being the link between the Legionaries who fled to Germany and those who remained in the country, and his house – the Legion headquarters in northern Transylvania. Although this note has not been confirmed, the priest did indeed help and shelter various refugees, including legionaries, in his house. One such case is that of the student Sultana (Titi) Gâță, who was sent to Germany in the spring of 1943 to make contact with the Legionaries in Weimar. On her way, she stopped at Father Florea’s house. On her return she was arrested by the Hungarian police and wrote to Father Florea asking for his help. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to free her[7].
After the liberation of northern Transylvania, Father Florea gave shelter to a number of anti-communist fighters who had parachuted into Romania. For this reason, in the spring of 1945, he was arrested and imprisoned for two months.
3. The communist period
With the rise of communism in Romania, the real crossroads for Father Florea began. Although during this period his activity was split in two by his first imprisonment (1952-1953) and his move from Cluj to Suciu de Sus, he followed his attitude with great consistency. We can therefore speak of several main lines of his activity:
a. The anti-communist attitude and the “anti-communist” sermons,
b. The links with the Lord’s Host
c. The links with the Vladimirești monastery
d. The pilgrimages to monasteries.
e. The foundation of the Breaza hermitage
A separate chapter is the foundation, after the move to Suciu, of the nuns’ hermitage in Breaza. It was these activities that aroused the interest of the secret police in the priest and led to his arrest. It should also be pointed out that the secret police were not so much interested in the priest’s previous involvement with the Legionaries as in the fact that, after 1946, he continued his anti-Communist activities, sometimes vehemently.
On the basis of the files, the general context can be summarised as follows: After the end of the First World War, Father remained in Cluj. In the autumn of 1946 he was appointed Protopope of the city, while continuing to teach at the Cluj Theological Academy. In 1948 he was appointed priest of the “Church on the Hill”. The security services were interested in him from the very beginning, but his first notes were of an irregular nature. The persecution of the priest reached a climax in 1949, at a time when the regime was tightening its grip. Following a decree of 15 January 1949 requesting “the collection of material against priests”, the Securitate “urgently orders the collection of compromising statements against Protopope Florea Mureșanu” (I235975/1, 295-296). As a result, several notes appear on his legionary connections during the inter-war period, which is why the priest was systematically targeted by the Securitate. On 25 May 1950, the priest’s wife was arrested and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment “for her links with the American Embassy”.
The Securitate’s activities against Father Florea culminated in his arrest in 1952, but the files do not mention this. Father was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for embezzlement of public funds, but there is absolutely no information to explain this charge or the trial that led to his conviction. Some records, however, indirectly suggest that this arrest was also based on “reactionary” grounds. Thus, in an note of the Cluj Securitate dated 30.09.1952, we read “On 4 September 1952 he was tried and sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment […], at which point the mystical group he had organised disbanded” (ibid., 280). (ibid., 280) He was transferred to Canal, from where he was released in June 1953, “probably on the basis of an amnesty decree”. A single informative note refers to this period of detention:
“The priest Florea Mureșanu, recently returned from the Valea Albă labour colony, receives many visits, especially from intellectuals from Cluj and the provinces. He tells some of them about his life during his two years of imprisonment. For example, the former university professor Tarnavschi told him about the hardships he had endured, including beatings, forced labour for 18 hours a day and a slow process of starvation. He also told him that it was not the guards but the brigadiers who were placed among the prisoners who were the real villains, killing people through labour and beatings of all kinds.” (ibid., 168) This could be a reference to the re-educated prisoners from Pitești, who at that time had been transferred to Canal to continue their re-education there.
After his release, the priest asked to remain in Cluj, but all his requests were rejected. In September 1953 he was transferred to the commune of Suciu de Sus, near Târgu Lăpuș. His persecution continued and the increasingly consistent and accusatory notes against him led to the opening of an individual prosecution file on 9 March 1956. On the basis of this file, a sustained, organised and systematic work began to gather incriminating information against him through the recruitment and management of informers, surveillance, interception of correspondence and other means. It is from this period that we have most of the data and notes on Fr. Florea. The material gathered will lead to his arrest on 26 June 1958 and his conviction. The arrest took place during the period of great unrest that accompanied collectivisation, which is why one of the charges against him was sabotage of collectivisation.
We will now focus in turn on the main activities for which the priest was considered an enemy of the regime and condemned.
a. Anti-communist attitude. The “anti-communist” sermons
Shortly after the establishment of Communism, Father Florea joined the newly created Priestly Syndicate, a body created by the Communists to propagandise the clergy. Father Florea’s action, apparently a compromise, is explained by the notes in his files. Thus, on 07.09.1948, the informer “Doru” notes: “[Father Florea] is active in the Syndicate, and on the surface he seems to be a very good democrat, but in fact he is a reactionary”. (Id., 247) A few months later, the informer “Argus” also points out:
“The priest Florea Mureșanu continues to propagandise among the priests, urging them not to be active on the trade union track, because – as he says – the time will come when those with such activity will be called to account”. (ibid., 250) Similarly, in the summer of 1949, in a conversation at his home with Lucian Blaga and Ioan Lupaș, the priest confesses that he “attends some introductory courses on Marxist-Leninist ideology, together with 120 priests from Transylvania, where they discuss and debate issues on which he remains uninfluenced”. (Id., 236)
At the time, the priest’s house was used as a meeting place for the most prominent intellectuals of the time, as the Securitate notes reveal: “In the house of the priest Mureșan, parish priest of the Orthodox Church, at 10 Orthodox Church Street, secret meetings of a subversive nature were held. Intellectual men and women take part, especially those with anti-democratic sentiments”. (Id., 242)
As parish priest of the “Church on the Hill”, the priest tried to create as lively a spiritual community as possible through the celebration of the sacraments and, above all, through frequent sermons and conferences. He paid particular attention to young people, with whom he gave catechesis whenever possible. Thus, at a time when both religious and national sentiments were threatened by atheist-communist propaganda, Father Florea tried to keep alive faith and patriotism among his faithful. Of course, his spiritual activity was also perceived by the secretaries as a form of anti-communist resistance (which it was). “I am convinced,” said one informant, “that no church in Cluj does so much religious propaganda, with daily services lasting several hours in the morning and the same in the evening. Apart from that, on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays he holds Bible school with the faithful, where he talks to them about many things, but not about socialist education. On Saturdays and Sundays he has school with the students. When religion was a subject in school, he didn’t teach it, and now he is so keen to teach religion”. (Id., 193) And in a statement (unfortunately by a priest!) we read:
“He is considered by the priesthood to be the best missionary, in the sense that he does real apostolate, he cares for the Church more than any other priest in the locality and in the district; although the superior orders have abolished all associations of a religious nature, he does not want to understand this, on the contrary, he does more than is required of him: daily liturgy with sermon, vespers with sermon, acatist with sermon, he organises religious concerts in order to be able to make a more successful propaganda. […] It is natural that all of the above have a reactionary political substratum, hostile to the PMR and the regime of popular democracy. In order to take advantage of the good faith of the naive faithful, a radical repair of the church has begun, gas has been introduced, plastering has been done, and now they are working on painting the church. Sitting in the confessional, he has an excellent opportunity to propagandize against the regime. His church is not overcrowded because of the large number of scholars [sic!], the ‘Lord’s Host’ association is flourishing day by day. Wherever he has the opportunity, he condemns today’s regime, saying: ‘Your pain is mine too, my wife has been in education for almost two years, my son has been expelled from school, this is today’s communist heaven’. (Id., 190)
There are also frequent references to the “anti-communist” sermons of the priest. We quote just one: “On Sundays he holds meetings with children in the street and other streets, teaching them not to believe what the school is teaching them because it is a lie. One Sunday he was overheard telling the children that there are two laws: one made by God and one made by the Communists. He said they should obey the first and disobey the second”. (Id., 283)
For his courage and righteousness, Father Florea was much loved by the faithful, and a real family formed around him. “We are very blessed to have him,” a spiritual son confessed to an informer. “When we go to church, he encourages us to have faith in God and patience, because everything will pass. God defends him, because that’s the only way one can understand his courage and why they don’t arrest him for what he says”. (id., 202)
But a report from the Securitate at the time shows how dangerous Father really was:
“Florea Mureșanu, in his capacity as a priest, gives sermons in the church every Saturday and Friday, and especially on Sundays, urging the people to resist, not to submit to the measures taken by the government. In a double entendre, he tells the faithful that the Communists want to sell the country to Russia, which often brings the church to tears. On Friday evenings he holds spiritual meetings [sic!], and since fanatical believers attend these services, he urges them to wage a fierce battle with other believers as well, to urge them not to join the Communist Party and to attend church regularly. […]
In short, he is described as a dangerous element in social life, the mortal enemy of the people’s democratic regime. […]
We have organised informers in his entourage who will keep us [sic!] informed of all his activities”. (ibid., 245)
The Securitate found one such opportunity to infiltrate an informer when the Church of the Hill singer left. “The School Board Service intends to make proposals for the appointment of a singer committed to the democratic regime, in order to break the reactionary stronghold in Orthodox Church Street. […] The only solution to penetrate there even a little would be to exploit the departure of this singer, who is Mureșan’s confidant, and the appointment of a man who can observe what is going on there”. (Id., 222)
Finally, the secret police succeeded in “breaking up the mystical group” formed by Father Florea by arresting him in 1952. On his return from prison, he was not allowed to stay in Cluj, precisely in order to limit his influence and prevent him from resuming his spiritual work. However, he remained in contact with his former spiritual sons, whom he often visited.
When he arrived at his new parish, Suciu de Sus, where he moved in 1953, he continued his work of shepherding souls, trying to create a spiritual family like the one in Cluj. Through his services, his sermons, but above all through his sincerity and his virtues, the priest drew closer and closer to him the “Sucenians”, the former Greek Catholic faithful[8]. In a note from the beginning of his activity in Suciu, dated 30 October 1953, we read:
“He will not come to our community until he sees to it that there is a Bible or a New Testament in every house, that this is the food of the soul and of morals, so that on Sundays people do not sit in the cooperative, drinking and swearing, but sit at home and open the Testament or the Bible. No matter how much I asked him and we discussed it, he would only talk about God and say that he hold a religious service every day”. (Id., 164)
A more “experienced” informer, Mitică Alexa (whose father-in-law was a believer from Suciu), would see in Father’s pastoral tact a real “methodology” of studying and recruiting “friends”:
“At first, he speaks to you very gently, more in ecclesiastical terms and with reserve; after you have befriended him, he tries to bring you closer in spirit, using all the ecclesiastical words. Then he studies the relatives you have, the family – basically political views and the past – then he asks you to tell about your life or your past. If he is satisfied with the way you present the situation, he will start telling the story, and the way he presents the situation is characteristic of his ecclesiastical way of speaking. By his free way of speaking to the man he does not give the impression that he is studying you or hiding, but a skilful man can find out his intention”. (Id., 149)
In any case, in a short time the Father will win the love and devotion of his faithful. His influence in the community is also visible in the appeals he makes for various public works, to which the faithful respond with more zeal than to the same requests coming from the local authorities:
“You can see that he has a great influence in the village. The People’s Council gave the order to build a bridge, the priest mobilised the people through the Church, putting his person at stake and saying: if you want me, come with me, and in just one day the bridge was built” (Ibid., 79). (id., 79)
Despite his imprisonment, the priest did not revise his anti-communist stance; on the contrary, he even hardened his tone against the injustices of the regime. There is a great deal of evidence of this, much of it from Mitica Alexa, but also from other informants, including priests from neighbouring villages. His anti-Communist resistance was mainly spiritual, motivated by the fight against faith waged by the Communists. In a sermon in the spring of 1958, the priest said:
“You see, some people with boots come to the village and say that there is no God and force people to work on Sundays and holidays. Instead of doing this, they would rather put a boot on their head and not force people to work on holidays and not say that there is no God”. (id., 339) And elsewhere: “In his sermon he tried to say that in the past every ruler built a church when he won a war. But now nothing is done, and that is why the unclean beast and the red dragon have taken the land, and God has turned His face away from us. Then he said that only God through prayer can save us from the destruction that humanity is facing today, and the red dragon is raising its head higher. [I asked him about his speech in the church, if he wasn’t afraid, it’s a bit risky. He told me that the national consciousness of the people must be kept alive through the Church and that the people must know that there was a Bessarabia and a Bukovina and that it is ours.” (Id., 64) When the priest was confronted with these sermons during the investigation, he “took the blame”.
“Of course, by doing this, I have ridiculed and discredited the party activists in front of the citizens of Suciu de Sus. I have made such demonstrations on other occasions and they are based on the ideology I received and adopted in the legionary movement […] as well as on my dissatisfaction with the regime regarding religion and some mistakes that happened and on which I commented unfavourably” (P695/1, 47). (P695/1, 47)
An interesting note, which sums up the father’s anti-communist resistance, but also his realism, is given by informer Mitică Alexa. He had been instructed by the Securitate to provoke the priest by telling him that he wanted to found a subversive organisation. Here is the note:
“After the service, he gave a sermon, the most important parts of which are:
He connects the sufferings of Jesus Christ with the way the people are persecuted by the Communists, and says You are lied to and mocked, you are humiliated and told all the lies by the Pharisees and scribes of our time, they lie to you and exploit you. They bring shrouds to your village to make you shirts and postav to make you trousers, but you had better go around with your shirt torn off and be told the truth and not be lied to. I noticed that all the people in the church agreed with what the priest said […].
Finally the meal came. As he doesn’t serve brandy, I gave him a glass of strong wine to encourage him to talk. I said:
– Father, I liked the way you put the matter in your sermon.
He said:
– I said it from the heart, because this oppressed people is being lied to so shamelessly that not even the greatest period in Romanian history has known such terror […] I sympathised and sympathise with the Legionary Movement, although it is now something unfeasible, I was not doctrinaire.
The legionary movement was led by a captain with an iron fist, it was based on the nation and on God. [Communists have neither the nation nor God.
I say: they believe in Marxism.
– A decadent ideology based on nothing; those who do not believe in God have no life on earth.
– Father, I want to tell you something, I rely on you, as a good friend and above all as a perfect priest, to give me advice and possibly help me. I have told you the whole situation with the subversive organisation. He listened carefully and then said to me: ‘It is useless to think that it is possible to change the situation of these oppressed Romanians by means of a subversive organisation. There was such an organisation here in Suciu, and what was the result? Dozens of years in prison. In Hungary there was an uprising with all the people, but there was no result, only deaths, prisoners and misery. Just as the communists cannot destroy the Church and faith, a subversive organisation in Suciu or Lăpuș cannot destroy communism. My advice is not to get involved in such things, especially if you are young and have children. I don’t fight through a subversive organisation, I fight openly, I fight with God [next door], here in this village it’s my word first and then the Party’s, they can come and say anything, if I say half a word I can do whatever I want in Suciu”. (I235975/1, 57-59)
Finally, it must be said that although the Father spoke out against the injustices of the regime, he did not call for revolt or rebellion, but for an attitude of prudence, according to the principle: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Lk 20:25). (Lk 20:25) This can be seen from several notes:
In another sermon that spring, when the People’s Council asked him to tell the faithful to give the meat quota, he said after the message: “You see, you must also obey the present leadership, even if it is not good, because whether it is good or bad, it is from God”. (id., 85)
b. Links with the Lord’s Host
Another reason why Father was considered an enemy of the regime was his activity within the Lord’s Host. His first links with the Order date back to the inter-war period, but his real activity began in 1946 and continued without interruption until his arrest in 1958. During the first period, in Cluj, the priest formed a strong community in the Church on the Hill, about which we have some notes in the Securitate files. From that time on, it is clear that the priest’s attitude towards the Army of the Lord was sound, encouraging the zeal of the faithful soldiers, but directing it in the right direction and keeping it under the roof and guidance of the Church. “I report the following,” writes St. Islai to Major Czakkel. “The meeting was held by the group of the Lord’s Host, the sermon was preached by the Orthodox priest Florea Muresanu […], who recalled that he had walked around the county. Someș, through several parishes, where he spoke with Baptists, Pentecostals and Jesuits. He said that these sects were going the wrong way, especially the Pentecostals, who pray to God in several languages at the same time. And or [sic!] away from the Holy Church, but we are not leaving the Orthodox Church. Or sang more songs. At the end they prayed, asking for God’s help and to live the Orthodox cult”. (Id., 256)
A number of important pieces of information about his relations with the leaders of the Lord’s Host, and in particular with Traian Dorz, come from Father’s statements at the inquest: “I met Traian Dorz towards the end of 1947 or 1948. […] He asked me how the members of the Association in Cluj were doing, if they were active and if we were holding meetings, to which I told him that I had begun to hold meetings in the church on the hill in 1946, and that at the beginning very few people came, 6-10 people, and then the number increased considerably, reaching 100-150 people.
I also told him that the members of the association are active, they speak in the meetings and respect the dogmas.
He instructed me that they should continue to hold their meetings in the church and, as far as possible, remain under my control and guidance, after which we parted company. Then I followed Dorz Traian’s instructions and continued the activity even after the association was banned’. (P695/1, 81)
After his release from his first imprisonment, Father Florea continued his spiritual work in the Lord’s Host. Moved to Suciu, he made contact with the Host’s members of the village and became their leader. Until his arrest in 1958, he participated in several meetings of the Lord’s Host, both in Suciu and in the neighbouring villages, preaching the Word of God, interpreting the Scriptures and urging the people to live as close as possible to the Church.
Father saw the Lord’s Host as a good means of mission among the laity and especially among young people. Since the Lord’s Host was outlawed in 1948, meetings were organised under the pretext of weddings, baptisms or social gatherings.
The priest was questioned for weeks about these meetings, in great detail. In his statements he always tried to take the blame for “inciting” the people. This, as well as the typical language of the security forces – in which expressions such as “illegal association”, “forbidden”, etc.[9] are repeated ad nauseam – can be seen in the following statement:
“On my own initiative, I joined and was active in this illegal association, I played an important role in organising illegal meetings, weddings and baptisms of members of this illegal association, and I was an element close in belief and activity to the national leaders of this illegal association, such as Dorz Traian and Pop Alexandru. […]
In this illegal association I saw a suitable means of attracting citizens and young people to a life as mystical as possible, in order to keep them away from the cultural life organised by the regime and from political life, and I used it for this purpose until the time of my arrest” (ibid., 87). (id., 87)
Father would also continue his relations with the leaders of the Lord’s Host, namely Traian Dorz and Pop Alexandru. The latter would later deviate along the sectarian line of the Host[10], despite Father’s advice. Thus, in a letter preserved in the file, Pop Alexandru says
“I pray unceasingly to God to reward you fully for all the stories and advice you have given us in due time, which have been of real use to me”.
When asked by the Securitate agents, the father explained:
“Pop Alexandru had been active for a long time in the group of the Lord’s Guild, which visited the church on the hill where I served as priest, and there we discussed in meetings many questions concerning the dogmas of this association and its activity, among other things we advised him that the members of the association should hold their meetings and make their programme as much as possible in churches, to which he agreed”. (Id, 86) And about Traian Dorz we have the following statement, from which we can also see the struggle he led for the legalisation of the Oastei: “In the spring of 1958 I met Traian Dorz in front of the cathedral in Cluj and on that occasion he told me that all the negotiations he had with the Patriarchate and the Department of Religious Affairs had failed because the Patriarchate did not agree with their views on the legal functioning of the Lord’s Host and therefore from now on we would have to be very careful not to hold any more open assemblies.” (id., 82-83)
c. Links with the Vladimirești Monastery
An interesting and unusual aspect of Father Florea’s life is his connection with the Vladimirești Monastery. The phenomenon of Vladimirești, which is still controversial, is still waiting for an objective and competent researcher[11]. In any case, Father Florea had very close links with the monastery, as the Securitate files amply demonstrate. On the basis of the statements made by Father Florea during the investigation, and of some informative notes, we will try to summarise these links.
Between 1942 and 1946, Silviu Iovan (the future Father Ioan) had Father Florea as a teacher at the Theological Academy in Cluj, during which time a close friendship based on mutual respect developed between the two, which was to last the rest of his life. Later, in 1950, after having become the confessor of Vladimirești Monastery, Father Ioan Iovan visited Father Florea and invited him to the monastery.
Father Florea arrived there for the first time in June 1950 and stayed for a few days. He became attached to the monastery and several visits followed. In addition to Mother Veronica, he made friends with several nuns, including Mother Theodosia Lațcu and Mother Mihaela Iordache.[12] In the autumn of 1950, he spent three weeks at the convent, celebrating Mass and giving homilies.
In the autumn of 1953, having just been released from prison, he went to the monastery with his wife, and the two decided by mutual consent to separate so that Father Florea could remain in Vladimirești.
“I gladly agreed”, Father Florea confessed to the investigation, “and I immediately applied to the Diocese of Galați to be accepted as a confessor, but my application was rejected and I had to return home, but I remained very attached to the mystical movement that had arisen in Vladimirești and was determined to become a priest there one day”. (Id., 109)
In order to prove that he was a monk, he asked to be venerated at Rohia Monastery. In January 1954, when Father Ioan fell ill, Father Florea was called to Vladimirești to replace him. Once there, he sent another request, this time to Bishop Antim of Buzau, to be received as a confessor. He was again refused, and in March 1954 he had to return to Suciu. However, he remained attached to the monastery and even took on the task of spreading the “work of Vladimirești”, that is to say, in the language of the Securitate, “the methods of activity there, which were intended […] to reach the largest possible masses, who would be educated in the spirit of sacrifice and mystical fanaticism, in a nationalist and anti-atheist spirit, therefore against communist ideology” (ibid., 111). (Id., 111) For this purpose he took the then abbot of the Rohia monastery, Father Justinian Chira, to Vladimirești.
He visited the monastery again in February 1955. John had just written his memorial to the Holy Synod, “a kind of indictment against the bishops, accusing them of having sold the Church and themselves to the Communists” (ibid., 112). (id., 112)
Father Florea helped to write and distribute the Memorial, and carried the copy himself for Bishop Nicolae Colan of Cluj.
After the arrest of Father Ioan Iovan and the dissolution of the monastery, Father Florea remained one of the few – if not the only – clergymen who supported the Vladimirești monastery. Asked by the secretaries about his role in the Oblate community, he replies:
“Since I was in the Vladimirești Monastery, where I celebrated Liturgy and confirmed myself as the confessor of the staff there, and considering that I was a professor at the University named Iovan Silviu, the elements hostile to the regime there regarded me as a their Father[13], And especially after the closure of the convent, many of the former nuns there asked me verbally and in letters for moral support, guidance, advice and words of encouragement, considering me a true moral leader of them. In this sense, I responded to their requests and encouraged them to maintain their fanatical position towards the state organs”. (id., 112-113) His position as moral leader was also helped by a letter that Father John managed to send from prison, appointing Father Florea as the Sisters’ confessor until his release from prison.
After the arrest of Father John and some of the nuns, Father Florea made a moving gesture by translating a short writing by St. John Chrysostom – a true patristic jewel – entitled “To the Bishops, Priests and Deacons Thrown into Prison for their Piety”. He would multiply this writing and try to spread it among the scattered nuns, even trying to get it to Father John and the other nuns in prison. Of course, in the eyes of the secret police, this letter – which is in the file – will constitute a real “circular”, intended to “fanatise the elements that will eventually be arrested and to arouse hatred against the repressive organs of the People’s Democratic State” (ibid., 98). (id., 98) In addition to this letter, the priest tried to support the scattered congregation in every other way: “In the conversations I had with them, I defended them, tried to popularise their example as worthy of imitation, and accused the state organs of unjustly arresting them simply because of their faith, trying to create discontent and resistance”. (id., 113)
A very interesting note from prison, dated 17 April 1955, perfectly captures the links between Father Florea and the Vladimirești Monastery. Father Ioan Iovan speaks:
“Priest Mureșanu is a great nationalist, a determined and courageous fighter; although he was also imprisoned for about one and a half years, he was not frightened and did not change, on the contrary, he came out stronger. He was the only priest who agreed with our action, that of the Vladimirians, and encouraged us; later he also took part in our action. For a month and a half, while I was ill, he replaced me at the services in the monastery church.
His sermons in Vladimirești were as determined and courageous as mine; for this he came into conflict with our archbishops, with whom he had discussions and whom he confronted. We from Vladimirești decided to take him to Vladimirești; his intention was to become a monk, with the consent of his wife. Father Mureșanu is from the Ardelean region; he is a leader; he was my teacher; I know him well. Like Father Mureșanu, his wife is a fervent nationalist. Before her husband, she was arrested and sent to the canal, and she came out of prison stronger. [Father Mureșanu gave me the material I needed to write the memoir about the canal, about the dead who were buried there without priests, he told me about the horrors of the canal; in fact, Father Mureșanu agreed with the memoir in its entirety. [After his release from prison, Father Mureșanu was no longer given a parish in Cluj, since he was an ardent nationalist and had a serious appeal to the mass of Romanians there; he was removed and given a parish in the countryside” (I235975/1). (I235975/1, 153-154)
d. The pilgrimages to monasteries
One of the accusations made against the priest was that, during his time in Suciu, he made several pilgrimages to monasteries with the faithful, apparently with the aim of “counteracting the collectivisation of agriculture by taking people away from agricultural work” and preparing the ground for the foundation of an “illegal hermitage”.
At least this second accusation is true, as we shall soon see. A description of his pilgrimages is preserved in the archives in the form of a letter – dated 6 April 1958 – that Father Florea addressed to Bishop Nicolae Colan, trying to convince him of the need to found the hermitage in Breaza. Here are some extracts:
“From the autumn of 1953 to the autumn of 1957, I made 15 pilgrimages to the monasteries with groups of the faithful of Suciu de Sus, ranging from 10 to 400 people. Some of them had the opportunity to visit the most important monasteries of the country, from Putna to Curtea de Argeș and from Moiseii Maramureș and Bixadul Oaș to the Cernica of St. Calinic. The faithful bowed their knees before the relics of all the country’s saints, except for St. Gregory the Decapolis, the only one still waiting for them. [The pilgrimages] put their hearts in direct contact with the treasure of the ancestral soul, burning unadorned in the windows of the holy monasteries, and awakened their nostalgia for the windows of the Transylvanian monasteries burned by the haters, but whose memory still smoulders in local legends and place names”. (Id., 279)
e. The foundation of the Breaza hermitage
During his first imprisonment in Canal, the father decided that after his release he would found a hermitage with a community life. Arriving in Suciu, he found the right opportunity to carry out his decision.
The first informative notes he wrote after his release show the steps he took to achieve this. First of all, he found a suitable place for a monastery in Suciu, in a hamlet called Breaza, just outside the village. Then he went to the monastery of Vladimirești and asked Father Ioan Iovan and Mother Veronica for help.
During his visits to the monastery in 1953-1954, he consulted with them about the foundation of the hermitage, wanting the new settlement to be in the spirit and model of Vladimirești Monastery. In addition to guidance and encouragement, Father Florea would also receive significant material help. In 1954, under his guidance, two young women from Suciu – Pop Ludovica and Marchiș Ioana – decided to embrace the monastic life and to be cloistered at Vladimirești. Father’s idea was that they would be trained in monastic life there and then return to Breaza to found a new community. This idea was never realised due to the dissolution of the monastery in 1955.
The two sisters returned to Suciu as nuns in the Breaza hermitage, despite pressure from the state authorities, who accused them of illegally wearing a uniform.
In the autumn of 1954, Father Florea bought land and building materials in Breaza. At the same time, through his talks and pilgrimages to monasteries, he prepared the faithful for the foundation of the hermitage. So when, in May 1955, he appealed to the villagers to help with the construction, many responded enthusiastically. Work began on 13 May and continued until 13 June – exactly one month! – during which the hermitage was built. “Apart from the physical work,” Father told the enquiry, “every day, morning, noon and evening, we prayed together, read from various mystical books and sang the songs of the Lord’s Host together. Through these methods of mystical propaganda I was able to mobilise such a large number of people”. (id., 91)
In the period that followed, several villagers made a series of donations – mostly land – to the hermitage. One family donated their entire property. The deeds of donation, which are kept in the archives, were drawn up by Father Florea on the model of the old monastic donations and are of great beauty.
Of course, the secret police managed to find hints of opposition to the regime in them. The priest sent these deeds of donation to the diocese of Cluj in the spring of 1958, together with a request for the hermitage to be approved. In order to justify his decision to found the hermitage – for which he had neither the legal nor the bishop’s approval – he placed the new settlement under the sign of the tenth anniversary of the reintegration of the Church in the Transylvanian region, with the return of the Greek Catholics to Orthodoxy. This hermitage has done nothing but strengthen the unity of the Church, especially in a former Greek Catholic parish, which is why the priest called the new settlement the “hermitage of rebirth”. From a deed of donation we can find the following:
“We, the undersigned, of the parish of Suciul de Sus, former Greek Catholics, now returned to the Orthodox Christian ancestral law, in honour of the 10th anniversary of the ecclesiastical reunion of the Romanians of Transylvania, donate from our lands […] to the Holy Diocese of Cluj. Let this donation be considered as a seal of the historic act of reunion, in the conviction that the strengthening and unshakable continuity of the monasteries and hermitages, of which the soul of the Romanians of Transylvania was deprived by the destruction and burning of more than 150 monasteries and hermitages in 1762 by the power of Habsburg imperialism, enemy of the people” (ibid., 270).
There is also a deed of donation signed by Father Florea, who donated the entire hermitage to the diocese of Cluj. He writes: “Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity, all holy and most holy, make of this hermitage a hearth of light and salvation for my Romanian nation settled in these parts of Țibleș, and be merciful to me, the sinner, with the gift of salvation. Accept, O Lord, the sacrifice offered. For You, Lord, have given us this beautiful land, which the Mother of Your Son and our Saviour chose as her garden, and we must worship You and build altars to You in all its enchanting valleys. And grant, O Lord, that the hermitages and monasteries, which were once the ornaments and fortresses of the defence and salvation of the soul, may rise again in the lands of Transylvania. Disunity tore them down. Now we are one again. Call them to life, Almighty and Good Father”. (Id., 275)
In spite of all his efforts, the request to legalise the hermitage remained unanswered. With his well-known perseverance, Father Florea did not give up.
He even tried another solution, that of donating the hermitage to the monastery of Arad-Gai, which would use it as a rest house. However, on the second day of Pentecost, 11 June 1958, the Feast of the Holy Trinity, the priest, without having received a reply from the bishop, consecrated the hermitage in the presence of more than 2000 faithful, “promising those present that this year, in spite of everything, he would consecrate the monastery with the bishop himself” (I235975/1). (I235975/1, 90) But he did not get the chance, because two weeks later he was arrested.
Incidentally, it must be said that the whole “business” of founding the hermitage was what most irritated the secretaries. It could not be that, in the midst of the collectivisation of agriculture, an entire village was working to found a “sanctuary of mysticism” and to donate land to an “enemy of the regime of popular democracy”. There are repeated accusations that he took people away from work – “GAC members”, “members of the guild” – and that he tried to make his household as large as possible, “causing damage and hardship to the work of collectivising agriculture” (P695/1, 94). (P695/1, 94) Therefore, we believe that it was the foundation of this hermitage that sealed Father Florea’s fate.
The arrest. The memory of the villagers. The trial, condemnation and death of Father Florea.
According to the files, Father Florea was arrested on the evening of 26 June 1958 at 10 pm. The first interrogations at the Baia Mare Securitate Police Station began the next day and the investigation lasted 11 months. The arrest of the priest caused great anxiety in the village. There were many rumours, including that the priest had been taken to the diocese in Cluj to be transferred to another parish. So the villagers thought of sending a memo to the diocese asking for the priest to be sent back to the parish.
In the end, the task of drafting the memorandum fell to a young seminarian, 19-year-old Gavril Burzo, a close student of the priest, who was on holiday in Suciu. On the evening of 17 August 1958, after Vespers, several villagers gathered in the house of Ioan Chindriș (Burzo’s grandfather) and under their guidance the young man wrote the memorial. The news spread and several believers came to Chindriș’s house to sign it. Then three teams of two went around the village collecting signatures. In all, 454 villagers signed the memorial, showing how much love and respect the priest enjoyed among the Suciu inhabitants.
In the memorial, after first expressing their joy at the transition to Orthodoxy, the faithful express their gratitude for Father Florea’s presence among them: “We are also grateful to the Church leadership for sending us Father Florea Mureșanu, through whose culture, diligence and sacrifice we have come to understand the superiority of our Orthodox faith”. The villagers then try to prove the priest’s innocence, even threatening that they will all join the sectarians if their plea is not heeded:
“During the five years that he has been in our midst, we have not been able to consider him opposed to our rule; on the contrary, he has participated with the people in every task proposed by the local authorities, which he has repeatedly confirmed in his sermons with the words of the Holy Scriptures: Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s. […] We do not know the cause of the events that have befallen His Holiness, and we find him innocent in all of them. Therefore, we respectfully ask you to release Father Florea Mureșanu and to send him back to our parish to continue to shepherd us; for if not, we, who of our own free will have returned to the Orthodox faith of our ancestors, will all of our own free will return to the repentant”. (Id., 358-359)
Of course, the memorial could not remain without consequences. On 23 September, Gavril Burzo, Gavrilă Ciceu (the parish priest of the village church) and Ioan Chindriș were arrested. Ioan Chindriș was not even present when the memorial was written. The three were to be tried and sentenced together with the priest, and their investigation followed the same pattern as his.
For example, while Gavril Burzo’s first statements are more naturalistic, the tone changes radically when the investigator C.G. enters the scene. In a classic example of security logic, Gavril Burzo’s self-incrimination sounds something like this:
“With this memo, I unjustly and wrongly defended the arrested Mureșan Florian, claiming that he was innocent, demanding his release and thus implicitly slandering the bodies that arrested him.” (ibid., 341) No further comment is necessary.
The trial – a travesty, of course – took place on 8 April 1959, and the verdict was pronounced on 17 April. Father was sentenced to 20 years’ hard labour for “the crime of incitement against the social order by agitation”.
For the same offence, Burzo Gavril was sentenced to 6 years[14] , Ciceu Gavrilă to 4 years and Chindriș Ioan to 3 years in prison (see id., 504).
Unfortunately, we know nothing more about the father’s life in prison. His prison file (P695/5) contains only 15 pages. In the course of 1959, Father Florea passed through the prisons of Baia Mare, Satu Mare, Cluj and Gherla, arriving in the same year at Aiud, where he died a few years later. One important thing that emerges from the file is the date of Father’s death: it is 4 January 1963, and not 1961 as previously thought. This is clearly shown by several documents in the file, such as the death certificate (f. 5), the medical report (f. 4) and the burial report (f. 2). The medical report shows that the father had been suffering from cirrhosis of the liver since January 1962 and was admitted to the prison hospital in March 1962. An operation was suggested, but his weakened condition did not allow this. The treatment (?) did not bear fruit and “on the morning of 4 January 1963, his general condition suddenly collapsed and he died at 8 a.m.”. The father was 55 years old.
Conclusion
Father Florea’s entire life was based on two essential coordinates: on the one hand, his love for God and Christian values, and on the other, his love for his Romanian nation. This gave rise to his anti-communist attitude, because he saw communism as a direct threat to the two values that inspired his life. This attitude was not so much political[15] as theological and spiritual. He opposed a militantly atheistic ideology that sought to uproot faith in God from the human soul and destroy the foundations of traditional Romanian Christian society. This can be seen in the very last statement made by the priest at the inquiry: “In conclusion, in view of the danger that the international labour movement and communism posed[16] to the Church and religion, a large part of my work was devoted to the fight against communist ideology, the communist and international labour movement in Romania, because this was my conviction” (P695/1, 121). (P695/1, 121)
So the so-called “anti-communist activity” that the Securitate accused Father of carrying out “under the mask” of religion was not really “under the mask” but in the name of religion, in the name of faith in God. Faith in God is inherently opposed to communism (and vice versa).
Father’s anti-communist attitude and struggle can be traced back to the early years of his life, during the inter-war period, and continued with consistency and perseverance after the rise of communism in Romania. The files of the Securitate show that, because of this attitude, the priest was persecuted, followed, removed from the social sphere and finally arrested.
This attitude finally led to his martyrdom in Aiud prison on 4 January 1963. That is why we believe that Father Florea Mureșanu can be considered without hesitation as a confessor of the right faith in Christ against the communist atheistic materialism and as a hero of the Romanian nation.
Eternal be his memory!
(Hieromonk Grigorie Benea – Rost Magazine Year IX, No. 97, pp. 28-43)
[1] To the best of my knowledge, I was the first (researcher) to have the opportunity to study this file after its registration in the CNSAS archive.
[2] The information file I 235975 consists of two volumes, one of 357 files and the other of 9 files. The criminal file P 695 consists of six volumes, of which the first, containing 657 files, is the largest. The criminal file also contains the individual files of Burzo Gavril, Chindriș Ioan and Ciceu Gavril, who were arrested shortly after the father and sentenced together with him because they had written a memorandum asking for the father’s release.
[3] In order to reduce the number of footnotes, for each quotation we give in brackets the file number and volume number as found in the CNSAS archive (National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives), followed by the number of the file in which the quotation is found. For example: I235975/1, 83′ means file number I235975, vol. 1, f. 83.
[4] The tone of the interrogations, which were undoubtedly made under pressure, only reflects the wooden language of the secret services and their obsession with applying the most incriminating labels possible, such as “legionnaire”, “enemy”, “nationalist”, etc. There are dozens of investigative statements from different witnesses that have identical language and expressions, which proves that they were written under dictation and signed under duress.
[5] The father was very close to Ionel Moța and invited him to be his son’s godfather (Moța never made it because he died in Spain). The father also hosted Moța’s daughter during her studies in Cluj.
[6] Petre Țuțea, apud. Constantin Mihai, Mircea Eliade and the Legionary Movement, in ROST, Vol. VI, No. 61/March 2008, pp.
[7] Titi Gâță would later die, brutally tortured during the Securitate investigations.
[8] It should be mentioned here that the priest always had an open attitude towards Greek Catholics. For example, in the testimony of a witness to the investigation we read: ‘Mureșan Florea pointed out that the Greek Catholics would be persecuted and that they would have to convert to Orthodoxy. I know that he participated in the editing of the religious newspaper “Viața creștină”, directed by the priest Chindriș, in which the idea of reconciliation between the Orthodox and Greek Catholic cults was propagated”. (P695/1, 133) And on an exchange of letters between Father Florea and a Greek-Catholic priest, the secretaries note: “It can be deduced from these letters that the Greek-Catholic reaction is in line with the Orthodox reaction”. (I235975/1, 228)
[9] These expressions, as well as others such as “the exclusion of people from the cultural and political life organised by the regime”, are found identically in all the testimonies, both of the priest and of the other witnesses. This gives us a very revealing picture of how the testimony was received. It is worth noting that this tone is found mainly with one investigator, Maj. C. G., and changes completely with the change of investigator.
[10] V. Dorz, Traian, Christ – my testimony, ed. Oastea Domnului, Sibiu, 2005.
[11] This is not the place for an analysis of the phenomenon, but we will say that, despite certain deviations later on, it had some positive aspects, especially in the first phase. We cannot overlook the fierce anti-communist struggle, the fact that the monastery attracted thousands of believers every week in the midst of the atheist-Bolshevik persecution, the fact that it was the strongest monastic community in the country, with prominent personalities such as the well-known poet Teodosia Zorica Lațcu or Mother Mihaela Iordache, who died a martyr’s death in Miercurea Ciuc prison. In fact, one cannot overlook the great sacrifices made by Father Ioan Iovan and many nuns in communist prisons, all of which proves that the phenomenon also had, at least in part, healthy spiritual roots. See also Preot Ioan Iovan, “It was beautiful in Gherla!”, ed. Patmos, Cluj-Napoca”, 2008.
[12] During the investigation, the secret police specifically asked about the links between the priest and these nuns. During the search of the priest when he was arrested, several poems by Zorica Lațcu were found, some of which were clearly anti-communist. There are also several informative notes about the friendship between him and Mother Mihaela Iordache.
[13] In the priest’s file there are several letters from various nuns from Vladimirești, including two letters from Mother Veronica. In them one can feel a very affectionate and filial tone.
[14] After his liberation, Gavril Burzo embraced monastic life and became a priest in his native village. In 1990 he took steps to reopen the Hermitage of the Holy Trinity in Breaza and became its confessor.
[15] Although, by the way, politics should not be demonised and so dualistically excluded from the Christian’s sphere of concern. A Christian, and therefore a priest, can and must be political. The politics of Christ.
[16] Here the Securitate agents strokethrough the text, writing above: “I appreciated that it presented him”.