Father Gherasim Iscu on the anti-communist front

Fr. Gherasim Iscu (en) 0

Many Orthodox priests distinguished themselves in the fight against the most terrible political ideology that took over Romania after 1945. Some of them are well known, others may be forgotten by us today. It is our duty to remember them by the deeds with which they defended their country against the Soviet occupiers. Many of them knew the blows that communism dealt to the Christian faith through missionary activity across the Dniester. Among them was Father Gherasim Iscu, a servant who sacrificed himself for the Christian faith and his people.

He was born on 21 January 1912 in the commune of Poduri, Bacău County, the son of Grigore and Elena Iscu. In 1924 he entered the Bogdana Monastery (Bacău) as a novice. From 1925 he attended the monastic seminary of the Neamț monastery, until 1928, when this school was abolished, he continued his studies at the “Principele Ferdinand” high school in Bacău, then at the seminary of the Cernica monastery. He graduated in 1935 and later enrolled at the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest, where, due to financial difficulties, he did not graduate until 1942.

From 1932, Brother Grigore Iscu was enrolled at the Tismana Monastery and was to be sent to the Academy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the island of Halki, a project that never came to fruition. In 1935 he was ordained a hierodeacon, then a hieromonk, and on 15 April 1937 he was appointed abbot of Arnota Monastery. Here he worked on the restoration of the monastery, which had been destroyed by fire, until 1 February 1939, when he resigned. From here he moved to the monastery of Cernica, to the post of librarian-accountant of the seminary of Cernica, where he remained until 1941, when the seminary was closed for being a “hotbed of legionnaireism”. Although he was asked to work for the Legionary Movement, which was growing in the monastery of Cernica, Father Iscu “categorically refused”, and it was even proposed that he be dismissed. After the events of January 1941, the police and the army searched the monastery and investigated all the staff. Father Iscu, who was among those considered to have no legionary sympathies, was ordered in November 1941 to liquidate the inventory of the monastic seminary, which had been dismantled by order of Ion Antonescu [1].

Missionary on the Dniester

On 1 April 1942 he was sent by the Metropolitan of Oltenia, Nifon Criveanu, on a mission to Transnistria, from which, as Father Iscu said in his testimony of 28 September 1948 in Sigurantă, “I keep one of the most beautiful images of my life”. He served in the commune of Păsătel II, in the monastery of Păsătel and in the town of Balta, as subprothonotary and then as deputy prothonotary of the county of Balta. More importantly, just before he left Transnistria, he became exarch of the monasteries.

As a delegate of the Mission, he consecrated the church of Păsătele (Balta County) on 13 December 1942, receiving the silver cross from the locals in thanksgiving. In addition to his role as a priest, he was also a teacher and religious instructor (“Christian Transnistria”, year I (1942), no. 3-4, p. 88) “The faithful there,” said the priest in a statement, “wrote to me in Tismana after my departure. I was a servant without drums and flutes, and I sang so that all my love might respond honestly and sincerely to the undying love shown to me by those people for whom faith and humanity were not words of occasion, but qualities that sprang from their very being. I went so far in my attachment to them that I did not spare the nights to give them a helping hand, and I preferred not to have a position that was at all opposed to the Romanian administration, which tolerated and encouraged many mistakes, than for the people not to see me as their priest”[2].

In his letter of 16 March 1943 to Metropolitan Visarion Puiu, the missionary director expressed his regret for the obstacles created by some members of the mission administration, for the material and financial difficulties, for his lack of knowledge of the Russian language, the fruits of his missionary work which he wished to leave in silence. If the Metropolitan asked him to stay in Transnistria, Father Iscu continued, he would accept on condition that he was transferred to a monastery, but in another district than Balta and Odessa, or if his bishop, Metropolitan Nifon of Oltenia, asked him to return to Tismana, he would do so [3].

On 20 May 1943, on the orders of Metropolitan Nifon, Father Iscu returned to the country, to the monastery of Tismana. Here he was appointed exarch of the monasteries of the diocese of Oltenia from June 1943 until April 1945, when he resigned. On the 1st of September 1943 (the beginning of the liturgical year), he was installed as Abbot of Tismana Monastery, with the dignity of Protostel. In his new capacity, Father Iscu rebuilt the Tismana Monastery (where the camp for legionary priests set up by I. Antonescu was located) after it had been destroyed by fire on 25 March 1943. The National Bank of Romania helped him with the reconstruction after 1 June 1944, when the National Treasury was brought in. During the period until February 1947, when the treasury was guarded by the Battalion and then the Company of Border Guards, the NBR was responsible for the restoration of the monastery’s buildings and installations.

In the anti-communist resistance

In the context of the seizure of political power and even the establishment of a communist regime in Romania, the National Resistance Movement appeared, with several branches, including the one in Oltenia (M.N.R.O.), led by General Ioan Carlaont and Radu Ciuceanu. In order to make contact with the Western countries and to obtain the military aid that the organised resistance groups so desperately needed, various ways were sought. An important point of support for the resistance, in the opinion of the Oltean branch, was that of Tismana.

Thus, in October-November 1947, two members of this movement, Radu Ciuceanu and Vlad Drăgoescu, contacted Abbot Gherasim Iscu of the Tismana monastery. According to the statement of 9 October 1948, Father Iscu said: “It was only in the autumn of 1947 that two young men arrived from Craiova to make contact with the mountains. I do not remember their names. It was in the evening and I couldn’t see well and I didn’t remember their recommendations. I found out in the Craiova prison that one of them was Ciuceanu. I didn’t receive them in the monastery, but when they left for Craiova, they wanted to give Nelu Pârvulescu this password of recognition: whoever shakes your hand is the abbot, he has Romanian ideas, talk to him and tell him what you came for. We had not established it together, but Nelu Pârvulescu told me so when he came” [4].

The role of the abbot of Tismana became more concrete after the meeting with Nelu Pârvulescu (June 1948), when he had to offer shelter and food to all those who came to the monastery with the password “R 325”. The Tismana base was also supposed to ensure the installation of a radio transmitter-receiver station for the Resistance, in order to establish contact with the Anglo-Americans, but this was never realised [5].

Protosinghel Iscu was contacted by the Resistance for several reasons, as he confessed in the course of his interrogation: “I was already known in the area as a man who did not belong to any current political party. Secondly, the fact that I had been a missionary in Russia was seen by many people as an indication that I did not have unfavourable opinions of the current form of government. Thirdly, in the 1946 elections, the chairman of the electoral commission, who had observed the voting, had seen that I had “voted by eye”.

After several meetings with various members of the resistance movement (Nelu Pârvulescu, Colonel Petre Grigorescu, Lieutenant Colonel Stavril Constantin and Vlad Dragoescu) and unsuccessful attempts to set up the radio, the Securitate discovered the abbot’s links with the Resistance. On 2 July and 26 September 1948, searches were carried out in the cellars of the monks, in the chancellery and library of the monastery, then in the hermitage of Cioclovina, but without result, except for “various letters for consultation” [6].

Despite the suspicions of the Securitate, Abbot Iscu remained in contact with the Resistance, on condition that the radio was installed to facilitate communication with the West, as he confessed: “On 19 July 1948 I went to Comanca-Romanați to harvest wheat. On my return, on the 28th of July, I went through Craiova to see Lieutenant-Colonel Stavril Constantin in order to obtain a curtain that his wife had promised the monastery. Through his intercession and at his suggestion, I made the acquaintance of Colonel Grigorescu, whom he recommended to me as head of the “R 325” organisation. Radu Ciuceanu, whom I had met in October 1947 at the monastery of Tismana, where he had come accompanied by a colleague of his, Vlad Dragoescu, came here one evening, a visit that was nothing special but an acquaintance (…). We discussed: the international situation and the beginning of a war; the visit of Pârvulescu and Virgil Constantinescu to Tismana; the visit and the search made by Inspector Grădinaru (…); the competition I had to give in order to install the radio station.

I promised Radu Ciuceanu and Colonel Grigorescu that if the equipment arrived, I would give the people food and places to sleep, even in the mountains. But they did not come to install the radio, although I was told that they would certainly be in Tismana in two weeks’ time, and after 1 September the engineer Niculescu came, whom I did not receive in the monastery, and advised him not to insist on taking the apparatus there, but to give up the project”[7].

Investigation and arrest

On the morning of 26 September 1948, Abbot Gherasim Iscu was arrested, and on 21 May 1949 he was tried for the crime of “conspiracy against the social order”, provided for and punished by Article 209, Part III of the Penal Code [8].

On 14 June 1949, the Military Tribunal of Craiova, in verdict 928, condemned the group “Carlaont Iancu and others”, including Father Gherasim Iscu, to 10 years’ hard labour, 3 years’ civic degradation and to pay 6000 lei in court costs, because “he was part of the subversive organisation recruited by Nelu Pârvulescu and participated in the conspiracy meetings. He undertook to provide shelter and food for all the members of the organisation who were being followed by the Securitate, for which he was given the call sign R 325. He gave his full support to the installation of a radio receiving station in the Tismana Mountains, which was never installed” [9].

He was imprisoned in Craiova, where he showed great courage in the face of the investigators’ attempts to make him “confess” facts that others might have suffered. Father Constantin Hodoroagă tells us about his attitude in the horseshoe-shaped prison: “The attitude of the abbot amazed everyone. He endured all the torments without acknowledging those involved, led by General Carlaont. After a long investigation by the security organs, Captain Oancă – who was tired of beating him – told him: ‘You are crazy, everyone has admitted it and you will still be sentenced to 15 years'”[10].

He was then transferred to the terrible prison of Aiud, where he encouraged his suffering brothers and raised their morale by preaching the Christian faith, as the same Father Hodoroagă confesses: “He was arrested in the monastic habit that the people of Craiova had left him. When he arrived in Aiud, they took it from him and he was left in his shirt. We from the Argeș group gave him a quarter of a loaf of bread and took a jacket from one of the prisoners. For me and for those who knew him, Father Gherasim was a martyr. Throughout the cells he passed through, he was the one who kept his morale high and his conviction to overcome, speaking very beautifully about sacrifice” [11].

Later he was taken to the Canal, to the White Gate, to the so-called “brigade of thieves”, where all those who had been arrested and condemned for their faith were kept. Here he fell ill and was taken to the sanatorium prison of Targu-Ocna, to room 4, where he met Father Richard Wurmbrand, from whom we have the last moments of the Orthodox monk: “At dawn, Abbot Iscu called two prisoners to him and asked them to lift him up.

You are too ill to move,’ they said. Everyone in the room began to move. “What’s going on? What is he going to do?” they asked. “Let’s do it!”

“You can’t do that,” he said. “Get me out of bed!”

They helped him up. “Take me to Vasilescu’s bed!” he demanded.

The abbot sat down beside the young man who had been torturing him and put a gentle hand on his arm. “Calm yourself down,” he said in a soothing tone. “You are young. You didn’t realise what you’re doing.” He wiped the sweat from the young man’s brow with a cloth. “I forgive you with all my heart, as do I and the other Christians. And if we forgive you, surely Christ, who is better than we are, will forgive you too. A place will be found for you in heaven”. He received Vasilescu’s confession and gave him Holy Communion, after which he was helped to his bed.

During the night, both the abbot and Vasilescu died. They must have gone to heaven holding hands” [12]. Vasilescu was an ordinary prisoner who had been in the “priests’ brigade” and who had beaten the abbot at the White Gate for re-education. It was on the day of the Nativity, or Christmas, 1951, that Father Gherasim Iscu, “with a candle in his hand, listening to the prayers he had asked for”, went to heaven [13].

After the arrest of Father Gherasim Iscu, his lieutenant, the hieromonk Vichentie Mănescu, arrived at the monastery of Tismana. In order not to close the monastery, the Metropolitan of Oltenia, Firmilian Marin, sent the monks to other monasteries and, on 15 September 1949, transformed Tismana into a nunnery under the direction of Mother Frumentia Lupu from Hurezu [14].

(Adrian Nicolae Petcu – Rost Magazine, issue 7 of September 2003)

[1] ACNSAS, criminal fonds, file 4, vol. IV, f. 87-87v

[2] ACNSAS, file no. cit., f. 87v-88

[3] ANIC, Visarion Puiu fonds, dossier. 12/1942-1943, f. 28-29

[4] ACNSAS, dos. IV, f. 22

[5] Ibidem, f. 20v, 29, 164

[6] Ibidem, vol. I, f. 156, vol. IV, f. 26

[7] Ibidem, vol. IV, f. 21v-22; 33v

[8] Ibidem, vol. VII, f. 4, 40; vol. VIII, f. 29; vol. X, f. 217

[9] Ibidem, vol. VII, f. 47, 53

[10] The Harbinger of Orthodoxy”, year VIII, no. 153, 1-15 April 1996, p. 2

[11] Ibid