Father Mark – a man of sacrifice

First of all, with Father Marcu (Costică Dumitrescu), we met in battle. We befriended each other; we befriended each other because we were very happy in a sacrifice, in a battle that demanded our blood in every way. He was 2-3 years older than me, but in the battle, in the tension of the heart for the ideal, age doesn’t matter.

What matters is the movement, the heroism, the position.

He was very resistant to suffering. They called him “the Fakir”, a name given to him by the Securitate of the time, during the reign of Charles II, because he suffered with incredible patience, without hesitation.

We always encouraged each other; we rarely met in prison because we were put in solitary confinement. I was in the Zarca, same as him; we could still communicate a little through the wall. I had the best opinion of Father Marcu as a man of sacrifice, compared to many with whom we had to meet, to live, to plan. It was not a battle. It was not about goals. He offered himself without question, with the great ideals of man, of the nation, of our nation in mind.

We were very attached to the name of the nation. Even the Captain made a big deal of the fact that all nations would be brought to the Judgement. I had the opportunity to attend a discussion of living people, legionaries, outside the prison. They told us how the captain knew about the Gentiles. In fact, it is said in many places that the Gentiles will come to the Judgment, and the Gentiles and the Gentiles will be judged. So Father Mark was a man who, I repeat, took his fight seriously.

I went to the monastery out of a madness for Christ. I became a monk with great zeal, because if there is no madness for Christ, you cannot resist. Here you lose yourself so that you can find yourself, in an angelic position. Not long after that, Father Marcu came to the monastery in Slatina. They arrested me in Slatina, the monastery founded by Alexandru Lăpușneanu. They took me out of the church where I was serving at two in the morning and took me to the militia in Suceava. I heard Father Marcu in an adjacent cell, he was also under arrest.

Father Marcu was arrested because of his legionary past, but I was tried because I was a member of the Burning Bush and the Iron Guard. They sentenced me to 40 years in prison to make sure that I would lie there forever. There was no question that God had defended us, even though we had always been on the enemy’s blacklist.

I visited him as a monk because he was very determined for Christ; he was in a cell next to Father Cleopas, but he could not confess to him because Father Cleopas was afraid.

He called me in a letter to come and confess to him, and I went hundreds of miles from Techirghiol. There was something mysterious about him, he was not guilty, he was counting on being part of a team when Armand Calinescu was killed; he was also invited, but he did not get to be part of that team, because he was counted as a man of sacrifice in the world of high-ranking legionaries. We wanted a constant inner sacrifice. He was not guilty. He told me that there was a discussion that I had been part of it, but it was not true.

I told him: “Be quiet, it’s nothing, the persecutions are not over, because those who flee from persecution are fleeing from God, as Saint Theodore the Scholar says. And the Church still needs persecutions.

I remember him with great affection, with life, with peace, he was a simple monk. He walked hunched with a small stick, tending the beehives of the Sihăstria Monastery.

I remember that leaving the Father’s house in the monastery, in a corridor someone asked me about the Legionary Movement, what it was. I told him: you will not understand, but one thing you must understand and fear: the patron of the Legionary Movement is the Archangel Michael and I told him the troparion: “Where your gift Michael the Archangel shadows, from there all the work of the devil fears, that Lucifer does not suffer, who has fallen from heaven, to remain near your light. Therefore we pray thee: extinguish his fiery arrows, which are cunningly directed against us, by thy intercession, thou worthy Michael the Archangel.” That was the Iron Guard, I said.

The last time I met him in was in Aiud in a corridor. They took us out of our cells for a conference. They started talking from among our ranks, perverted, in the reeducation. It was a big hall, and I stood up in the middle and said to them: what are you talking about, what do you know about the Middle Ages, the Middle Ages was theocentrist put God in the lead – I turned to them – for some damned popes accused Christ’s Church and Christian virtues. That’s how the conference ended, and I met Father Mark in a corridor and said to him, take care of yourself, don’t surrender. But he understood to be careful not to betray. I told him that I didn’t mean betrayal, that would have been an offence to him, but to take care of himself, not to fast harshly, if he found a piece of bread to eat it.

You had nothing to give in, we weren’t playing with our lives. Here in Aiud there was no longer any question of the Legionary Movement, they wanted to completely destroy our faith in Christ. This was their higher objective than the other.

(Fr. Arsenie Papacioc – Scara Magazine, no. 7 of 2001)