Father Nicolae Pogan under the communist persecution
In our “Remembering the Church” column, we have looked at some of the books that deal with the issue of clergy imprisoned during the communist period. Our research in the Securitate archives has shown that many clergy are not even mentioned in these volumes. One of them is Father Nicolae Pogan from Vrancea.
He was born on 11 February 1906 in the family of Ioan Pogan, a farmer from Bârsești, Putna County. After primary school, which was interrupted by the First World War between 1916 and 1918, the young Nicolae Pogan entered the St. George Seminary in Roman, where he graduated in 1931.
In the same year he was ordained a priest for the parish of Spulber. At the same time he attended the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest, which he was unable to complete due to material difficulties. At the urging of the priest Vasile Boldeanu, Nicolae Pogan joined the Legionaries. He became active, convinced of the rightness of the Christian motto proclaimed by this political organisation. However, during the National Legionary Government, when he was reticent, he no longer had the same conviction.
After the establishment of the communist regime, he was constantly persecuted by the authorities, simply because he was a pastor. A few denunciations by some led to his arrest on 28 April 1949. He was constantly investigated by the Focșani Security Service police for his political past, i.e. against the “Workers’ Movement in Romania”.
As there was no evidence against him, in March 1951 Father Pogan was sentenced to administrative internment in a labour colony for 24 months. On 27 March 1951 he was sent to the labour colony in Midia and then, in July 1953, to Onești. He was punished for his attempts to alleviate his physical suffering. On 16 January 1952, for example, he was found at the Lock Port construction site, warming himself “by a fire made of railway sleepers”. His administrative detention, i.e. the period of forced labour, was extended for another 24 months.
Then, on 22 March 1954, he was transferred to the Bârlad Security Service police for “anti-working class activities”. Under the physical torture of the investigators, Father Pogan reaffirmed his innocence of the regime. But the investigators needed evidence against him. Between January and July 1955, several witnesses were interrogated, denouncing alleged crimes committed by Father Pogan during his involvement in political militancy. The Security Service thus fabricated a “criminal” political past for Father Pogan in order to bring him to trial.
With sentence no. 389 of 26 September 1955, Nicolae Pogan was sentenced to 6 years’ imprisonment for the crime of “intensive activity against the working class”. As the court had considered the sentence preventive since April 1949, Father Pogan was released on 27 September 1955. He returned home to his shepherds in Spulber. But the joy was short-lived. On 25 January 1958, he was “warned” by the Security Service, only to receive a decision a month later to be sent to a labour camp for 36 months. He was sent to Periprava to harvest reeds.
He was released on 23 February 1961. Unable to return to his home parish, he ended up serving in Vintileasca. Here he served until 1983, when he retired. He died on 15 September 1984 and was buried in the cemetery of the monastery of Cernica, near Bucharest.
(Adrian Nicolae Petcu – Lumina Newspaper)