Father Sebastian Popescu’s prisons in Dumitrești, Râmnicu Sărat county
In an intervention in our column “Memory of the Church”, we presented the case of the priest Ion Nastase from Andrieșu commune, as a supporter of the resistance group led by Victor Lupșa in the Vrancei Mountains. In today’s lecture, we will present the case of the priest Sebastian Popescu, known as “Popa Scai”, from Poenița, another supporter of the armed anti-communist resistance in the Andrieșu area.
Sebastian Popescu was born on 16 February 1908 to a peasant family in the commune of Luciu, Buzău County. After five years of primary education in his home town, the young Sebastian entered the “Chesarie Episcopul” Theological Seminary in Buzău, graduating in 1929. He was ordained priest and appointed parish priest of Lăstuni parish, Dumitrești commune, Râmnicu Sărat county. Although he did not fight in the Legionary Movement, he was under constant surveillance by the gendarmerie and was forced to join the Legionary Movement during the Legionary Government. He did not take part in the uprising, but was under constant surveillance by the gendarmerie, which placed him under house arrest.
After 23 August 1944, he was arrested by the gendarmerie and investigated by the purge commission, but acquitted because there was no evidence against him. He was forced to join the ploughmen’s front, just as he had joined the legionary movement. However, he did not remain indifferent to the anti-religious policies of the regime. In 1948, from the pulpit, he urged the faithful to keep icons in their homes and to educate their children in the Christian spirit, since liberation from the Soviet yoke was at hand. For this reason, the Communist authorities suspected him of “inciting the population in religious matters”. On his own initiative, he supported those who had gone up into the mountains to await the Anglo-American liberators with food, money, medicine, clothes and, according to Security Service documents, ammunition and a gun. A resistance group had formed in the mountains, led by the teacher Gheorghe Militaru, who was in contact with Victor Lupșa. In the village of Lăstuni, the rumour spread that “Popa Scai” was helping the mountain people and that he could be arrested at any time.
On 15 August 1949, in the context of a campaign by the Security Service to cleanse the Râmnic mountains of anti-Communist resistance fighters, Father Sebastian was summoned to the militia. He gave himself up while his house was searched. A few days later, with the help of some local believers, he managed to escape the arrest of the Râmnicu Sărat Securitate and took refuge in the “Scurtul mare” forest, in a hut, while his wife hid in Andrieșu. His group was followed by the Security Service, who killed two of his colleagues. In order to arrest him, the Security Service resorted to blackmail, telling Father Sebastian that if he did not surrender, his son would suffer the same fate as them. Under these circumstances, on 15 September 1950, Father Sebastian and his wife surrendered at the Dumitrești police station.
After a long investigation, on 9 July 1951, Father Sebastian Popescu was condemned by sentence no. 704 of the Galați Military Tribunal to 20 years’ hard labour for the crime of “conspiracy against the social order”. His imprisonment was a real ordeal, from forced labour in inhuman conditions to multiple punishments in the labour colonies and prisons of Râmnicu Sărat (1950), Gherla (August 1951), Baia Sprie? 1956), Baia Sprie (1951-1952), Poarta Albă, Cavnic (1952-1953), Satu Mare (1953-1954), Caransebeș (1954), Jilava (1954, 1962), Aiud (1956, 1962), Galați (1960), Botoșani (1960) and Ostrov (1963-1964).
“Popa Scai” remained in the consciousness of many prisoners as the model of a servant, a fact confirmed by Security Service documents. Father Sebastian was often punished by the guards for “printing mystical propaganda”. In Galati, for example, a note read: “In room 33 there is a prisoner, Popescu Sebastian, who regularly holds religious services with those in the room”, actions considered by the authorities as “hostile manifestations against the democratic regime of the People’s Republic of Romania”. As a result, on 31 July 1964, he was one of the last prisoners released from the Ostrov camp.
After his release, he was given a job in the Proșca parish in the commune of Năeni, where he was under constant surveillance by the Security Service.
(Adrian Nicolae Petcu – Lumina Newspaper)