Father Teodor Bej’s selfless service in the communist prisons

…in Aiud I spent some time with Father Tudor Bej [Teodor Bej n.n.]. I was in Zarca (solitary confinement) and Father Bej was brought from the mine, he was very ill. He had undergone an operation because he had big problems with his intestines. They had found some spots on his intestines, but no doctor could tell him where they came from and whether there was any chance of a cure. Well, Father Bej was a great spiritual help to me. He was very religious. He had been to Baia-Sprie and attended all the services, all the activities there. (…)

– When did you meet him in Aiud?

It was around 1961. The mine had closed and he was taken to Aiud. It was an extraordinary spiritual revival for me. Now, alone, I had gone through Pitești, all that experience was over, I had been to Casimca, there, with Costache and Marcel, but I still had enough pain and confusion in me. And Father Bej came immediately, with extraordinary courage, and began to hold services, to preach God. It was a small cell of six people. We were all believers. But he brought this revival of faith and even began to minister. He’d hold the Holy Mass, or Vespers, or the Matins, he’d have some Communion hid in his shirt…

– How did he celebrate the Holy Mass, what were the stages?

In general he seldom did the Holy Mass. He would sit on the bed, we would sit in our places or walk around so that it would look to the one who was supervising us that we were doing the usual things of the cell. During this time we would listen to the priest who would say what he knew by heart from the Holy Mass. We would listen, walk around and answer in a low voice “Lord have mercy” or whatever we had to. Then he would make the Holy Communion with what he had in his shirt cuffs. He would take out a very small crumb and crumb it even more so that we could all share. And apart from the encouragement he gave us, the grace of Holy Communion strengthened our souls very much.

– You confessed too, didn’t you?

Yes, of course we did. Like this: he sat on the edge of the bed and we sat on the edge of the bed, as if we were talking to each other. Because we were being watched. But once we were caught by the guard. That is, he suddenly entered the cell, realised that it was a service, and punished Father Bej, who had already come from the mine with a file. We were not punished. And Father Bej, after finishing his punishment in solitary confinement – I think he spent seven days, I don’t remember exactly – came back more cheerful and courageous. Then they left us alone. They caught us sometimes, but they didn’t hurt us.

– How long did you stay with Father Bej?

About a year. After he was released, I don’t know what happened to him. We lost track of him completely. Later I heard that he had died…

(Pr. Gheorghe Calciu – The Life of Father Gheorghe Calciu according to his and others’ testimonies, Christiana Publishing House, Bucharest 2007, pp. 70-71)

Another testimony that Father Gheorghe Calciu gives about Father Teodor Bej is the following, with essentially the same descriptions, accompanied by small variations:

…I knew Father Bej very well, because I spent several months with him in the same cell in the Aiud prison. He had come from Baia Sprie, before the mine was closed, because he had fallen ill with a strange and equally dangerous disease, probably caused by the lead in the mine: his intestines had yellow stains that filled his mucous membranes.

He was taken to hospital, where part of his small intestine was removed and analysed, and then sent to Aiud, where he was placed in the Zarca, a section for the dangerous and rebellious. With the arrival of Father Bej, our cell life changed: he introduced a rule of systematic prayer and learned some texts from the New Testament – Father knew by heart all four Gospels, some Epistles and some Psalms. On Saturday evenings he would hold the Vespers, and on Sundays he would hold the Holy Mass, and if we confessed he would give us Communion with the crumbs he had sewn into the hem of his shirt.

This rhythmic spiritual life strengthened those of us who were in the same cell with him, especially as Father did not pay the slightest attention to his illness. Sometimes, when Fr. Bej went to the doctor, those of us who remained in the cell (there were four of us prisoners in all) would express our concern about his illness – we thought it was cancer – and we feared that if one of the guards caught us praying, solitary confinement might be fatal. We wished we could warn him of the danger, but when Father returned to his cell, all fears disappeared and we resumed the life he had imposed on us by his spiritual strength. Fortunately, nothing bad ever happened.

Interestingly, Father never told us that he organised the resurrection service in 1951. He told us the story very briefly, without making any reference to his role, but presenting the event as a collective act of the priests (…) (Father Gheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa, 14 June 2002)