Fr. Arsenios Boca, the painter of souls

“Each one of us is the painter of his own life: the soul is the canvas, the virtues are the colours, and Christ is the model we must paint”. This is how St. Gregory of Nyssa expresses himself in one of his writings. In the same way, Father Arsenios Boca first painted the icon of the Lord in his being so that he could later work in the hearts of those who wanted to be close to Christ.

He was a leader of souls in Romania in the last century, engraved in the hearts of those who knew him as “a unique phenomenon in the history of Romanian monasticism”,

Zian Boca (Father’s layman name) was born at the end of September 1910 in the village of Vața de Sus, near Brad, in a family of Ardelenians, Iosif and Cristina.

After attending the first four primary classes in his native village, the young boy, who had been fortified as a child in the stone pits of Zarand, went to the “Avram Iancu” Orthodox High School in Brad. Orthodox Gymnasium in Brad, founded by the worthy Metropolitan of Ardeal, Andrew Șaguna, where he graduated at the top of his class.

Extraordinary will, exceptional memory

The priest Petru Boldor, Zian’s classmate, remembered him as “an exceptionally gifted man, with an extraordinary will, a formidable memory, extraordinary diligence and tenacity”. It was with these qualities that he enrolled at the former Andrean Theological Academy in Sibiu (1929-1933), where he was extremely hardworking and studious, having the aura of a “saint” among his colleagues.

Among the outstanding professors there, he met Father Dumitru Stăniloae and the future Bishop of Oradea, Nicolae Popovici.

Zian Boca devoted himself not only to the study of theology, but he was also an avid art lover. From an early age he loved drawing, sculpture and above all painting. All this is evidence that helps us to see in him the painter and confessor of later times, who sought to portray the depths of the human soul through clear compositions and psychological analysis. To this end, Nicolae Bălan sent him on a scholarship to the Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest, where he also took courses in medicine and attended Nichifor Crainic’s passionate lectures on mysticism.

Founder of the “Philokalia”

In order to make Sâmbăta Monastery a monastic centre with exceptional monks, Metropolitan Nicolae Bălan began with “three great men”, as Father Teofil Părăian recalls: Father Arsenios Boca, Father Nicolae Mladin and Father Serafim Popescu. In order to get to know the monastic order better, the young Arsenios Boca went to Mount Athos for spiritual preparation.

Although he stayed only three months, this trip was providential. On his return, he brought some copies of manuscripts of the Philokalia for his former teacher in Sibiu, Dumitru Stăniloae, with whom he consulted on Athonite Hesychasm. The professor will translate them with the help of Father Arsenios. Although Father Serafim Popescu of Sâmbăta said that “Father Stăniloae, by translating the Philokalia, brought the Orthodox heaven to Romanian soil”, it should not be forgotten that Father Arsenios Boca also played a particularly important role.

We can note a series of personal contributions to the creation of this collection of spiritual books, gathered under the title Philokalia, which translates as “Love of Beauty”: he wrote most of the translation according to Father Stăniloae’s dictation, he made the cover and, moreover, through his untiring perseverance, he significantly nourished the latter’s courage to complete the work. Fr. Stăniloae rightly acknowledges his merits and calls him “the main founder of the Romanian Philokalia”.

“The engraver of souls”

The monastic life of the young celibate deacon Zian Boca was awaited. As the “Theological Magazine”, published in Sibiu, announced, on 3 May 1940, the impressive service of the monastic confirmation of one of the “enlightened graduates of the Andrean Academy”, the young hieromonk Arsenie Boca, took place. An upright man and a monk of high spiritual character, Father Arseny was ordained a priest on the Friday of the Spring of the Resurrection in 1942. From then on, his spiritual gift and his vocation to fulfil a mission of God among men became more evident. During his years as a confessor in Sâmbăta and Prislop, he was able to reveal the will of God to his spiritual sons and, above all, to instil in them an awareness of the struggle against sin, awakening them to the living presence of Christ, who is “the meaning of life and history, their refuge in the temptations and storms of time”.

Fr. Arsenios, the “painter of souls”, as Nichifor Crainic called him, was aware of his mission to turn people’s minds away from wandering in the wilderness and make them the seat of Christ God: “I have taken up the chariot of a rather difficult ideal – the transformation of man into Man, the younger son of God and brother of his Elder Son. But all great ideals have something paralysing about them: they do not let you worry about the nothingness of this life”.

Sent by the Security Service to the canal

Shortly after the establishment of the communist regime, which sought to extinguish the flame of faith in the souls of the people and to draw them away from the altars of Christ, Father Arsenios came under the surveillance of the Securitate and was arrested for the first time in 1948, for allegedly helping the anti-communist fighters in the Făgăraș mountains. As a result of these suspicions and his growing notoriety among the Christian faithful, he was investigated by the Securitate. For his stand against communism, Father Arsenios was expelled from Sâmbăta, sentenced to prison and sent to the Canal, an example of dignity and support for his suffering brothers.

In 1948, he was forcibly transferred from Sâmbăta to Prislop Monastery, where he became abbot and, after the monastery became a nunnery, he remained confessor until 1959, when the communists dissolved the monastery and Father Arsenios Boca was forced to live in Bucharest. Here he was employed as a second painter in the church of St. Elefterie, and in 1961 he was employed in the painting workshop of the Patriarchate in Schitul Maicilor.

Painter at the Drăgănescu Church

After his retirement in 1968, he began to paint the church in Dragănescu, where he worked for 15 years.

“It is a light of tones open to the world, like the spirit and the face of the descended Saviour, to bring us the light from above, radiating from the painting of Your Holiness. It’s a new style, a new painting, according to the new vision you carry in your soul”. These are the words of Nichifor Crainic, fascinated by Drăgănescu’s transfigured painting. It is not an ordinary one, because Father Arsenios didn’t limit himself strictly to the classical iconographic canon. Although he was forbidden to preach, he did so in a different way – with his brush and colours. The painting in Drăgănescu shows us, among other things, moments from the life and passion of Saint Stephen the New, at the time of the iconoclastic emperor Constantine Copronymus, who was martyred on 28 November. The prophetic aspect of the personality of Father Arsenios is emphasised, pointing out the similarities between the two lives of Saint Stephen the New and himself, both of whom died on the same day.

Less than a year after the completion of the painting of the church of Drăgănescu, Fr. Arsenios Boca went to meet the Lord in the monastery of Sinaia, where he had increasingly retired. Arsenie was buried, as he had wished, in the cemetery of Prislop Monastery on 4 December.

By his spiritual life, by his unfailing love for Christ, Father Arsenios bears witness to the meaning of the mission entrusted to him. In addition to being a priest and a servant of the holy altar, we can see in him a true witness to the Gospel, a prophet of the nation and a fighter for the defence of the right faith. Like the righteous of the Old Testament, though persecuted and imprisoned, the Father calls all of us of the “Christian and God-loving” nation to taste the light of Christ.

“If you do not forgive, God will not forgive you”.

 

“Usually people only turn to God when they are in danger, when God’s justice catches up with them and they are to be held accountable for what they have done. It is not bad to return to God even then, at the eleventh hour; but it would be far better to come to your eternal rites of your own free will, and not to be dragged by the sleeve or beaten with the rod from behind. If we were more reasonable, we would see that God, the Precious One, lovingly calls us from the morning of life to the Holy Mystery of Penance, so that we do not end up in the evening of life so full of evil. The mystery of Penance is God’s merciful judgement on us sinners when we go willingly and confess our faults.

The mystery of repentance is great, not only because it transforms one from evil to good, from God’s enemy to His friend, but also because such a great thing is covered with a humble countenance. The infinite mercy of the Father, in order to save his sons from the severe judgement of righteousness according to works, sends down from heaven his only begotten Son to judge them mercifully and without fear, and to reconcile them to Himself. In the Sacrament of Confession, you ask God, to whom you confess yourself as present and as His servant, the interpreter of His will to you and your messenger to God, to forgive you the multitude of sins you have done, listing them all as your conscience helps you. And God is good to you, for He forgives you all your sins, but only if you forgive your brothers’ sins from your heart. If you do not forgive, God will not forgive you. And we must forgive everyone from the bottom of our hearts. (The Way of the Kingdom, Hieromonk Arsenios Boca)

The painting of Father Arsenius “hangs on the edge of eternity”.

The village of Drăgănescu lies opposite Mihăilești, at the opposite end of the reservoir. The church, although small, can be seen from afar among the surrounding trees.

 

The name of the commune comes from a boyar, Fotache Știrbei Drăgănescu, son of Badea Știrbei, one of the 15 boyars who did not leave Bucharest for Brașov during the 1821 revolution, but stayed behind, even though Tudor Vladimirescu had entered the capital Muntenia. The land on which the church was built belonged to the estate of Prisicenii de Jos, also known as Drăgănescu, whose owner had bought it at auction for 2,500 talers. It had been donated to the Church of “Saint Elias” – Rahova, a foundation of the same Dragănescu nobles.

The present building was erected in 1870, after the Argeș River had flooded in 1866, destroying the cemetery and the nearby wooden church. Father Savian Bunescu was the parish priest at the time when the church of Drăgănescu was painted by the hieromonk Arsenios Boca. He served here from 1937. After his years in prison, he returned to his church, where he continued his mission until 2004.

The unknown painter from Drăgănescu was much sought after by the people

Father Arsenios painted in the small church of Drăgănescu for more than 15 years. Father Savian Bunescu said that there were biblical scenes that Father Boca worked on at night. But how did Father Arsenios Boca come to live and work in Drăgănescu? The prioress of Prislop, Mother Zamfira, was the sister of Priestess Ligia, the wife of Priest Savian. It was through her that the priest managed to stay here. The village didn’t know who they were hosting. Arsenios was just the painter sent by the Patriarchate. They didn’t know that he was a priest or a monk.

During his stay in Drăgănescu, the church painter lived in the parish house with the priest’s family. Although he was not serving, the people who knew him from Sâmbăta, especially those from the Ardennes, came to see him here, on the outskirts of Bucharest, to ask for his prayers and his advice.

“Do you still know the Lord’s Prayer?”

“I met Father Arsenios in 1986, says Father Răzvan Petcu, the current pastor of the local church. I came to Drăgănescu mostly brought by Daniela, who became my wife, then just a colleague at the Faculty of Atomic Physics in Măgurele. I saw and spoke with His Holiness twice. He had great grace and power. It was something moving. In the first meeting I was afraid. The painting was finished. When I reached the door of the church, he turned to me and asked, “Do you still know the Lord’s Prayer?” When I was little I used to pray a lot. But when I got to high school, I grew cold in faith and ended up not knowing the Lord’s Prayer at all. Father knew this and asked me gentle questions to make me aware of the state I was in. Then I had another conversation with him.

He was not imposing in his human qualities. There was something special about him. You couldn’t look him in the eye. You had the real feeling that he knew you very well. That he knew the unseen parts of you. Maybe that’s why you were afraid of him. He didn’t use harsh words, he had no manufactured authority. He was natural, spontaneous and unearthly”.

The frescoes of Drăgănescu are a catechesis on the walls of the church

There have been several assessments of the Drăgănescu painting. Father Arsenios’ style is unique and personal. One is struck by the unique way in which he captures the most important events of New Testament history. You are also surprised by the light that penetrates you when you see this painting. When you look at it, you are surrounded by peace. Nichifor Crainic said of Drăgănescu’s iconographic register that it “hangs on the edge of eternity”. The theology professor, who had experienced the terror of communist prisons, came here after 1970 and was impressed by what he saw. The painting is very spiritual, very educational. It’s a catechesis that goes beyond the walls of the church.

It is deeply dogmatic and biblical. When Father Savian catechised the parishioners after the events of 1989, he would often ask them questions that those in front of him could not always answer. Then he would say to them: “Look at the walls of the church and see the Scriptures. Father Arsenios ‘wrote’ by painting all the important moments of the Saviour’s life”.

Each iconographic register is explained by one or more biblical verses.

The Apocalypse, behind the Resurrection of Christ

The scene on the northern wall of the nave, depicting the Resurrection of the Saviour from the tomb, is impressive. Christ has a transfigured, transparent body, which passes through the rectangular stone of the tomb, which is depicted horizontally. On contemplating it, one discovers the power of the Risen Lord, for whom matter is no longer an insurmountable barrier. The mandorla is light in colour, ranging from red to yellow, and the Saviour is depicted in white. It is the only fresco in which Jesus is depicted with light-coloured hair.

In the Resurrection scene, the world is in flames in the background on either side of Christ. The association of the Resurrection with the Apocalypse, with the Second Coming of the Lord on earth, is deeply theological. The dark sun, the clouds of dust and smoke, the blocks of skyscrapers engulfed in a blaze of fire are sketched in bright red and orange by the inspired painter. What could be the message of this painting? Why the apocalypse after the resurrection? Father Răzvan Petcu explains: “The world that does not believe in the Resurrection will burn. The Resurrection is the basis of the Last Judgement”.

The Church of the East and the Church of the West

Another unique fresco, which you won’t find in any other church in Romania, is on the north wall of the pronaos, near the entrance. The frescoes are of St. Sophia of Constantinople, the work of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, and of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The former is shown in the foreground against a light background and the latter, slightly behind, in a grey tint. Interestingly, both churches are under the same arc of light and grace. Below the image is a quotation from St. Cyprian of Carthage: Extra ecclesia nulla salus! (Outside the Church there is no salvation!). Father Arsenios often said that we should not quarrel with other confessions, but try to live authentically the doctrine that our Church preaches.

(Augustin Păunoiu – Lumina Newspaper)