“I believe Father Sofian is a Saint”

Raluca Tănăseanu: I know that Fr. Sofian was your confessor. What impressed you most about His Holiness?

Protosinghel Teofan Popescu (Putna Monastery): I confessed to Father Sofian for the last eleven years before he died. I was impressed by a certain spirit that he transmitted. The academic Virgil Cândea said that Father Sofian was par excellence the model of the Romanian confessor of the modern age, a model that we need so much. This type of Romanian confessor kept our nation in this spirit of balance, peace, gentleness, prayer of the heart.

Father Sofian had a spiritual inheritance and that is why he passed on this spirit. He confessed to Fr. John Kulighin of Optina, and the hermitage in Bessarabia, where Fr. Sofian came from, was again a hermitage of Paisian influence. The monastery of Căldărușani, to which some of the Bessarabian monks retired after the Soviet occupation – where Father Sofian was for a time – was also a hermitage of Paisian influence.  Let’s not forget that Father Sofian belonged to the “Burning Bush”, a spiritual movement with a deeply hesychast foundation.

Father Sofian, through the power of prayer that he had, helped you to get out of situations where, humanly speaking, you couldn’t find a solution. When you came to him with very difficult problems, he was not in a hurry to give you an immediate answer. He would sit for a while, pray for a few moments and in very complicated, very delicate problems he would give you an answer according to God’s will. When I was in the Association of Orthodox Christian Students (ASCOR), especially in the four years I was president, I encountered such very difficult problems. I was very amazed to see how Father, as a true man of God, felt what God’s will was even in some very messy and far-reaching situations among the students. In fact, ASCOR Bucharest’s heyday, from 1992 to 2001, bears the indelible stamp of Father Sofian’s blessings, prayers and advice. These fruitful meetings with Father have made me understand that the hesychast vision, in the broadest sense of the word, is the key to the truth.

I believe that Father Sofian is a Saint – and I say this not only because I followed his life as much as I could as a layman at that time, but also because I concretely felt this intercession that the saints have for us. In two very difficult moments for me, from the point of view of my soul, I felt his intercession – once when Father Sofian was alive and the second time after his death. I went to Father Sofian’s tomb and again he helped me with the same indescribable power as when he was alive. I have no doubt that Father Sofian is a Saint.

Father also had the prayer of the heart. He was very careful not to say it. I kept baiting him: “You know that some books have come out…” and I kept baiting him like that, but he very, very little spoke… he spoke as if he was another. He had this prayer of the heart, acquired with a spirit of repentance, with a spirit of humility, which, we have to admit, is quite rare, it’s not very easy.

It seems to me that Father Sofian left a spiritual mark on the capital in the first decade after the Revolution, and that many people went to confession with him; His Beatitude Father Teoctist and other hierarchs also went to confession with him. From this point of view, he also left a spiritual mark on the Holy Synod. He was a spiritual authority, and he gave you a spirit of balance, of peace, of prayer, of spiritual serenity, which I thought was everywhere – well, it’s not everywhere. I think this spirit of equilibrium came from his life of prayer and from his humility in accepting the great sufferings he had gone through. I noticed that this spirit of equilibrium was passed on to some of his disciples.

You see, we Romanians are going through a very difficult time in many ways, and we need a certain balance, without extremes. It’s much easier to go to extremes than to maintain a balance. I think that the more we go to extremes (extremes of any kind), the easier we are to be manipulated. 

“Father Sofian was surrounded by Light…”

R.T.: Did you feel that God spoke to you through him when you went to confession?

P.T.: Yes. I often had the feeling that I was standing before a mountain of meekness, of humility, of prayer. I don’t even know if I can put into words the feeling I had and I have every time I go to Father Sofian’s tomb. It is something that cannot be explained in words.

R.T.: You are a confessor now. What would you like to inherit from Father Sofian in this line?

P.T.: I would like a lot, but I still have a long, long way to go before I am in a similar line to Father Sofian… Of course, I confessed then as a layman – how much could I understand certain problems as a layman? As a monk, you see things differently, you understand them differently. Of course, I wish that Father Sofian had lived more years.

I’ll tell you another thing: there are others who confessed to Father Sofian and who say that many times when Father Sofian was serving, the church of Antim was full of light – and it was not this ordinary light… I spoke to someone who told me that he was interned in Bucharest in the 90s and he kept hearing about Father Sofian, but he didn’t know him. So he went to a service in Antim and sat at the back of the pews. As he looked towards the holy altar, he saw Father Sofian with his head and most of his body surrounded by light. He said to himself, “Gee, maybe it’s an illusion…”. He looked closely a few times and it was true: Father was surrounded by an unusual Light.

R.T.: Can you tell us about an event with Father Sofian that marked you?

P.T.: What marked me the most were the moments when I was helped. They were very difficult moments. Father was still alive and I went to confession, but I was not well at all. Afterwards, after a very short time – it’s clear that Father was praying for me, because I saw that he was also sad about my state of disorder – I felt a help that clearly didn’t come from me. Then I was able to pray perhaps the best of my whole life. The second moment was when I went to Father Sofian’s grave and prayed, and the same thing happened to me, so I could not let go of the grave.

I think more people should go to Father Sofian’s tomb and pray and ask for his help. When it was ten years after Father Sofian’s death, Father Patriarch Daniel himself said in a word that he was waiting for Father Sofian to be taken to Antim Monastery in a reliquary. I hope that he will be canonised and that he will be brought to Antim, because that is what Father Sofian said, that Antim Monastery is his life. I think it would be nice to be transferred there, especially since many of those who have confessed to Father Sofian now find it difficult to get to Căldărușani. If they were in Antim, it would be easier for them to worship and receive help.

And I would like to tell you something else: I now carry with me a picture of the icon of Father Sofian, from which myrrh flowed in the presence of many people. The icon was in the cell of Schemamonk Paisia, who died at the age of 104 and is buried in Pasărea Monastery. 

(Raluca Tănăseanu, “Archimandrite Sofian of Antim Monastery” in Orthodox Family no. 9 (92), September 2016, pp. 9-12)