Fr. Ilarion Felea (en)

I was born, according to my mother, in the commune Valea-Bradului, Brad county, Hunedoara region, on the Friday of Florii, in 1903, when the calendar commemorates the Pious Ilarion the New. If this date is correct, both the civil register of Brad, which gives my date of birth as 13 April (new style), and the baptismal register of the parish of Valea-Bradului, which gives my date of baptism as 31 March 1903 (old style), without giving my date of birth, are wrong. My father, born in Ciuruleasa Abrudului, was a priest (died 21 January 1920, aged 62), and my mother […]

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Father Ilarion Felea is not well known in our time. He was a preacher of the Gospel who was much appreciated by the people and the intelligentsia in the middle of the last century. A professor at the Theological Academy of Arad, Father Felea wrote many theological works, the most important of which is Towards Tabor, a work that Father Justin Pârvu considers “the best work of Romanian Orthodoxy to date”. Father Ilarion Felea is a true liturgical genius of Orthodox theology, of the Orthodox Church. (…) The work Towards Tabor is the second, after that treasure of Orthodoxy called […]

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It is difficult for me to begin to write a personal testimony about “Uncle Ilarie”, because I “baptised” him, together with my sister, when he was only a few years old. He was my mother’s maternal uncle, our grandmother, born in Țara Moților, where he saw the light of day, and the one who would become the priest Prof. Dr. Ilarion Felea. He was born into a Moți family where his father was a priest. There is something special in the structure of the Moți people, not just my impression or opinion. The whole history speaks for itself. The Moți […]

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I stayed with Fr. Felea in Aiud. He was also a protopriest and professor of theology in Arad. And he worked in the factory in the forge. He had a lung inflammation and they didn’t want to put him in the hospital. And he got a permanent lung inflammation while he was working in the factory. And he got better.

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We arrived in Caracal with 31 legionaries. As we queued, a more modern Soviet colonel, wearing sunglasses and better dressed than the other peasants and miners, asked me in Russian, I was translated: “Why were you brought here?” I replied: “I was a legionnaire.”

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It was around 1960-61, in the cell in Aiud. One day it was announced, through the media, from the prison, from the wall, from the Morse code on the wall: Father Ilarion Felea has died! Who didn’t know Father Felea in Aiud? We all knew from each other that he was a professor at the Orthodox Theological Academy in Arad, he was my teacher and above all my teacher.

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Father Professor Dr. Ilarion V. Felea, Rector of the Theological Academy of Arad, sentenced on 28 October 1949 by the Military Tribunal of Timișoara to 1 year for failure to denounce, sentenced a second time on 14 March 1959 by the Military Tribunal of Cluj to 20 years for intensive activity against the working class and the revolutionary movement, died on 18 September 1951. Apparently as a result of an intestinal obstruction and the refusal of minimal medical assistance. Premeditated murder. His exemplary character could not be ignored. The memories of those who knew him during his imprisonment are unforgettable. […]

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