In prison, Anghel Papacioc was a monk in lay clothes

Until the 15th of November we enjoyed an “extra” diet, we even stocked up on potatoes and fruit for the winter, especially apples, and were allowed to prepare boiled potatoes or porridge in the cell by the gas lamps improvised by our comrades.

We only worked on potatoes and grapes for two weeks. I was in the cell with Anghel Papacioc, now Archimandrite Arsenie of Techirghiol. As he needed constant help, I stayed to look after him.

I could cook him one or two potatoes a day from the reserves, but he couldn’t eat more than that. We spent our time in prayer and spiritual discussion. He had been in the Miercurea Ciuc camp (1938-1939 under Carol II), where his brother, Radu Papacioc, had been killed in a bloody night like that of St. Bartholomew, re-enacted in our country by Carol II and his comrades.

Like the other legionaries, his body was marked by hardship and suffering, but his soul was even brighter. From him I learned not only to pray better, but above all to penetrate with the blade of the sword the “word of God’s truth” to the “roots”, to the depths of my spirit, and to bring to the altar of penance my deeds, words, thoughts, ideas and the smallest intentions, whether deliberate or forced, accidental or permanent, born of unconsciousness, stupidity or coming from outside, and received with good will in the house of my soul.

I had many theological writings – apart from the Holy Scriptures, which everyone had – which were nourishment and guidance on the path indicated by the Saviour through the Apostles and Fathers of the Church.

Anghel Papacioc was a monk in lay habit. There were many like him, some completely unknown to others. When I dedicated some of the hesychastic poems to the monastic rite”, I dared to add: “Not all those to whom I dedicated poems were priests or monks, but all those to whom I dedicated poems were priests or monks”: Valeriu Gafencu, Trifan Traian, Marian Traian, Schiau Ion, Naidim Marin, Mazăre Nicolae, Bălan Iulian, Foti Petru, Avram Sebastian, Jacotă Vasile, Pascu Constantin… In prison they were called mystics. For some, the meaning was ironic; for others, it showed that they were unattainable because they transcended the ordinary stages of life. Even today, the virtues of the good are reviled by some and venerated by others. “But”, says the Apostle to the Gentiles, “whether out of envy or out of faith, Christ is proclaimed, he is made known by my chain”.

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Anghel Papacioc, forgive me for this revelation, when he was praying he could neither hear nor see anything around him.

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In March, Anghel Papacioc moved into the cell with Mr. Trifan, and Naidim came to us. Mr. Trifan, a “mind digger”, felt the need to complement the act of affective, practical living, of acute sensitisation, and Anghel Papacioc completed and fulfilled his sensibility, he appropriated a method of spiritual investigation.

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Anghel Papacioc, Father Arsenius, was a traveller, without any doubt in his mind, on the well-trodden path of those who, through physical and spiritual hardship, arrive at the purification and enlightenment of the spirit.

(Virgil Maxim – Hymn for the Cross Carried)