“In prison he was perfect, he was like a saint”

I had a fellow prisoner, Ioan Ianolide. You’ve heard of him, he wrote a book too. He was a saint in prison. After he was released, one day he called me and told me and Father Grigore Băbuș to go and see him. I saw him at home. He was lying on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, calm, serene, as he always was. We had two chairs next to his bed and he said to us: “I called you to say goodbye because I have been diagnosed with terminal cancer and I am going to die soon. I want to talk to you before we say goodbye”. And his last words were: “I have not called you here for any religious service, I have confessed and communed. I am ready to go. I have called you here to ask you one thing. You are both monks and priests, pray for me! If you pray, I will feel the vibration of your prayer where I am, but if you look at me and do not pray for me, I will feel more and more alone there”.

I mention Ion Ianolide in all my prayers and at the Proskomidia, a small part for him.

(Archbishop Bartholomew Anania – excerpt of a sermon delivered at the funeral of Father Ioan Iovan published in the work “Father Ioan Iovan”, edited by the nun Cristina stavrofora, Monastery “Nativity of the Mother of God”, Târgu Mureș, 2002, pp. 123-124)