In prisons people were purified through suffering

We were imprisoned by the will of man and by the will of God. Yet in the Romanian prisons, a concentration of spiritual forces gradually formed—little by little lifting the prisoners toward God.

People purified themselves through suffering, through the strength of faith, through sacrifice. Some died in faith. Others resisted temptation and ascended to heaven as saints, and only God knows the number of such saints.

Wonderful things happened to some of us—miracles we shared with one another. Yet many of God’s miracles among us remained unknown.

Among those who experienced such grace was I (I confess this not out of pride, but with humility and a deep awareness of God’s mercy). I had visions, and for a time I was dazzled by His glory, for God’s presence was constant within me. In His light, I witnessed divine wonders beyond what is visible on earth, wonders that I could never fully perceive even if I lived countless lives.

And now I ask myself: have we truly been set free? It is certain—it was God’s will. For the authorities had other intentions for us. They did not seek to kill us physically, but to destroy us spiritually. They wished to turn us into anything—into animals, into traitors, into perjurers—they sought to strip us of our humanity. They did not aim to create saints.

Yet they came to realize that through torture and torment, some became martyrs, others were strengthened in the divine spirit. These outcomes no longer served their evil purposes.

At no point were we explicitly told: “We do not want to kill you, but to break your spirit, destroy your faith, reduce you to rags—socially, morally, physically—and only then may you die.” Rather, they shouted: “This is your destiny! Society does not need you. You are lepers, you are madmen!”

They had the power to dehumanize us, and they demonstrated it in Pitești, with the youth of 1948–1950. Through diabolical methods, nearly all of them succumbed. Yet God’s grace intervened, interrupting that hell. Those who had been broken, stripped of every vestige of physical and spiritual beauty, began to recover.

The diabolical work did not cease entirely. Those who had once fallen emerged stronger, more resilient, and no longer yielded—they preferred death to surrender. The great evil spirit, Satan, could not abide this citadel of both human fall and resurrection.

The spirits of the departed ascended to the purified heavens, and the heavens themselves seemed to descend upon those who remained in the dungeons, comforting them. They became more aware of their journey; they could sense the smoke of sacrifice rising to God.

Satan, however, grew impatient and sought to destroy this spiritual citadel, to fracture the unity and power reaching toward heaven. He knew that scattered individuals would be more easily swayed by worldly temptations, that those who had resisted whip and toil could succumb to pleasure and comfort. He sought to remove the Spirit of God from humanity, to defeat God within us.

That is why we were released from prison in 1964—according to Satan’s reasoning and the state leadership’s calculations. The overt struggle had ended.

What followed was a long period of spiritual inertia, of stagnation. We are lukewarm now. And that is why the Lord will pour us out unless we grow fervent.

On what foundation should we ignite this fervor? On faith in God, on the basis of forgiving all who have harmed us—those who, against their will, created the conditions for confirming and strengthening our faith. It was through these trials that we became martyrs and saints.

Forgiveness does not harden faith—it creates fertile ground for spiritual growth. What we must do now is burn with desire for growth in the Spirit, for spiritual perfection, for the aspiration to ascend toward heaven—to soar so high that heaven descends to us, and that Jesus finds His dwelling and His altar within our souls and bodies.

Let us burn, let us be flames, so that the cloud of divine lightning may pierce us. Let us be aflame in the battle with ourselves and with the evil within us, allowing the evil of the world to remain secondary in our struggle.

(Ilie Mocanu – Excerpt from: Complete Writings of Blessed Elijah the Seer of God, Vol. 8, 6th manuscript notebook, pp. 377–382)