Ioan Ianolide – the man with the appearance of a saint
One evening,[1] before dinner, a tall, handsome prisoner was brought into the room with a small ball under his arm and a handkerchief full of blood in his mouth:
– You see him?” said the guard from the door of the room, “he’s been in prison for over twenty years and he’s sick, he needs a bed under the window!
– My name is Ianolide Ioan, I’ve been in prison since 1941, when I was a student. I’m sick with tuberculosis, I spit blood, look,” he said, showing us his handkerchief, and continued:
I also have another illness, I can’t keep my balance. I’ve been hit on the head and I’m always shaking, I can’t control myself! Is there a priest among you? If so, please bless me!
– Lord God, bless this brother Ioan who has come among us!” said the priest Popescu Buzău.
After the blessing, the room was in turmoil for a few minutes. The inmates in the beds under the window did not want to make room for Ioan, who desperately needed air to stop the Koch’s bacillus. Ianolide, who was accustomed with different kind of arguments during his long imprisonment and had had his share of incidents, sat quietly in bed with Romeo Pușcașu against the door.
Ioan Ianolide, 38 years old, more than twenty of them spent in Romanian prisons, carried with him two great gifts from God: beauty of soul and physical beauty. During my time in prison, I never met another man with such a beautiful soul, at peace with his situation. He was a saint among saints. More than twenty years in prison, through all the curses of the devilish mind of some people, through frost, famine, war and death, typhus and tuberculosis. If one compares the torments of the early Christians, who were burned in fire and torn apart by beasts, Ianolides’ torments surpass them.[2] They suffered for a few minutes and died, but he is tormented for decades. One day, when I was lying opposite him in my bed, he said to me:
– Mr. Ungureanu, I’m shaking, I can’t keep my balance, I have to stay in bed. I was taken to Sighetul Marmației, to an investigation, to testify for a man with whom I once shared a prison cell. An innocent man. I couldn’t lie, I couldn’t press the poor man, I didn’t want to burden myself with sins, and for that I was hit on the head.[3] Since then I’ve been trembling and can’t keep my balance. I’m not angry with anyone, I thank God and ask him to help me bear it all until I go[4] to my friend Gafencu, who died in Targu Ocna….. Gafencu, an extraordinary young man, who was seriously ill in the T.B.C. hospital of Târgu Ocna prison, shared his food and medicine with others. He was a true saint. His faith, his behaviour, his gestures, all place him among the saints…
While in the room there were arguments, quarrels, stories of pain, fears, Ianolide, with his Prince Charming figure, sang psalms, free from all inner turmoil. He was an example of life in prison, a life surrounded by a divine aura. (…)
[In Aiud, in the same cell where Constantine Gane died, Ion Ianolide was brought in, the man who had spent more than twenty-three years in prison, the man with the appearance of a saint.
(George Ungureanu – Camera zero, Alexandru Bogza Cultural Foundation Publishing House, Câmpulung Moldovenesc, 2009, pp. 139-140, 151)
[1] The action takes place in Jilava, in the summer of 1960. Ioan Ianolide was transferred to Jilava at the beginning of April 1960 and then sent to Aiud at the end of August 1960.
[2] The memoirist here points out a feature that is in fact general for the non-martyrs who have passed through the political-religious repression of the 20th century, but one that is different from the mucilages of the first centuries: namely that the latter were subjected to much greater and longer suffering than the former. This is how the limits of martyrdom were exceeded by inventing even more draconian means of suffering. But as the same Holy Spirit has strengthened all the mucilages throughout the ages, from the first to the last, we understand that with the multiplication of the tortures and bestialities of the persecutors, God also multiplies grace, to strengthen the faithful towards good witness.
[3] The beating with the hands, fists or even with a baton over the head was a type of torture frequently used by the Securitate investigators, but these methods were intended not only to frighten but above all to destabilize the coherent judgment of the person under investigation.
[4] “until I go”, meaning “until I die”, which shows that the happy John had the great wisdom to think about death all the time, while leaving himself in God’s full care so that he could get through all the trials of martyrdom.