Fr. Ioan Iovan (en)

Father Ioan Iovan of Recea – A tough, staunch and anti-communist monk

His life Father Ioan Iovan was born on 26 June 1922 in Husasău of Criș, Bihor County, the son of the priest Gavril Iovan and the priestess Maria. We can see that he grew up in a healthy spiritual environment, which laid the foundation for what he was to become. He attended primary school in the village, secondary school in Oradea and the Faculty of Theology in Cluj. Those were hard times, the northern part of Ardeal was ceded. In 1946 he defended his bachelor’s thesis entitled “The Holy Eucharist and the Mystical Life” at the Faculty of Theology in […]

“God loved Father John very much”

Of all the prisoners who in one way or another enjoyed the blessing of Fr. Arsenie [Boca], Fr. Ioan received the longest sentence, 25 years. I believe that no Romanian priest has been more slandered and insulted than this priest, an example of Christian life. The most absurd accusations, the most vicious lies have accompanied his ordeal. If I think about a statement made by Mother Sica, God loved Father Ioan very much because he found him capable of carrying such a heavy cross. I knew Father Ioan as Silviu Iovan. He came to see me the day I finished […]

Father Ioan – The road from Vladimirești to the communist dungeons

Another known person, but whilst in freedom, from the monastery of Sâmbăta in Făgăraș was Father Ioan from Vladimireștii Tecuciului. When I knew him, he had been called Silviu Iovan since his student days. We were contemporaries in Sibiu, he was a student at the Andrean Theological Academy, but we met in the F.O.R.S. (Romanian Orthodox Student Fellowship), either at the meetings at the University or at those held at their Academy, where during Lent they held meditations and vespers in the chapel inside, painted with the same talent by Octav Smighelschi, the painter who also decorated the Metropolitan Cathedral. […]

“He was a priest with whom conversation was a spiritual bath and an enrichment.”

The days passed quickly in Jilava Fortress. From one day to the next, we all waited to leave. Especially us newcomers. The mornings began with a silent prayer led by Father Iovan, to which Mr Blăgoianu responded from his bed. On Sundays there was a real Liturgy, which lasted until almost midday. Then the priest would hear confessions and take communion, sometimes giving canons according to the errors. I don’t know how he managed to keep a silver cross, one of those used in the church. He also had a bottle of tonic wine, unexpectedly received from the doctor’s office, […]

Spiritual delights with Father John, in the Aiud’s Zarca

The next day, in the morning, the corridor comes alive. I heard footsteps and muffled orders. The door to my cell opened and a guard, with an air of mystery about him, ordered me to put my zebra on my head and go outside. After a few steps I’m joined by a group of three prisoners and we make our way to a cell. We stopped in front of a door. As we entered, one of my unknown comrades poked his head out from under the wedge, raised his eyes and muttered something cryptic: – Five! The number of the […]

Father John face to face with the tyrant Crăciun

After another two or three months, we, the Zarca, were gathered again in a large room. Colonel Crăciun and his retinue were seated at a table on the stage. They were all seated in chairs, except for the Colonel, who remained standing. He looked at us first – as if he were analysing each one of us. Then he said: – Gentlemen, I have come to you with a newspaper containing many very interesting articles. But one of them is really important. Which of you would like to come here and read it? All the prisoners searched the floor with […]

“All the regime food he received he gave to others”

One day at the cinema I was sitting in the back seat[1]. The lights had gone out for the film. Someone brought the great monk Ioan Iovan, the former confessor of the Vladimirești monastery in Tecuci, to me in the dark. I knew that he was in prison, that he had tuberculosis, that he was on an improved diet and that he gave most of his food to others, so much so that one wonders what he lived on. I had admired his work at Vladimirești, even though he had been so challenged and even catechised. But we still admired […]

“He had all his fingers frostbitten, sitting every day for seven hours in prayer”

About a month after the “walks” of the big ones,[1] the first re-education session was organised, in which several hundred people were taken out of their cells and put in a room with a capacity of five hundred people. I was one of those taken out. The commander, Colonel Crăciun, opened the session with a short speech praising the government’s good intentions in dealing with the fate of political prisoners. Then he took an army newspaper, ‘The Voice of the Fatherland’, from the table and had one of the prisoners read out articles written by those who had been taken […]

“Go and meet Father Iovan”

“Go and see Father Iovan,” Professor Nicolae Balotă urged me. “You really have to talk to him. At the end of a road that you have travelled for twenty-five years, talking to him will open your eyes to many things”. I arrived at Recea Monastery one day in September, accompanied by my children – George (almost seven years old), Mihnea (almost five years old) and my wife, Ruxandra Manuela. Right from the start we were impressed by the complex of specifically Romanian architecture built near Târgu Mureș by skilful and hard-working people, led by Mother Abbess Stavrofora Cristina. Entering the […]

Man of God – Father Ioan from Recea

At Recea monastery near Târgu-Mureș, the church is always full. The faithful, who come by the thousands from all over the country, struggle to listen to their confessor, Father Ioan Iovan. Waiting for the ordeal Inside the high church, with its spires raised to the sky like two hands in prayer, the priest’s voice resounds like a mystical bell. Even a simple onlooker shudders. The priest’s words come from deep within. They have power. He spoke of Christ as if He were there, right next to him. “The Saviour is with us. He is here, on the holy table”. Not […]

“Father Ioan, an exceptional comrade hardened in suffering”

The “Jehovah’s Witnesses” of the Canal in the “Priests’ Brigade” had many qualities: they were hardworking, courageous, disciplined, enterprising and in solidarity with each other, a solidarity that went to the point of absurdity, but also some defects. […] Above all, they hated priests, both Catholic and Orthodox. For them, the Pope of Rome was Mammon, and the priests were hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, lying priests who broke the law. […] The Jesuits – we say this with sorrow because they were our comrades in suffering – were interested in the teaching of the Gospels only in those verses that […]

Ioan Iovan – a priest full of grace and a great orthodox practitioner

I first heard about Father Ioan from Vladimirești in Jilava prison. Everyone spoke very highly of him and his spiritual life. He was considered an ascetic and a martyr of our Christian faith. Here, in the large TB ward of Aiud prison, I had the opportunity to meet him personally and to be convinced that he was indeed a priest-monk full of grace with a great life in the Lord. He entered this ward as a real pulmonary patient, even with a pulmonary cavern. But despite the seriousness of his illness, he refused treatment. He had his own treatment: prayer. […]

Father Ioan and the gift of foresight

This material is an excerpt from the book “The Diary of Conversion” by the well-known theologian Danion Vasile. This testimony is written from the perspective of a man who, although under the influence of esoteric teachings alien to the spirit of Orthodoxy, was still searching for the truth. As he returns to Orthodoxy, we see how the author radically changes his erroneous beliefs, including those about certain people and events. What we want to highlight here, however, is the gift of foresight of Father Ioan Iovan: 16 May 1992 After so much waiting, what I had waited for so long […]

“It was not I who took the real shower, but the sergeant who accompanied me.”

One of the main concerns of the Securitate in relation to the prison regime was to imbue the relationship between guards and prisoners with hatred (the hatred that underlies communist ideology). There should be no human connection between guards and prisoners. All our relations with the guards were regulated in detail by a cold, inhuman and cruel set of rules, the main purpose of which was to dehumanise the bonds between us. And yet, to our great joy, humanity and sometimes even Christian love broke through the armour of hatred. It is with great joy that I recall those extraordinary […]