Fr. Justin Pârvu (en)

Sanctified through suffering

As it is clear from the distant memories of the father, from the very beginning his life was centred and shaped by the music of the church and the bells, interrupted for a time by strange music, such as that of bells and chains, and then returning to the melody of childhood… Together with his four brothers, he spent his holidays in the monasteries, preferring Durău, where he entered as a novice at the age of 17 or 18. From here, after a year and a half, he went to Cernica to enter the seminary. As the priest humorously recounts, […]

“Father Justin was magnificent”

I met him at the Baia Sprie lead mine. For a long time we slept together at the Cavnic mine. But we became very close at the Periprava camp. Together with Father Ilinescu, he celebrated the Resurrection Liturgy in 1953. At midnight, when the bells of Cavnic began to ring, we all came out of the two dormitories into the hall, out of sight of the militiamen. Father Justin was magnificent. He participated in the Liturgy with all the devotion of which he was capable. He was tall, thin, with a serene face, like the saints of Nicolae Grigorescu of […]

Archimandrite Father Justin Pârvu shows people the way to salvation

“Let us return, people, to the icon!” This is the exhortation spoken with firmness and warmth by Father Archimandrite Justin Pârvu, confessor of the Athonite life and of the founding creations that astonish us when we learn and see them.

Father Justin – Man of Love, Elder, Hero, Martyr, Confessor

Mercy for the Mother of God! Before 1990, when he was in the monastery of Bistrița, a poor woman knocked at the door of Father Justin Pârvu’s cell. She came to ask for alms and the old monk, in his kindness, gave alms to the woman. “Father Justin tells us that as soon as he gave the woman alms, he was filled with a joy he had never felt before, a total peace and tranquillity,” says today hieromonk Siluan Antoci of Agafton Monastery. Father Justin understood at that moment that the woman who had entered his cell was the Mother […]

“We felt it was our duty to suffer with him”

– Father Amfilohie, what impressed you most about Father Justin? – The fact that he tried to practice the faith, to live it in the way that Scripture tells us to overcome the world. He was a man who overcame the world with the power of faith in Christ. Around him I sensed a special spiritual power that made people aware that they could not live without an ideal. In dialogue with Father Justin, you always asked yourself the essential questions of life: What are you looking for? Where are you? Where are you going? And this made him, for […]

Justin Pârvu – a priest-monk of high moral purity

I now have the opportunity to meet Father Justin Pârvu, a priest-monk who began his noviciate as a child in the Durău Hermitage. Tall and slender, serene and silent, with a soft and clear voice that is seldom heard at the age of 35-36, he seems to be taken from the ascetic iconography of Byzantine Orthodoxy, an image that compels me not only because of his appearance and behaviour, but also because of the thought that he has a long sentence. Unlike the monks whose chosen path has made them hard and stiff in their dealings with others, seeming to […]

“I consider him both father and mother of the Romanian people”

– Father Augustin, how did you meet Father Justin Pârvu? – I was in the eleventh grade of high school, I belonged to the Orthodox Youth League of Botoșani and every year at Christmas we prepared a programme of songs which we presented to the institutions of the city before the holidays, thus collecting money for a trip to the monasteries of Moldova. Obviously, the monastery of Petru-Vodă was the most attractive, because the fame of Father Justin was already well known in the area: a charismatic confessor, very patient with people, who was known to have suffered a lot […]

Father Justin – a candle in the darkness of this age

“I wanted to be like the Elder” – Father Justin Petre, tell us what Father Justin Pârvu meant for the life of your holiness? – Like many of those who knew him, I can say that Father Justin changed my life. It was during my university days, when I was determined to pursue a university career and was thinking of getting married. I was in my fourth year, before my degree, during the Easter holidays, and my brother picked me up and took me to see Father Justin. It was more out of curiosity that I went to see the […]

Father Justin, a true bearer of Christ

On the Neamț plain that leads to the village of Petru Vodă, on a road that is not easily accessible, full of potholes and stones, after passing through the village of houses hidden behind poor fences, houses that seem even smaller in the shadow of the wooded mountains, suddenly a clearing opens up, an unexpected sight from the 15th century: a few buildings around a church built on the model of those founded by St. Stephen the Great. You approach with quiet humility and look around to see if there is something written on the frontispiece of the church in […]

Facing a giant

During the long series of years of misfortune, in different situations and places, several priests who knew me suggested that I study theology or become a monk after my release from prison. To each of them I gave more or less the same answer: the mission is too great and I would take on this obligation before society and before God, who would crush me. I know that I cannot take on this responsibility. If I were to become God’s soldier, all I would have to do would be to walk on the paths that Jesus Christ has shown us, […]

With Father Justin, at Aiud, volunteer in the service of the nation

I have heard about Father Justin since the beginning of my journey through the prisons, I have met people who asked me about the monastery of Durău, where he served, about the mountains of Neamț, full of churches and monasteries, cells. with anchorites, caves. And I was proud of the places I came from, because they were sung by Calistrat Hogaș and Alexandru Vlahuță. But I met Father Iustin in Aiud, where we were together as “volunteers in the service of the nation”. Even then, Father had a halo around him. He was known to many as the “priest with […]

The arrest

But to see the method of arrest, perhaps this should be said: It was before the 14th of May of the year 1948, which is the night of Saint Bartholomew for Romania (…), it was the most odious night, the most criminal for the political and social history of Romania. I was in the Romanian diocese one day. Two very luxurious cars drove by, the most elegant I’ve ever seen. Interestingly, you couldn’t see anything inside, not even the driver. Everything was black. Man, what is it with these cars? Nobody knew, nobody had ever seen cars like that before. […]

The condemnation

Then came the trial in Suceava. Father still remembers with humour and amazement the parody of this trial. It took place only at night in the prison. Daylight would not have tolerated such a despicable framing of the guilty, which was actually the most legitimate and natural attitude of a man, a Christian and a Romanian. But then nothing was normal. The judges were the same ones who had condemned the Communists in 1941-1944, and now they hoped that by giving harsher sentences to the poor innocents, the Communists would be lenient with them and forgive them. But they hoped […]

Aiud – the first two years

Father was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment and was taken in a convoy to Aiud prison. Somewhere, towards Ilva Mica, there was a sunset that the 130 prisoners, crammed into a wagon that could hold up to 80 people, watched one by one. This landscape was perhaps some consolation in the stifling atmosphere of those wagons of torture. But here is Father Justin’s story: “In August, on a hot day, they loaded us into wagons and we left Suceava for Aiud. We were crowded together, very hot, sweat was pouring out of us, the lack of air made us gasp […]

Even the demon can be subdued by the power of faith

It was very difficult at that time to affirm the existence of God, to make God known. It was a situation in which my conscience was awakened. I was in the prison cell of Aiud. It is an old prison where our Romanians have suffered enormously since the time of Maria Theresa. This prison was renovated and used by politicians in those modern times of our history. It held about 2,700 inmates and looked like a large “T”. From time to time the authorities would ask each prisoner what his profession was, and if you told them you were a […]

The mine at Baia Sprie

From 1952 to 1954, Father Justin was in the mine of Baia Sprie. This was perhaps the hardest period, where he worked harder than animals and the harshness of the regime weakened his health, but God did not hesitate to show his mercy. Great mercy was shown to the priest because, at the end of this period in Aiud, he escaped being sent to Pitești, where the news had spread abroad. Political and intellectual circles in the Western world took notice and put pressure on the Communist authorities to stop the crimes against political prisoners. And so Father Justin ended […]

Aiud again – the last 4 years of the original 12

After the great hunger strike of 1956, Father Justin was sent back to Aiud for another four years. “And here, my dears, when the moment of death was constantly before your eyes,[1] you were no longer interested in what life was like beyond the walls. For me, here was everything. When I entered Aiud’s cell for the second time, somewhere in the east, there was a small nut tree about the size of a finger, a plant, and when I came out (after four years) it had blocked all the glass and cast shadows on the walls. For example, when […]

Father Justin’s last years of detention, spent in the Danube Delta

Here we are in 1960, when Fr. Justin’s first period of imprisonment ends. But it seems that the gold had to be purified even more, because Fr. Justin’s “exile” did not end there. The cross of this nation’s suffering had yet to be borne by these dignitaries of Orthodoxy. “I am a free man and I do what I want.[1] I am not afraid of people”. This phrase, uttered by Father Justin in front of the communist interrogators, cost him another 4 years of hard imprisonment on top of the 12 he had already served. His words really meant: “I […]

I have never met a lighter, more discreet being who never complained about anything

I met Father Justin Pârvu in the Aiud penitentiary around 1956. Perhaps Father could tell us more about this period, but I doubt that he would, because he had definitely chosen the path of confession in Christ. At one time (I can’t remember how long) there were four of us in a cell: Father Iustin Pârvu, old man Cocâlnău (from Iași), Vasile Pătrașcu (today a priest; then a student at the Commercial Academy) and me. What impressed me most about Father Iustin was that, as the Saviour told us and as he did after each miracle, he passed unnoticed, slipping […]