Life of Father Ilarion Felea the Confessor

Father Ilarion Felea is not well known in our time. He was a preacher of the Gospel who was much appreciated by the people and the intelligentsia in the middle of the last century. A professor at the Theological Academy of Arad, Father Felea wrote many theological works, the most important of which is Towards Tabor, a work that Father Justin Pârvu considers “the best work of Romanian Orthodoxy to date”. Father Ilarion Felea is a true liturgical genius of Orthodox theology, of the Orthodox Church. (…)

The work Towards Tabor is the second, after that treasure of Orthodoxy called the Philokalia, which is a perfect explanation of the Philokalia. . About his great spiritual experience, Father Stăniloae confessed: “Father Ilarion Felea has surpassed me”. Even if the following text does not succeed in giving a complete picture of Father Ilarion’s personality, we offer it to the readers, hoping that in the near future, when Father Ilarion’s diary will see the light of print, we will be able to understand more about this humble confessor of Christ, who died in the dungeons of Aiud and who now rejoices with all the holy Martyrs in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Professor Ilarion Virgil Felea, the author of this precious volume, was born on 21 March 1903 in Valea Bradului, Hunedoara County, where his father was a priest. He attended primary school in his native commune (1910-1914) and secondary school at the “Avram Iancu” Gymnasium in Brad (1914-1920) and at the “Moise Nicoară” Gymnasium in Arad (1920-1922), where he obtained his baccalaureate.

Between 1922 and 1926, he studied theology at the “Andrei Șaguna” Academy in Sibiu, where he received his priestly diploma on 22 June 1926. On 29 July 1927, he was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Sibiu, and from 6 August of the same year he served as a parish priest in Valea Bradului until 30 August 1930, when he transferred to the Diocese of Arad, where he received the parish of Arad-Sega through a competition. Between 1927 and 1929, he attended and graduated from the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in Cluj.

In the parish of Arad-Sega, recently separated from the parish of Arad-Centre, the young and enthusiastic priest inherited a new church built in red, a modest parish house, a “cultural house”, a former confessional school that needed to be renovated and enlarged, and a population made up mainly of Orthodox Romanians, most of whom were tradesmen and workers in the nearby “Astra” and UTA factories.

With his tenacity as a great fighter and sacrificer for the Church and the nation, with his missionary zeal, pious altar server and vocational shepherd, “who lays down his soul for his sheep” (Jn 10:11), “without reproach”. …, a wise and gentle watchman, a lover of strangers, a teacher of others…, not greedy of evil gain, but gentle, peaceable, not a lover of silver, a good steward of his own house…”. (1 Timothy 3:2-4), happily combining the altar and the pulpit of the church with the teaching of the school and the intense activity of the Cultural House, he managed to win in a short time the hearts and the interest of the faithful. During the nine years of his ministry and pastorate in this parish, he did not give up his efforts of knowledge and theological deepening, nor the gift of writing, which he had begun in 1924, as a student, in the Theological Magazine of Sibiu.

On 20 December 1932, he graduated from the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest with a thesis on “Salvation according to Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Sectarian Concepts”, and on 30 October 1939, he received his Doctorate in Theology with a valuable thesis on “Repentance, a study of theological and psychological documentation”, published in the “Theological Series”. During this period he also collaborated with the following magazines and newspapers Revista Teologică and Telegraful Român from Sibiu, Biserica și Școala, Apărarea Națională, Aradul, Granița, from Arad, Renașterea from Cluj, Viața ilustrată from Sibiu-Cluj, Zărandul from Brad, Lumina satelor, Oastea Domnului, from Sibiu, publishing theological studies and popular works: “Convertirea creștină”, printed in the Theological Series, Sibiu, 1935; “Critica ereziei baptiste”, also in the Theological Series, Sibiu, 1937; “Dumnezeu și sufletul în poezia română contemporană”, in the collection “Cărțile vieții”, Cluj, 1937; “Beția din punct de vedere religios, științific și social”, in the Biblioteca creștinului ortodox Arad, 1931; “Icoane alesese din viața Ortodoxiei”, also in the Biblioteca creștinului ortodox Arad, 1935 and “Drumul crucii” (in collaboration), Arad, 1937.

In the academic year 1937-38 he worked as a substitute professor at the Theological Academy of Cluj, and from 1 January 1939 he was appointed priest of the parish of Arad-Centru, where he worked until 30 September 1942, being reinstated in the same parish on 1 July 1952, where he worked until 25 September 1958, when he was removed by the Securitate.

On 1 October 1938, he was appointed professor at the Department of Dogmatics and Apologetics of the Theological Academy of Arad, where he worked until 1948, for a time also holding the position of Rector. With competence and dedication, he taught the third and fourth year students Dogmatic Theology, Moral Theology, Asceticism and Mysticism and Practical Homiletics. On 1 June 1939 he was also entrusted with the editing of the magazine “Church and School”, which he edited until 1945, and later, from 1 August 1943 to 1945, “The Way of Salvation”, a religious magazine for the people. In its pages he published many articles on theology and church life, information and reviews of books and magazines.

The period during which he worked as a priest in the parish of Arad-Centru, as well as editor of the magazines “Church and School” and “The Way of Salvation”, and as a professor at the Theological Academy of Arad, can be considered as the most prodigious period of the priest Professor Ilarion V. Felea’s activity.

He collaborated with the “Revista Teologică” in Sibiu until 1943, he also collaborated with the magazine “Duh și Adevăr”, the official magazines of the Banat Metropolitanate and other magazines and newspapers in Arad, he gave and published a number of religious and cultural conferences.

Always well informed, he clarified, sensitised, guided and brought to the Church’s path doubtful and reserved hearts and minds, leading them to know and confess Christ. Through his sermons and meditations from the pulpit of the Cathedral and other churches, always well prepared and topical, he attracted to prayer and to the Church a large number of intellectuals who came to listen to him and with whom he maintained the closest spiritual ties. Ilarion V. Felea, with the voice of thunder and the spirit of a prophet, devoid of all sweetness and repetition, in which one felt the teacher’s habit of speaking, brought light and inner transformation. The following books saw the light of print at this time: “Theology and Priesthood”, in the Yearbook of the Theological Academy of Arad for 1938/1939; “Paisie and Paisianism”, in the collection “Books of Life”, – Cluj 1940; “Orthodox Christian Catechism”, Arad, 1955, printed in four editions; “The Holy Mysteries”, in the library “Come to Christ”, Sibiu, 1946; “Salvation”, in the library “The Way of Salvation”, Arad, 1947. He edited the Eparchial Calendar (the Typiconal Directory) for the years 1948, 1952, 1956 and printed an “Antologion” for priests, singers and for their use and that of the other faithful, as a guide to church singing.

However, the priest and professor Ilarion V. Felea reached the pinnacle of these publications with the cycle of books of sermons, lectures and religious meditations, in which he tried and succeeded in defining the essence, the doctrine and the apology of Christianity, while at the same time answering a question suitable for each volume that will appear in its time and according to the holy will of God: What is Christianity? “which saw the light of print: “The Spirit of Truth”, of dogmatic content, published with the blessing of Bishop Andrei Magieru in the Publishing House of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Arad, published in Arad in 1942, the second edition also in Arad in 1943, awarded by the Romanian Academy, both editions enjoying a wide circulation among the priesthood and the faithful, It was used as a guide for sermons on the pulpits of the churches and, in the absence of a priest at the altar, it was read by the lector at the service of the Utrenia, as a nourishment in the faith, in the Christian life, alongside or instead of the traditional Sermon book.

Also with the blessing of His Holiness Bishop Andrew of Arad and the Venerable Eparchial Council, the apologetic Religion of Love, published by the same publishing house in Arad in 1946, saw the light of print. In Felea, as in all of us, the years of the Jubilee of the Passion, due to the materialistic-atheistic dictatorship, intervened, during which his life and existence as a human being were put to a hard test. On 3 March 1945, he was arrested, along with a number of cultural and religious figures, and imprisoned in the Caracal camp until July 1945. On the morning of Epiphany, 6 January 1949, after the houses had been consecrated, he was taken to an unhealthy and cramped cellar, interrogated and kept for a while alone in a cell at the end of the second floor reserved for so-called political prisoners.

He was then transferred to Timișoara Prison, where on 28 October 1949 he was tried and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for “failure to denounce”, including the old cells of Aiud, from which he was released on 5 January 1950. After his release, he worked in the Holy Bishop’s Library, then, on 1 July 1952, he was reinstated as a priest in the Arad-Centru parish in Arad, where he worked until his arrest.

On 25 September 1958, he was arrested and taken to the Ministry of the Interior (Uranus) in Bucharest, subjected to a very harsh and unjust investigation, transferred to Cluj, tried in secret and convicted, on the basis of unjust testimony, together with six other priests from Arad, On 14 March 1959, the military tribunal in Cluj sentenced him to 20 years’ hard labour and 8 years’ civil servant’s job for “conspiracy against the social order” and 20 years’ hard labour for “intensive activity against the working class and the revolutionary movement”.

He was held in Gherla prison and then in Aiud prison, where he died on 18 September 1961.

Buried without a cross and without knowing the resting place of his remains, the priest Professor Ilarion V. Felea was crowned by his death with the halo of a martyr for the Church and the nation, as his ancestors, the Moți, from whom he came, once were.

He managed to leave behind him a series of books and studies of great theological and cultural value, which he printed during his lifetime, as well as a series of studies, meditations, sermons and conferences of high Christian spirituality, contained in six volumes in manuscript, saved from destruction by God’s will and preserved with great devotion and the firm conviction that they too will see the light of print, to the glory of God and the worthy honour of the man who wrote them, at the very time when the chains were being prepared to cast him prematurely into a common tomb, where his tormented body sleeps its eternal sleep awaiting the resurrection.

(Pr. Tudor Demian – From the dungeons to the Sinaxaries, Egumenița Publishing House, Galati, 2008)