Marin Naidim (en)

Marin Naidim left this life to meet his best friend, his brother, Valeriu Gafencu, on the other side.

Characterising us, the four of us, his close friends from 1942-1946-1948: Costica (Pascu), Neculai (Trifoiu), Ion (Ianolide) and Marin (Naidim), in the lines I published on pages 198-199 of the book Student VALERIU GAFENCU, “The Saint of Romanian Prisons”, 1998, about Marin, who was his closest brother, Valeriu Gafencu limits himself to writing a few words: “He is the simplest of all my friends. Clean, full of love, warm, a child at heart, very well formed”.

Marin Naidim – The discreet hesychast of Aiud

Marin Naidim dominated by his behaviour, his culture – made in prison – and a great capacity to love everyone around him. In the bedroom where Naidim was, there was a unique atmosphere. It was the same in the teams where he worked. A conflict, which is common in prison, was impossible with Marin Naidim! He overcame it with a skill worthy of a professional diplomat. Unlike other long-imprisoned brothers of the Cross, Naidim was also well-balanced in that he kept a humble record of his religious life. Only a keen observer could notice Naidim’s moments of absence, when he […]

“This man seduced by his extraordinary power of living every thought or word he uttered.”

Like everywhere else in the prison, it was customary here[1] to fill the solitary confinement cells with prisoners on every holiday, which made it necessary to be extra vigilant. On such occasions you would only see the political officer running with his tongue out from one side of the colony to the other, looking for his catch.

Marinică Naidim, a man “modest and good up to perfection”.

I met Marinică in March 1952, when I was sent with a disciplinary group from Jilava to the Baia Sprie lead mine, together with Dr. Cornel Petrasevici – who had just come from an investigation he had conducted at the Ministry of the Interior – and a group of Roman Catholic priests who had previously been sentenced to death and then to life imprisonment: Father Mihoc (the oldest member of the group), Father Dumitrașcu, who had a divine tenor voice and was always singing a popular folk song, Father Rață, who watched over Iuliu Maniu in Sighet until the last […]

The sufferings of confessor Marin Naidim

In any totalitarian regime, opinions, especially political ones, are forbidden and punished by decrees that ignore the most basic rules of law. Ion Antonescu called himself the ruler of a totalitarian regime and, because it was wartime, he thought he was justified in ordering the suppression of all attitudes contrary to the interests of the state. This was the case with the young former members of the Buzău Brotherhood of the Cross, who had been active during the period of the National Legion government. One of these members, Virgil Maxim, was recently featured in our “Remembering the Church” column.

Marin Naidim – “the most perfect man I have ever met”

In Baia-Sprie, about six months after we arrived in the colony, my friend Emil Budei asked me if I had ever talked to Marinică Naidim, because in his opinion he was the most perfect man he had ever met. That’s how I met him. What was charming about his attitude and his words was his simplicity and his attentiveness. Christian humility was lived in all its fullness. Although he was the most obeyed and respected of the group of young men who had come from Aiud, nothing in his behaviour showed that he considered himself superior to them. He knew […]