Memories about Father Vasile Țepordei
The man who lived and suffered for the unification of the Romanian nation
Vasile Tepordei was born on 5 February 1908 in southern Bessarabia. After graduating from the Faculty of Theology in Chișinău, he devoted himself to teaching, working in the city’s traditional high schools. He edited and directed the magazines “Raza” and “Basarabia” and published several books.
Until 1940, he felt like no other the pain of the Bessarabians subjected to Russification and Communism, and he took a firm stand against these misfortunes.
In 1940, he took refuge in Bucharest, and the following year he returned to Chișinău. In 1944, under the pressure of the Soviet occupation troops, he again took the path of wandering to Bucharest, where, after a short stay in the parish of Islaz, he was assigned as a priest to the church of Mărcuța. Between 1944 and 1948, under Soviet pressure, he was constantly harassed and interrogated by the Securitate, before being arrested and handed over to the Russian occupying forces, tried by the military tribunal in Constanța, sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to the Vorcuța camp, beyond the Arctic Circle.
He was whitened on the spot before the firing squad
I met Father Țepordei late, after 1973, when I settled in the parish of Mărcuța in Bucharest, where he served. For 30 years I saw him Sunday after Sunday at Liturgy, met him in the street, at my house or at his house. White-haired, with a well-groomed beard, always dressed in a cassock, he had a warm gaze and gentle steps. He was never in a hurry. He had time for everyone, for a hug, a blessing or a kind word. On Epiphany he would end his day of service at my home. Every year, on that day, I would prepare a bean stew with fried onions for him, which he loved to serve. Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici and the poet Grigore Vieru often came to our house – my wife was from Bessarabia.
As if we were family, my father often told us about the events of his life. For example, he recalled the harassment he had suffered at the hands of the Securitate, who interrogated him every week between 1945 and 1948. He was asked to reveal the ideas he had promoted in Chișinău until 1944, the names of acquaintances and collaborators in the publications he had edited, and information about the Bessarabian refugees in Romania.
Under very harsh questioning, he replied to the investigators: “I have told you all you need to know. The answers you are looking for can be found in the collections of the newspapers ‘Raza’ and ‘Basarabia’, which I edited for eight years. There you will also find the names of the people and the ideas that were promoted. I am proud of my colleagues and their ideas. Bessarabia is precious and sacred, it belongs to us and we belong to it”. Silence fell in the dark room. “They left me alone for 3-4 hours, then a woman in uniform came and ordered me loudly: ‘You can go! A few months later, the van was waiting for me at the gate. I was forced into it without a word being said. After about an hour and a half, the van stopped. I was dragged out and forcibly taken before a firing squad. I found out later that I had been taken to the Băneasa forest.
A small, dark-faced officer approached me: “Do you see the train in front of you? If you still don’t answer our questions, you know what awaits you! “I’ve told you all there is to tell,” I replied.
He approached me with a black cloth in his hand. He blindfolded me and then gave the order to shoot. I heard a crack and felt blood oozing from somewhere in my chest. My hands were free. I touched myself. But nothing serious had happened.
The officer rushed at me, pulled the cloth from my eyes, cursed, threatened and shouted at the soldiers in the platoon. He was holding a bottle with a dead man’s head on it.
“The bastards saved you, but I’m going to fuck you up for the rest of your life,” he said, throwing the contents of the bottle in my eyes and face. At the same time he bleached my hair. When I woke up, I opened my eyes. I could see! The bottle must have contained salt water and vinegar.
The baptism of the commander’s child
Another time Father was telling us about his time in the camp, when he worked for a while in the barracks where the commander’s family lived.
“The commander’s wife,” Father said, “was in her last month of pregnancy. She didn’t speak to me, but there was no hostility in her eyes. After she gave birth, she kept looking at me, trying to get closer to me. It was as if she had a secret she wanted to share with me. One day, when we weren’t supervised, I asked her what was on her mind, what was troubling her.
“I want to baptise my child in great secrecy,” she told me. I told her what to do and when everything was ready, to call me. After a few weeks I was called and celebrated the baptism,” the priest recalled.
After Stalin’s death, he was released from the camp and repatriated to Romania, where he continued to serve in Mărcuța, while also caring for the large family of Bessarabians who had left their homeland.
He served and helped the living, but also the dead, remembering them in church services or at the graves in the cemeteries. Sometimes he told me that old age was sad, ugly and hard. “I am kept alive by my longing for my homeland and my love for the Bessarabians”. In 1993, on the third day of Easter, Grigore Vieru, Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici were with us. I asked them if they would like to meet Father Tepordei. That’s how we got to his house. We were received with great warmth, kneeling, hugging and kissing. There were Bessarabians from all over the world. After a few hours of reminiscing about memories, wishes and dreams, we ended the day by singing the song “Eminescu”, which the three of us, Ion, Doina and Grigore, hummed with Father like a psalm.
Here are some memories of our unforgotten father from Mărcuța, Vasile Țepordei, who lived for the Romanians and for Bessarabia as deeply and hotly as he breathed.
At this time of commemoration of the drama of Bessarabia, it is appropriate to remember his witnessing disciple, the beloved Father Vasile Țepordei, and to say for him, God rest his soul! And for Bessarabia, Christ is risen!
(Fr. Mihail Porcilă – Lumina newspaper)