“My God, what courage Father Sârbu had”

On Sunday I went to church. In church, Father Sârbu, Constantin Sârbu, gave a sermon that I will never forget:

– Today is the holy Gospel of the two poor men of Gadara.

And he repeated the Gospel text: And there were two poor men bound with chains, and they broke them: “What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come to lose us? – Who are You? … that there was a legion of devils in them.

– Don’t lose us, put us in this herd of swine. And Jesus said, Get into the herd of swine and leave the man. The herd was thrown into the sea, and the two who were afflicted were healed”. And now he’s explanning  the sermon:

– The two demoniacs of the Gospel are exaggerated capitalism and communism, literally at that time.

It made a big impression on me and I said: My God, what courage the priest has, I didn’t know him. And he developed the themes of what communism means and what exaggerated capitalism means, which is greed. One tears something apart in one way, the other in another, both destroy people’s souls. My thoughts exactly. I came home, a bit euphoric, but still with the sadness of worrying about the people around me, lest they somehow get arrested for being there.

(Fragment of an interview with Nicolae Itul – Aiudule, Aiudule, Renașterea Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 2011, p. 130, edited by Dragoș Ursu and Ioana Ursu)