Recovery from the traumas of “re-education” – repentance and grace

Interview with Father Gheorghe Calciu:

– What were the stages of your return, how did you reconnect with God?

– My return was not sudden. My recovery was much harder than others, because my fall was greater. I was a rather naive young man, a farmer’s child with a strong faith, with a great trust in people. I was very likeable. Even after my fall they used to call me “the fallen angel with blue eyes” because everyone thought I was an angel. Now I was a fallen angel. And my suffering was so great and my brokenness so total that I had a much harder time recovering.

– Did you stay in Pitești until the end of your re-education?

– Yes, and then I was taken to Gherla, where I stayed for about a year.

– That’s when you started your relationship with God again, so to speak?

– No. My total change was when they staged the re-education trial in ’56. Before that, it was like a bath. When they said that the re-education campaign was the work of the legionaries, I said: “No! Everything they tried after that was in vain, I stuck to my guns. And at the trial I stood my ground.”

– And before the trial, when they tried to prepare you, to convince you to accuse Oprișan of re-education, you were still on the side of rejection?

– From the beginning, from the first moment, I was against it! I was on that side, and they didn’t change my mind.

– But they put you on trial, hoping you would say what they wanted, right?

– No, they didn’t!

– Well, they had set up the whole story of the plot, the whole theatre that they wanted to film to show the West: “Look what the Legionnaires did!”…

– They knew what they could expect from me. Because I was always against it. The investigator even asked me to sign after each sentence. And I always said: “I’ll sign after every sentence, but don’t write any lies! And when he wrote something different from what I said, I wrote: “I won’t sign!

– You wrote “I don’t sign”?

– Yes, I did. Because the moment I said “no”, I realised that if I said “yes” again, or even made a small concession, I would be finished.

– That was the moment of grace when you decided to say “no”?

– Yes, absolutely! And I knew that if I lost that resolve, I would fall into the depths because I was already weakened.

– And that’s when you started to pray? Is that when you reconnected with God?

– No, I had started before, but it wasn’t a stable connection, it was loose. I fell down, I got up again… But now I could see that this strength came from God and that I had to keep it.

– So that was the grace that was given to you at that time, to say “no” and thus maintain your position, to save yourself. This is what God has chosen for you as the way to ascend…

– Yes. If I had signed a single indictment, I would have gone down forever. And I understood that and I held on to it.

(…)

– Did you consider this hardening as a help from God, as a grace?

– It was an extraordinary power! I don’t even know where it came from, you can imagine that I was weak, I was discouraged. I was in pieces, I wasn’t a whole wall!

– Did you have moments of doubt, of trial?

– I never allowed myself that! If I allowed myself, if I went against myself again, I would lose myself.

– And you pray to keep this position, don’t you?

– Yes, of course.

– Did you have an order, did you say the Jesus Prayer, or just whatever came to you?

– I prayed the prayers I knew. I’d repeat them, fall asleep, repeat them again. I didn’t even say it in a personal way, “Lord God, I have done wrong, save me, help me”, I didn’t pray with my own words, I said the prayers I knew by heart, from “Angel, my angel” to the Creed. I repeated them over and over, and the prayer strengthened me. This went on for about seven or eight months, during the investigation.

– It was, so to speak, the time of repentance and grace after the fall…

 

– Yes. Then came the trial, where I stayed on the same line. When they called Voinea as a witness – Voinea did some great things, poor guy! – I said: ‘Mr. President, ask the witness what his situation is now! Ask him, because these people are under constant threat of execution. What can you get from them? And the President said: “Sit down!

– Do you think the judges knew what had happened in Pitești?

– I think they did, and I didn’t expect justice from them.

– Why did the Security Service need this masquerade?

– I don’t know exactly. I also spoke to Costache Oprișan afterwards. He thought that the Security Service was trying to create a series of trials so that we wouldn’t get out of prison, but our trial confused them.

– How did it confuse them?

– I mean by us refusing to accept their frame-up, things got out. And from that point on, they knew that our courage had returned and that there was resistance from these witnesses in prison who said, “No, sir, it’s not true. The re-education was done by the Security Service! “. That was our conclusion, but perhaps there were other things…

– In any case, Your Holiness came out of the trial somewhat restored in spirit, strengthened and atoned for by this effort to maintain your position of denial, didn’t you?

– That was all my strength.

(…)

– What was Casimca?

– Casimca was a special part of Jilava. Jilava is a prison seven metres underground, above which cows and sheep graze. Here, in the ground, in a semi-cylindrical hut, there were five cells against the wall, with no natural light, no air. The only ventilation was through three holes at the bottom of the door. This was Casimca. Sixteen people were kept there. Within two years almost half of us died. It was an extermination section, with a harsh regime, beatings, starvation and special persecution.

– How did you resist?

– Where there was unity, deep faith and prayer, there was resistance. Security Service divided us in such a way that in every cell there was a destructive person, either morally or physically. In our cell they put Costache Oprișan, who spit out his lungs – I’m not making a figure of speech, he really spits out blood clots and pieces of lung every morning! In the second cell there were two lunatics, in the third the same, one with mental instability. They all died in the cell with the two lunatics! We resisted because we were grouped around Constantin Oprișan, who was a great man, a true saint!

(…) – Did you have any doubts about your faith there, in Jilava?

– I was structured in such a way that I could not admit any doubt in myself. I didn’t admit it, not because I was strengthened, but because I didn’t want to collapse! That was my protection.

– How do you see this collapse, as a total loss and a state of madness, or just as a failure?

– A total loss and then madness…

– So you experienced this drama of being on the edge very acutely, even from the perspective of eternity?

– From all points of view, of character, of society, of everything… Including salvation, I knew that it depended only on my determination to stay in this position. I didn’t trust myself that I was strong and that I could afford to play political games, like telling a lie to get away with it, or other things.

– After this decision came peace of mind, did you reassure yourself?

– Sure, now I had a line from which I could not deviate and I was no longer worried. My only worry was that I wouldn’t crash into something.

– Did you also experience this peace of mind as a joy of faith? Because it was still a great leap…

– After the hell of falling and doubt before, it was really paradise. I had a line, I had courage, I had strength. I regularly argued with the guards about Costache Oprișan! I used to get beaten up, but the beatings didn’t hurt anymore, or anything else!

(Fr. Gheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa – The Life of Fr. Gheorghe Calciu According to His and Others’ Testimonies, p. 57)