Resurrection night at Pitești prison, 1949

And here is the night of the Resurrection. With the ringing of the bells that reached us, candles began to be lit in the street, beyond the houses that were attached to the prison wall. But this decoration, which for us had taken on cosmic proportions, also had the meaning of a spiritual message from those who had not forgotten us and who now wanted us to know that they were with us in spirit.

We could only answer them with a “Christ is risen!” that began softly and then broke out from the 800 or so voices. If anyone could have witnessed that moment, they would have compared it to a huge cathedral, where the hundreds of candles in the street, together with our voices, marked the resurrection of the Lord, by death He has trampled on death. Everything was vibrating: the air, the windows, the doors, but above all our hearts, not knowing what catastrophe was about to befall them. When the silence settled, the soldier on the sentry post said: Truly he is risen!

(Traian Popescu – The Pitești Experiment, Criterion Publishing House, Bucharest, 2005, pp. 65-66)