Resurrection Night in the catacombs of the Cavnic mine, 1953

Resurrection of the Lord

Night of the Resurrection! We scattered to the galleries, to the workplaces, but hardly anyone was working. Eisenhower’s coming to power in America gave us the courage to speak more freely. Only the timid tried to realise their norm.

Towards the end of the working day, all the workers went to the elevator. There, in the cathedral-sized square in front of the elevator, was a sea of people. On this night, in the ocn, the impression of a catacomb is more real than ever. At the edges, people hold sphinxes of various sizes. In the middle, a group of priests, who happened to be in the mine that night, were preparing to celebrate the great Mass of the Resurrection. As if on command, the lamps went out one by one. At the end, the sentry and the civilian guard at the corfa also extinguished their lamps, and the light bulb went out. Absolute darkness. Silence above ground. Suddenly a lamp lights up. The light comes out of the infinite darkness. The voice of the priest is heard:

– Come and take the Light!

And the light goes from lamp to lamp, from soul to soul. And then the voice of the conqueror sounds:

– Glory be to the Holy and Blessed and Life-Giving and Eternal and Everlasting Trinity, Amen!

From dozens of chests echoes the Easter hymn: “Christ is risen from the dead, by death trampling down upon death, and to those in the tombs He has granted life.”

And the priest’s voice continues to thunder:

– May God arise and may all His enemies be destroyed and may all those who hate Him perish from His presence!

Let the enemies of God be destroyed and perish from His face! The words sound and resound like hammers on the anvil of the atheistic age.

With each song, the metallic voice of the hammered beads resounds from the edges. They are the bells of the Ocna! I have never heard such vibrant and disturbing peals. Everything is dizzying. Nothing is missing from the majesty of the Holy Night: lights, songs, bells…

Anyone who has experienced such a night must be a different person! Here, in the depths of this catacomb, with its overwhelming darkness, there is a ray of light that can never be shared anywhere else. The ray from the catacomb! What happiness! It was worth all the suffering you endured just to receive such a grace!

(Fr. Liviu Brânzaș – Ray from the Catacomb)