Fr. Roman Braga (en)

Fr. Roman Braga – a man of God

I have learnt over the years that encounters do not happen by chance, that bringing people face to face depends very little on their will, and that a certain patience in waiting can be rewarded, however late, with the sight of the seemingly impossible. When, in the 1970s, the venerable Sister Benedicta Braga spoke to me in her cell in Văratec about Archimandrite Roman Braga, who was then in the United States, Father Braga seemed to me like a character from a hagiographic story. There was so much sorrow in the nun’s words about the terrible sufferings of his younger […]

Father Roman Braga. A legend of universal Orthodoxy

In the instructions that Fr. Roman gave for his death and burial, he made it clear that he did not want to be eulogised. But as one of his many spiritual sons who loved so much to hear his word at the end of the Holy Mass, I would like to offer, with humility, love and deep gratitude, my observations as one of his doctors, to bear witness to the last word the Lord offered us as his end approached. Father Roman always encouraged us to think of prayer as a constant dialogue with God; nothing, no activity, however trivial […]

“Brother Nicholas, look at me. My teeth have been pulled out one by one, my fingernails have been pulled out – and all because I have not spoken a word of blasphemy against our Lord.”

Everything that a sick mind could imagine was used to bring to its knees the unyielding spirit of those who rejected the communist order, and especially those who believed in God. Every scrap of information was used to obtain more information, and every contradiction was punished with a vicious beating. Prisoners were forced to denounce and condemn their parents for bringing them up with high moral values and faith in God. People were tortured for not standing up straight, for not speaking respectfully to their ‘re-educators’ or for not sleeping in a ‘disciplined’ position. [Particular cruelty was used against those […]

Father Roman Braga – the man who stepped out of an icon

By my reckoning, more than thirty-five years have passed since we last saw each other; in fact, we are only two years apart, since His Holiness was born on 2 April 1922 and I on 12 July 1920. And yet Father Roman was, is and will remain a living presence, calling me to a permanent dialogue. I saw him with that pale face, of medium height and frailty, before he received the holy habit of the angelic monk, and I saw him immediately transfigured, with that holy face of the hieromonk, truly living in the philocentric spirit of hesychasm, radiating the […]

Father Roman Braga, the man of balance and love

Fr. Roman Braga is a true blessing, not only because of his imposing spiritual and cultural status, but also because of the opportunity to meet one of those giants of the Spirit who knew how to transfigure the great suffering of the communist imprisonment. The dialogue with His Holiness is an opportunity for a fruitful reunion, also thanks to the thorough cultural formation that the Father has received since the interwar period in Romania. Moreover, he is convinced that only the resumption of the link with the local cultural tradition between the two world wars will naturally lead to the […]

Roman Braga’s post re-education sufferings

Lord, how Roman Braga sometimes cries out in his sleep! The former theology student, tormented with devilish persistence in Pitești, introverted, so disturbed and obsessed by his nightly hauntings, never forgets to ask forgiveness in the morning for having disturbed our sleep the night before[1]. After his release, he studied theology, became a monk and was admitted to the mystical group of Antim Monastery’s “The Burning Bush of the Mother of God”, where he served another prison term from 1958 to 1964. Today he is archimandrite and confessor at the Jacksonville Monastery – USA, where Mother Alexandra was abbess. (Gheorghe […]

“If an intellectual deserves to be canonised, it is Vasile Voiculescu” – interview with Father Roman Braga

Interview with Archim. Roman Braga, of the Romanian Orthodox Monastery in Detroit, USA. Nicolae luga: When did you leave Romania and under what circumstances? Father Roman Braga: I was born in Russian-occupied Moldavia, in Bessarabia. I grew up in Romania and lived in prisons. I was imprisoned as a priest, called a political prisoner by them, simply because I did not think that Romanian youth and children should remain without religious education. You know what the communist government thought: they belonged to the state and not to their parents. We were almost 2000 priests who went through the prisons, mainly […]

Fr. Roman Braga in the spiritual struggle against communism

A native of Condrița Lăpușnei, he was born in 1922 to an Orthodox family. He began his theological studies in the seminaries of Cernica, Bucharest and Chișinău. In 1947 he graduated from the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest and a year later enrolled for doctoral studies. His approach to authentic Christian life began at the age of 12, when he entered the gates of the Căldărușani monastery. But his vocation as a fighter would take shape during his university years, when he was looking for a way to confront the communist ideology. He researched Sandu Tudor in Antim, at spiritual […]

“God is with us at all times” – interview with Father Roman Braga

A representative of Wonder magazine visited Assumption Monastery in Rives Junction, Michigan, to interview Fr. Roman Braga, who was born and served in Romania under the communist regime. We present many thanks to Father and the sisters for this interview. – Father, first tell us about your monastic lifestyle. – A good question. But before answering it, it is necessary to know the cultural peculiarities of the period of my youth – the 20s and 50s. I believe that the Romanian people have always been inclined towards a monastic way of life, although this way of life is not exclusively […]

“God sent us to the West to open the doors of the church” – interview with Fr. Roman Braga

He spent more than a decade in communist prisons, but he has no regrets about his imprisonment. He was part of the “Burning Bush” movement, where he met great Orthodox confessors. After his release, he managed to leave the country with the support of Patriarch Justinian and lived in exile, working as an Orthodox priest in Brazil and the United States. For more than two decades, he has been the confessor of the Assumption Monastery in Michigan and one of the most popular Orthodox priests overseas. With Christ, behind bars He seemed to be suspended. Between worlds, between words, between […]

“About the true prayer, which must never end” – interview with Fr. Roman Braga

Father Archimandrite Roman Braga is a Romanian Orthodox monk, different from all other monks for the simple reason that he did not live the monastic life in a hermitage or a monastery, and he did not know any other cell than the cell of the communist prisons, but above all the “upper cell of the heart”! And if monasticism means living in Christ, Father Roman lived it to the fullest throughout his life, thanks to the humility, piety and love of God that he always possessed, qualities and virtues that he acquired both from his family and especially from the […]

“Father Liviu Brânzaș was formed by the flame of faith, on the anvil of suffering”

Could I say (with the pride we have when it comes to a person whose name has a special resonance) that I knew Father Liviu Brânzaș? It would be risky, because I saw him only once, in the early 90s, at an A.F.P.P.R. congress, when I spoke to His Holiness during a break. And yet I feel entitled to say that I knew him, remembering how he came to me, simply and directly, as if we had known each other forever. I sat quietly in my pew, for the break had nothing to bring me out of the gym: I […]