Satan’s enemy has gone to Heaven forever. Father Argatu of Cernica.
He was the most powerful exorcist in the Orthodox Church. Hundreds of unfortunates possessed by the devil found peace with his help. Thousands of sick people, with incurable diseases of the body or with lost minds, regained their health. Every despair or moral collapse found peace in the monastery of Cernica. Soon the conquerer of human suffering in the name of God went to heaven forever. But the posterity of Father Ilarion Argatu began on the day of his departure among the righteous.
Magical signs
In the monastery of Cernica, the days seem longer and the evenings quieter since the departure of the monk Ilarion Argatu from this world. The abbot was often busy at the Patriarchate, and the monks, together with the students of the Theological Seminary, carried out their spiritual work in the most peaceful way. On the isthmus lost between the waters, somewhere on the outskirts of the crowded city of Bucharest, there is a meta-physical silence, while the monastic community here does not hide its sadness at having to say goodbye to a beloved brother who could not be taken to his final resting place because he chose to have his remains buried in the church of Boroaia, in the far north of Bucovina. Even now, two weeks after Father Argatu entered his eternal rest, some of the faithful still come to the monastery in search of the gentle shepherd of souls, whose death they happen not to know…
The first sign that the revered monk sent from the other world to his brothers in need occurred on the first night after the funeral, far from Cernica. Ava Irenaeus, Father Theodosius and Brother Haralambie dreamt of him, at the same time and in the same way! Ilarion Argatu rose from his coffin, dressed in clean, shining clothes, with a light of joy on his rejuvenated face, and waved to them as if to say goodbye! The news spread like wildfire among the monks and caused great excitement. Since then, the monks of Cernica have remained in a state of deep expectation…
Prayer and ecstasy
“I don’t know how many times I saw him with tears streaming down his cheeks”.
Father Jerome, the director of the monastery, makes a big cross when he starts talking about Father Argatu. “We are still waiting today, we will always wait, until the sign is fulfilled, for the grace promised once by His Holiness! To foreign pilgrims who are not familiar with such spiritual mysteries, the monk tells them that in the Old Testament Book of Kings, Elisha – the disciple of Elijah the Zealot – unhesitatingly asked the Saint for the gift of grace, and the Saint always gently warned him: “When you see me ascending to heaven and riding in a chariot of fire, then grace will descend upon you”. Father Argatu has made a similar promise to some of his closest brethren, and they are waiting in prayer, full of hope, for the miracle to be fulfilled. For everyone here knows the spiritual enlightenment of the deceased… Father Jerome added, stroking his beard: “The three great steps of true faith are knowledge, love and ecstasy. Father Ilarion – I dare say – had taken the first step, from absolute love to ecstasy. I would sometimes see him absorbed in prayer for hours. Those who didn’t know him could imagine that he was asleep, but he really seemed to be in the Spirit, for he would wake up as if from another world! He seldom confessed the visions he had, but he was shaken…”.
For this reason, the brothers regretted that they could not keep the Father Ilarion’s body, at least for the first seven years after his physical death, after which they could have buried him in Boroaia, the church he had founded in his native village with great ecclesiastical pomp.
Father Argatu’s days and nights were like two drops of holy myrrh… From the time he arrived in Cernica in 1983, in the solitude of his chapel, like the biblical psalmist, he would recite the seven praises of the Most Holy Trinity, after which he would work with the souls of the faithful – who were becoming more and more numerous – who made pilgrimages to the holy convent to see him and find consolation. When he was a regular at the church, at Mass and Proskomide, he would get up at three in the morning and the first brothers to arrive in the morning would find him in front of the altar, absorbed in prayer, as if in a true trance. Every evening, tired from the onslaught of visitors, he would come to the Eucharist and listen to the “Psalms of Judgement” with hot tears in his eyes. Not once did he tell his disciples and brothers that the Last Judgement at the Second Coming of the Saviour would last as long as the reading of these six Psalms! Father Ilarion’s master text was Psalm 142, the last of the six Psalms of the Judgement: “When he read it,” Father Jerome confessed, “the monk was transfigured, filled with a happy sorrow that made him weep every time”. Then Brother Jerome sighed: “I don’t know how many times I saw him with tears streaming down his cheeks!
Journey to salvation
“He never lost his patience. He talked a lot with each one of the faithful to get to know them as well as possible”.
During his more than two decades of monastic life, the last fifteen years of which were spent in Cernica, hundreds of thousands of the faithful came to see Father Ilarion. “Only God knows,” admits Father Tofan, “with what love and devotion he tried to console them, to show them the narrow path of salvation and to save so many lost souls! He never lost his patience. He talked a lot with each one of the faithful to get to know them as well as possible”. Father Argatu overwhelmed everyone with his spiritual gentleness. He never gave canons, but waited for the repentance of the faithful before calling them to a new meeting. His extraordinary memory was well known and all the pilgrims who visited him testified to this. They could go back to him after several months, during which time he had been visited by thousands of other suffering Christians, but he remembered every piece of advice he had given. “Often,” says Brother Haralambie, “he would greet you as you crossed the threshold with a question that would surprise you. I told you to go to your grandpa and ask for forgiveness! Did you do that?”. And the Christian, who hadn’t been there for several years, was left speechless with amazement! For the rest, Father Ilarion Argatu only asked for humility and repentance, because his only harshness remained the doxology of love…
The legendary monk was also a great fasting man, because he understood that fasting, that is, abstinence, is a proof of love for God. He often said to the faithful: “If you love a woman, you bring her a flower and speak beautiful words to her… How do you show God that you love him “with your tongue”? By keeping his commandments! What are the main commandments of God? Beware of sin, subdue the lusts of the flesh, and love your neighbour as yourself, for if you have loved and forgiven, you have forgiven yourself”.
Every week – on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – Father would read the molitve of St. Basil the Great for the suffering and the needy. Ilarion Argatu knew these curses addressed to Satan by heart, and he would shake all those in whose presence he spoke them with a thunderous voice. In this way, but also through his prayers and the boundless mercy with which he poured out the Holy Spirit, the monk performed miraculous healings that earned him an impressive reputation as a healer in his “enoria” – as he called the large crowd of believers who regularly visited him. Due to the influx of visitors, the Spiritual Council of the Holy Monastery had to decide to move the priest to the chapel behind the current museum, so that he could continue his pastoral work without disturbing the monastic peace of the monastery.
The chapel with pilgrims
“Do not see the destruction and do not forget that the hour is near!”
Like Father Ilie Cleopa, the other great Romanian confessor at the end of the century, Father Argatu transformed his chapel over the years into a true place of pilgrimage through the miracles he performed with the grace of the Holy Spirit. Every day, hundreds of people came from all over the country to be healed or to save their souls. For each of them, the monk had a word of comfort, a piece of advice, a prayer. He read each one’s heart and showed them the way. Even in his last days, when age and illness made him increasingly powerless, the monk did not hesitate to share his love and forgiveness with those who crowded into his cramped cell, a few dozen at a time.
The people eagerly absorbed his words. Sometimes they even recorded him on cassette tapes, preserving priceless spiritual treasures of wisdom. In his frequent sermons to the parishioners, who gathered around him like a flock around a shepherd, Father enlightened them with profound words: “Today, many people have dared to introduce their own ordinances into the ordinances of the Holy Spirit, and so they have begun to believe more and more on their own, without any sense. As a result, the heavenly ordinances have become earthly, the spiritual has become carnal, the holy has become sinful, the wise have become foolish, and you do not see the destruction and forget that the hour is at hand.
From the days of his life, Father Ilarion Argatu shared everything he had, but he saved in heaven, founding two hermitages and a church. He also dreamed of a convent of nuns in Jerusalem, but he never had the time. His legacy, both for the laity and for his monastic brothers, is one of perfect love for God and total dedication to his fellow man.
In his cell, which remained deserted until the 40 days of Lent, the scent of myrrh and frankincense, even though no one had ever burned incense there, was a sign of the humility and sacrifice of one who had entered the world of the just. In the silence of the place, Father Jerome crossed himself once more and added: “We monks have a saying inherited from the Holy Fathers of the Church. We gather without knowing one another, we live without loving one another (that is, without revelry and vain praise), and we die without mourning one another…”. So it was with Fr. Argatu in his temporary passage through this world! We are left with his precious memory and his teachings. For the youngest among us, he is a priceless spiritual example”.
The days are quieter and the evenings longer in the monastery of Cernica, because the pilgrims have become fewer since the departure of the monk Ilarion Argatu, but the brothers continue to remember him and to expect from him the grace that the prophet Elijah promised to his biblical disciple. Father Theophan wept and, with emotion, pronounced the confession that could be an epitaph on the tomb of the one who had gone to eternal life, speaking, as it were, in the name of all the brothers who had been in need with the great curate: “We miss him humanly, but we rejoice for him spiritually, because he has at last seen the glory of the Blessed Trinity! May God grant that we may be there with him…”.
(Marius Petrescu – Formula AS magazine, 1999, no. 365)