Sentence of defrocking No. 9 of 6 October 1984
“I am a child of farmers from the Delta. There were eleven of us, and I was the youngest. Life in the Delta, in Mahmudia, was very beautiful. It was a paradise! We had farmland, we had puddles with all their beauty, we had boats, fishing equipment. There were birds in the delta! There was an extraordinary brotherhood with the animals, we understood their life as something integrated into our life…”[1].
His mother was his first theology teacher. At that time there were Romanian Orthodox, but also Russians and Turks living in the village, each with their own religion and tradition. There were no conflicts between religions or denominations. Full multiculturalism…
Encouraged by the priest and the village teacher, he went to school “further”. He joined the Brotherhood of the Cross.
He then enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine. Together with a large group of students, he tried to prevent the arrest of Grigore Popa, a professor of anatomy, by the Security Service.
In 1948 he was visited by a friend from Tulcea (head of the Brotherhood of the Cross) who took him into his dormitory room. But they arrested the young man from Tulcea and, after finding out where he was living in Bucharest, they also arrested the student Gheorghe Calciu and sentenced him to 8 years in prison for “activities against the security of the state” without any evidence.
In 1949 he was already in Pitești. He believed in the doctrine of the Legionaries, in their moral, patriotic, nationalist and Christian content, but objected to “the violence they used”[2].
In Pitești prison, he tried to commit suicide and underwent a tragic re-education. The physical, mental and moral torture was so cruel that there are no words to describe it and it cannot be studied, evaluated, analysed or commented on by those who have not experienced it. The aim was to achieve an existential nihilism in which nothing mattered and in which everything was destroyed: reason, affectivity, faith, hope, love, notions of good and evil, of the beautiful and the ugly, of the just and the unjust, of the fallen and the stupid…
Let’s let prisoner Gheorghe Calciu describe the darkest period of his imprisonment:
“It was brainwashing… Sometimes you had the impression that everything was a lie and that what they were doing was the truth… Anyway, the torture was so great that at a certain point you felt that everything you didn’t say was a stone for you: you couldn’t take it anymore.
Hiding something, anything, about parents, about friends, not confessing to the end, everything became so monstrous in that time of terror that it grew in our hearts and minds that your head would hit and you would go alone and say… And so our hearts became empty. Our soul died, or at least became deaf. And that was our downfall. From then on you didn’t care about anything. Not even the instinct of self-preservation. The greatest joy for us would have been to die instead of going through what we were going through…
No matter what you did, you couldn’t escape the terror! And as long as there is terror, you cannot be at peace, whatever you do, even if you work in the sense of terror… The target of this terror regime was our soul”.
In his accounts of the prisons he passed through, Gheorghe Calciu often speaks of prayer and its power, practised in prison.
During his re-education in Pitești, he was not allowed to pray at all. Knowing that the prisoners were deeply religious, the executioners used the most diabolical weapon: the induction of guilt and its devastating effect.
“I believe that in many cases, because of the terror and the fear, our hearts gave the upper hand to the devil, because there was a battle between good and evil that raged in our hearts….. But in the end, God turned each of us back. He gave each of us a chance to fight the last battle. Because the last battle was not in Pitești. The last battle was in our hearts when we escaped from Pitești! And for most, in the hearts of most, the last battle was won by God… For me the return was not sudden. My recovery was much harder than others, because my fall was greater… My total change was when they staged the re-education trial in ’56… Casimca is a special section of the Jilava prison, 7 metres underground… In the 5 cells… no natural light, no air… there were 16 of us. In the course of two years, almost half of them died… Extermination, harsh regime, beatings, hunger, special persecution!
From Jilava he was transferred to Aiud, where he remained until his release in 1963. This was followed by a year of forced residence in Bărăgan.
Due to poverty and collectivisation in Dobrogea, he could not return to Mahmudia.
He had an audience with Patriarch Justinian, who ignored the autobiography of his 16 years in prison (he told him to remove it from his file) and so he was admitted to theology.
He entered the seminary as a priest-teacher and, seeing the spiritual state of the students and the atmosphere disturbed by official atheism, decided to perhaps make one last outburst against the atheist-communist ideology.
When asked if he was not afraid to deliver the Seven Words (sermons) to young people in 1978, after having gone through the experience of communist prisons, Father Calciu replied:
“Precisely because I had gone through re-education, precisely because I knew very well what materialism meant, I wanted to give these young people in the seminary a resistance, an end of the rope by which they could lead themselves and come out in a limbo in case of disturbances… When I decided to start the action with the Seven Words, I prayed a lot to God, because my instinct of self-preservation was holding me back. …. On the other hand, something inside me was pulling me…”.
After the first sermons, the Department of Worship came and investigated him in the Faculty Council of the Seminary and asked him to stop. After the fourth sermon they locked the doors of the Radu Vodă church, but the priest spoke to the young people in the vestibule. After the fifth sermon they closed the doors to keep the students from coming from outside.
Then, after a short period of ‘reflection’, he was expelled from school and church and arrested shortly afterwards.
At the Security Service he was greeted with the words “… your bones will rot in prison, because we have no mercy!
At first they sentenced him to death “for giving very important information to a foreign power”!
Some of the investigators spoke to him gently, using quotations from the Bible to argue that he did not respect the authority of the state. The interrogation lasted between 10 and 48 hours without interruption.
Meanwhile, protests began in the West and the death sentence was commuted to 10 years’ imprisonment.
First in Jilava – 3 months in the prison hospital, psychiatric ward – then again in the notorious Aiud, in a cell with two criminals who once said to him: “We won’t kill you anymore. Let the guards do it!”
He was released after more than five years, following international pressure from Orthodox Romanians in the West, politicians and cultural figures.
Released in August 1984, he began the process of his catechesis a month later, because the Church officials were powerless to resist the pressure of the political officials.
The sentence has hardly been found after all these years, and it sounds like this:
SENTENCE NO. 9/1984
Sitting of 4 October 1984 The panel consisted of
PRESIDENT: Father …
MEMBERS: Priest …, Priest …
ACCUSED: Priest…, Patriarchal Inspector…
GREFIER: Deacon…
The undersigned, members of the Eparchial Consistory of the Holy Archdiocese of Bucharest, met today, on the above date, at the headquarters of the Eparchial Consistory, 53 Maria Rosetti Street, Sector 2, and in a hearing we considered the disciplinary case of Fr. Prof. CALCIU GHEORGHE DUMITREASA, residing in Bucharest, Ghirlandei Street No. 9, Sector 6, which was the subject of file no. 147/1984, was referred to the disciplinary tribunal of the Diocesan Consistory of Bucharest on the basis of accusation no. 9539/1984, in accordance with art. 68, letters b and d, of the Code of Canon Law of the Disciplinary Tribunals and of the Ecclesiastical Judgment, for the following offences and crimes of which he is guilty:
IN FACT:
Priest Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa worked as a teacher at the Theological Seminary of Bucharest, but on 1 September 1978, when his contract of employment was terminated and his activity ceased, according to the decision of the Disciplinary Commission of the Seminary of 15 June 1978, approved by the Metropolitan Synod in its meeting of 5 July 1978. Gheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa did not present himself at the parish of Militari I, nor did he accept a post in the administration of the Diocesan Centre, but he carried out priestly activities in the vacant post of priest at the parish of “Sfânta Vineri” Colentina in the capital.
In order to regulate his canonical situation as a priest, the Holy Archdiocese of Bucharest, with address no. 569/1979, invited him to the Eparchial Centre to choose one of the vacant priestly posts, but His Eminence did not accept to be employed in a priestly post in a parish.
On 22 August 1984, Fr. Prof. Gheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa submitted an application to the Holy Archdiocese of Bucharest, under no. On 22 August 1984, Fr. Gheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa filed an application with the Holy Archdiocese of Bucharest, under No. 9365/1984, requesting his reinstatement to the post of Professor of French and New Testament at the Theological Seminary, without sincerely and accurately stating that he had been arrested and imprisoned by the state organs in the period 1979-1984, leaving only the implication that he had been imprisoned, thus attempting to circumvent the provisions of the Regulation on the Organisation and Operation of the Institutes of Theological Education in the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Rules of Procedure of the Disciplinary and Tribunal Courts of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
Or, as it is stated in the aforementioned regulations: “The cases of deviations from the ecclesiastical discipline are also referred by the local Cypriarch to the judgement of the diocesan ecclesiastical consistory (art. 132 – Regulation of the Institutions of Theological Education) and “if one of the persons subject to the ecclesiastical judgement is definitively convicted by the criminal courts, the person in question is automatically referred to the ecclesiastical judgement for the application of disciplinary sanctions, according to the gravity of the criminal sanctions”…
IN LAW:
Whoever commits the crimes and misdemeanours provided for in: Art. 2 lit. g; Art. 3 lit. s and y; Art. 13, 15, 16 and 29 of the Regulations of the Disciplinary and Judicial Authorities of the Romanian Orthodox Church and canons: 31, 39 and 94 Apostolic; 8 IV Ecumenical; 5 Antioch; 5 Gangra; 10-11 Carthage and parallel, 80 VI Ecumenical Council, etc.
For the above, the priest Professor Gheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa is referred to the Eparchial Consistory to be judged and sanctioned according to the provisions of the Holy Canons, the Rules of Ecclesiastical Procedure and the laws in force.
The case was registered with the Eparchial Consistory under no. 147/13 September 1984 and, according to article 131 of the Code of Canon Law, a deadline was set for 20 September 1984, when the priest Professor Calciu Gheorghe Dumitreasa was summoned at 8.30 a.m., according to summons no. 144/1984.
Refusal to receive and sign the summons, according to the report of finding, registered at the Consistory under no. 151/1984 (file no. 22), the Court, agreeing with the opinion of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, granted a new deadline, which was set a second time for 4 October 1984, 8.00 a.m., according to summons no. 152/1984, this time in application of art. 134 para. II of the same Regulation.
And this time Fr. Prof. Calciu Gheorghe Dumitreasa refused to receive and sign the summons, according to the minutes registered at the Eparchial Consistory under number 160/1984, file f. 35.)For today’s term, 4 October 1984, the procedure having been fulfilled, the fee not paid and the calls made, the priest Prof. Calciu Gheorghe Dumitreasa is absent.
Since the priest, Professor Calciu Gheorghe Dumitreasa, has been summoned a second time, and with express reference to the provisions of Article 134(II), in view of the more serious case of the aforementioned Article 131, the Court decides to hear the case on its merits today.
The President of the Tribunal gives the floor to the Honourable Public Prosecutor, who, through the Eparchial Inspector, Fr. …, in his written submissions in the case file, pages 39-44, read in the Tribunal, concludes as follows “Considering the seriousness of the lapses and offences, and taking into account the principle of law in the case of accumulation of lapses and offences, and in particular the provisions of the Sacred Canons, which prescribe the maximum penalty for the offences committed and their continuance, I request that the penalty provided for in the Code of Canon Law be applied to the priest Professor CALCIU GHEORGHE DUMITREASA. in article 4, paragraph B, letter d of the Code of Canon Law, i.e. “DEFROCKING” (file f. 44).
The trial was adjourned for judgment.
When the hearing resumed, after one hour, and due to differences of opinion within the Tribunal, the judgment was adjourned until 6 October 1984, at 12 noon, when the Tribunal pronounced the judgment in the absence of the accused priest, Professor Calciu Gheorghe Dumitreasa. The debates having been concluded, THE EPARCHIAL CONSISTORY OF BUCHAREST, DELIBERATING ON the disciplinary case of the priest Professor Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa, residing at Bucharest, Ghirlandei Street no. 9, bl. 44, sc. III, et. II, ap. 91, referred to the Eparchial Consistory of Bucharest by accusation no. 9539/1984, and having regard to the documents in the case file (f. 1-47), submitted to the parties to the proceedings, to the submissions of the Honourable Public Prosecutor, the priest Prof. Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa, who is absent and judged in accordance with article 134, paragraph II, of the Ecclesiastical Code of Procedure, rules as follows
Considering:
– that the priest Prof. Calciu Gheorghe Dumitreasa worked as a professor of French at the Theological Seminary of Bucharest, having been appointed here on 1 September 1972, by transfer from the General School no. 144, sect. 6, Bucharest;
– that during his time as a teacher at the Theological Seminary he has shown indiscipline and his work with students has not been in accordance with the decisions of the Teaching Council, which led the Council to decide on 17 May 1978 to expel him from the teaching staff and to suspend him from the post of teacher at the Theological Seminary in Bucharest, Romania;
– that the Metropolitan Synod of the Holy Metropolitanate of Ungro-Vlachia, in its meeting of 5 July 1978, having examined the decision of the Council of Professors of the Theological Seminary and having analysed the reasons and the documents in the file prepared for it, approved the decision of the Council of Judges of the Theological Seminary of Bucharest, taken in accordance with art. 56 letter g of the Regulations of the Educational Schools, namely the dismissal of the priest Calciu Gheorghe Dumitreasa from the post of professor at the Theological Seminary of Bucharest;
– that the Holy Archdiocese of Bucharest, by letter No. 9297/1978, offered him a post in the administration of the Eparchial Centre and that, in order to fulfil his canonical duties as a priest, he was assigned to the parish of Militari I as a parish priest, to serve and receive Holy Communion;
– that the priest Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa did not present himself to the parish of Militari I as a parish priest, nor did he accept a post in the administration of the Eparchial Centre, showing disobedience, disrespect, lack of good will and defiance towards the superior ecclesiastical authority, with an attitude of frondeur and total insolence, applying for the post of sweeper on the Patriarchal Hill (reason no. 8943/17 May 1984), an attitude and insolence which he repeated in his application of 22 August 1984 (Ground no. 365/1984): “I repeat my old application of 17 May 1978 for the post of sweeper on Patriarch’s Hill”, he writes personally in the said application, ground no. 8943/17 May 1984. f. 8, but does not ask for a priest’s post;
– that, in order to regulate his canonical situation as a priest, the Holy Archdiocese of Bucharest, with address no. 569/17 January 1979, invited him again to the Eparchial Centre to choose one of the vacant priestly posts, but at the said address the said priest wrote and signed “I want to serve the Romanian Orthodox Church, and I will serve it until my death, but my post is that of professor at the seminary, from which I was abusively removed, in violation of all Christian laws” (File, f. 12);
– that, moreover, the ecclesiastical authority was very understanding towards the priest Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa and tacitly allowed him to carry out priestly duties in the vacant post of priest of the parish of “St. Friday”-Colentina in the capital, alongside the parish priest at the time, Zarea Anatolie (file, f. 17);
– that the priest Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa showed disrespect, contempt, disobedience and disobedience to the orders of the Higher Ecclesiastical Authority and to its acts of goodwill, understanding and leniency;
– that Prof. Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa carried out an activity contrary to the teaching of our Church and to the interests of the superior State, which led to his arrest, trial and imprisonment by the State authorities in the period 1979-1984, although in the application registered at the Diocesan Centre under no. 9365/22 August 1984, he does not mention this, nor does he attach the “release card”;
– that the file contains, in extracts, the sentence no. 35/4 May 1979, issued by the Territorial Military Tribunal of Bucharest, from which it appears that the said priest was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, deprivation of the rights provided for in Article 64, letters a and b, of the Criminal Code, for five years, and partial confiscation of his property, for the offence of conspiracy, provided for in Article 167, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the Criminal Code. 1 and 2 of the Criminal Code, in conjunction with Article 157, paragraph 2, of the Criminal Code, a sentence which became final and his appeal was dismissed by Decision No. 49/6 June 1979 of the Supreme Court – Military Section (file, f. 36);
– that the same judgment also states that the said priest “began serving his sentence on 10 March 1979 and was released on 20 August 1984, having been pardoned under Decree No. 290/1984, which provides for the amnesty of certain offences and the pardon of certain penalties; – that, pursuant to Art. 29 of the Rules of Procedure of the Disciplinary and Tribunal Courts of the Romanian Orthodox Church expressly provides: If one of the persons subject to the ecclesiastical trial is definitively convicted by the criminal courts for a crime or an offence … the persons concerned shall be brought ex officio before the ecclesiastical trial for the application of disciplinary sanctions, according to the severity of the criminal sanction;
– that therefore, in accordance with the provisions of this article, the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority was obliged to refer and has referred to the Eparchial Consistory the priest Professor Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa, taking into account the provisions of Article 132 of the Regulation on the Organisation and Operation of the Theological Educational Institutions of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which states that “Cases of deviation from Church discipline shall be referred by the local Bishop to the Eparchial Consistory for judgement”;
– that the higher ecclesiastical authority has acted in the same way with another priest who was sentenced by the penal institutions and whose trial is on the list of the Eparchial Consistory (see the case of the priest ILIUȚĂ CONSTANTIN from the parish of Scurtu Mare. Videle deanery, charge no. 10.673/1984 and which was attached to the request to Fr.)
– that the priest, Professor Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa, showed insincerity in his statements, disobedience, defiance and misbehaviour towards the superior ecclesiastical authority, so that in his personal file and in his autobiography, given on the occasion of his transfer to the post of professor at the Theological Seminary of Bucharest in September 1972, he did not declare that he had been convicted and that he had been imprisoned before 1963;
– that the priest Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa continued to show disrespect, contempt, disobedience, disobedience and disobedience to the orders of the supreme ecclesiastical authority, on the occasion of the execution of the procedure to present himself before the Eparchial Consistory, on 20 September 1984, refusing to sign the summons and the minutes drawn up by the persons specifically responsible for the execution of the procedure of vestire, according to the Rules of Procedure, art. 79-80, and refused to receive them (file f. 22 and 38);
– that the priest Professor Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa, despising and disregarding the doctrine of the Church, left to us by the Saviour and the holy Apostles as a guideline, to “submit to the supreme lords” (Rom. XIII, 1-2), by word and deed, has opposed the authority of the State and has participated in groups that undermine the security of the State;
– that this activity of his, hostile to the higher interests and the security of the State, led the competent bodies to sentence him to 10 years’ imprisonment under Article 157, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the Criminal Code, in relation to Article 157, paragraph 2, of the Criminal Code, for the crime of conspiracy and treason by revealing secrets, and to apply to him the provisions of Article 64, letters a and b, of the Criminal Code, concerning the prohibition of rights for 5 years;
– that, having regard to the provisions of Article 29 of the Code of Canon Law, paras. 1 and 3, according to which the application of the disciplinary sanction must take into account the seriousness of the criminal sanction, and the fact that the sentence also ordered the suspension of the rights provided for in Art. 64, letters a and b, of the Criminal Code, and that the sentence imposed was ten years’ imprisonment, and that “consequently” one of the penalties provided for in Art. 4, para. B, according to the gravity of the case;- that the priest Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa, by persisting in his requests to be given “the post of sweeper on the Patriarchal Hill”, has excluded himself from the ranks of the clergy of our Church;
– that, taking into account in particular the provisions of the Sacred Canons, which, according to Apostolic Canon 55, prescribe the maximum penalty for a cleric who slanders his Bishop, “to be catechised”, because the head of your people must not be spoken of in bad terms, and “if anyone slanders the Emperor or the Sovereign without justice, let him suffer the penalty, and if he is a cleric, let him be catechised, according to Apostolic Canon 84;
– that, in view of the offences and crimes committed and their continuance, of which the priest Calciu Gh. Dumitreasa, they are proven by the documents in the file, and fall under art. 2, lit. g; Art. 3, lit. s and y; Art. 13, 15, 16 and 29 of the Statute. Church; Holy Canons 31, 39, 55, 56 and 84 Apostolic; 8 and 18 of the IV Ecumenical Council; 34 of the VI Ecumenical Council, 5 Antioch, 11, 15 and 62 Carthage and parallel.
With respect and prevd. Art. 170, 171, 172 and 173 of the Code of Canon Law;
FOR THESE REASONS THE EPARCHIAL CONSISTORY OF BUCHAREST, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE OPINION OF THE BODY OF ASSIGNMENT, UNANIMOUSLY AND IN THE NAME OF THE LAW, RESOLVES:
To impose on the priest, Professor CALCIU GHEORGHE DUMITREASA, the penalty provided for in Art. 4, prgr. B, lit. d of the Code of Canon Law, i.e. “DEFROCKING”.
Punishment with the right of appeal to the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church within 15 days from the date of receipt of the sentence by the person concerned. With a Consistory fee of 500 lei, a court fee of 300 lei and a suspension of the sentence of 200 lei, making a total of 1,000 lei (one thousand).
Delivered and read out at the sitting held today, 6 October 1984, at 1 p.m.
The President: Pr. …
MEMBERS: 1. Pr. …, 2. Pr. …
GREFIER: Diac. …
Professor Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa[3].
Despite all the blows he received after his release from the church and state authorities, Father Calciu maintained his moral and spiritual behaviour. A delegation of foreigners in Zurich, who came to meet him in September 1984, noted in a subsequent article entitled “Visit to Father Calciu” and signed “Christians in Danger”:
“A few minutes later, Father Calciu, very weak, with grey hair and trembling hands, entered the room. His warm embrace and his cheerful laugh immediately showed us that we were in the presence of an exceptional personality. [In his weakened face, one could read Christian humility, joy and immense sincerity”[4].
He left for the West: Switzerland, France and finally America. The state of his mind before his final departure is clear from a letter he sent to the radio station “Free Europe”:
“There is a terrible memory of one’s own mistakes and a good memory that soothes and softens (tames) the past pains. But what frightens and shakes me is the inexorable persistence of hatred and wickedness, which Jesus died on the cross to eradicate. I also believe in the prayer of the known and unknown Martyrs: ““If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. ” (John 15:18). It is a thought that has never left me.
But I could not imagine, even in my most painful thoughts, that I had just escaped from the communist prisons, after my hierarchs had slandered me without reason and without taking into account the most elementary historical truth, that after all this my soul would suffer another inhuman blow, inflicted by the very hierarchy of the Romanian Orthodox Church, by my brothers. They thought they were depriving me of the grace of the priesthood by a decree of the catechism, which they did not give me, but a great archpriest, now dead, who would have been the only one entitled to stop me from my priestly functions – because the grace was given to me forever – and I know that he (the archpriest) would not have done it.
Does evil have limits to its inventiveness? No! All I ask of my bishops is a little Christian piety, a drop of Christian love. They didn’t care about me and my family, about my years of unemployment or my five and a half years in prison; on the contrary, they cared, but for the worse. How can we stop this organised hatred? Let them at least remember that they are Christ’s representatives in this world of pain and tears. All the time we are haunted by dangers, struck by materialistic concepts, both communist and capitalist, we find ourselves crucified like Jesus on Calvary. Say, my spiritual shepherds, as he did at the moment of his death: Tomorrow you will be with us in the Church of Christ”.
In 1985, a year after his release, Father Calciu was practically expatriated. There, in America, there was a community of Romanians who loved him and helped him and his family enormously.
In America, too, he experienced many hardships, but he was always supported by a wave of sympathy and consideration, until the last day of his life.
The autumn of 2006 found him in Romania. He fell seriously ill and was admitted to the military hospital in Bucharest. To the joy and comfort of His Holiness, he was visited here first by His Eminence Bartholomew Anania, then by Arch. Arsenie Papacioc and finally by Patriarch Teoctist himself.
On 21 November 2006, Fr. Gheorghe Calciu died, after which he had to fight a final battle, as obstacles soon arose regarding the burial place.
To let the events speak for themselves, we reproduce an excerpt from the chapter “Death does not exist”[5], written as a diary entry by Jacob, Father Leonid and Maria Rosana – the spiritual sons who assisted him until his last moments in the Fairfax Hospital in Virginia. The prophetic words of Father Gheorghe Calciu – “they will persecute us and kill us” – came true:
“But there was another reason for the excitement in the hospital. Father had gone through a great ordeal during the day. As I was told and then confirmed by several reliable sources, this is what I report. In his last will and testament, written in the military hospital in Romania, Father Calciu expressed his wish to be buried in the monastery of Petru-Vodă in Moldova, where his friend and fellow sufferer, Father Iustin Pârvu, is prior. Fr. Calciu considered Fr. Iustin to be the greatest confessor in Romania and perhaps the greatest living confessor. He loved this monastery very much and told us about it every time he returned from Romania. Now, on that Monday afternoon, it had come to light that the local Metropolitan had not agreed to Father Calciu’s burial at Petru Vodă Monastery. Why?
All I know is that Father Gheorghe had openly opposed the ecumenical activities of this Metropolitan, of which he often spoke about.
I cannot tell you what that meant! Father had spent twenty-two years in exile, far from the country he loved with all his heart and for which he had sacrificed his life. As he himself confessed, these years of exile were harder for his holiness than the years of torture in prisons. Now, on his deathbed, his wish was to return to the land he loved and rest in peace until the coming of our Saviour. But even that was denied him. He was persecuted, like a new Saint Nectarios, until the last moment of his life! This blow was Satan’s last attempt to win the soul of the Father, who had fought him long and hard.
The Romanian bishop in America brought him the news and began to tell him the options for the funeral. Father immediately understood the cunning of the enemy and stood up to him, as if to say: “You cunning man, do you really think you are going to trouble me now? Yes, I want to be buried in Romania, but above all I want to go to heaven with Christ! As a result, Father’s only comment was: “God forgive them all”.
But we could not give up so easily. Father’s last wish had to be fulfilled. I will not mention all the obstacles – political and otherwise – that followed. The important thing is that in the end, with God’s help, things became clear. The funeral was to take place in Petru-Vodă. Father was greatly comforted when his son, Andrei Calciu, came to his bedside and said: “Father, we’re going home!
Father shook his hand with the last of his strength and his face lit up. We all understood once again that God listens to the prayers of those who fear Him[6].
6] Thus ended his journey through this world, Father Gheorghe Calciu, Christ’s athlete at the crossroads of ages and millennia, who says of himself that he fell because of suffering and persecution, and those who knew him say that the joy of suffering raised him to the height of holiness and martyrdom.
With his life, he testified that the Christian religion is the last and greatest religion in the world, because thanks to it, he was able to live by refusing and praying for his enemies, those who so often tormented him beyond the biological, psychological and moral limits of survival. Fortunately, two square metres of land were finally found in Moldavia for his body, which had been mutilated for so long in communist prisons.
(Pr. Prof. Dr. Mihai Valică and Prof. Univ. Dr. Pavel Chirilă – The Persecution within. The Trials of the Righteous in Their Church)
[1] Life of Father Gheorghe Calciu, according to his and others’ testimonies, Christiana Publishing House, Bucharest, 2007, p. 11.
[2] Ibid, p. 31.
[3] Life of Father Gheorghe Calciu…, ed. cit., p. 236.
[4] Ibid, p. 237.
[5] Life of Father Gheorghe Calciu…, ed. cit., pp. 239-240.
[6] Cf. and Father Calciu’s Testament. His Last Words, with a Biographical Portrait and Seven Evocations, edited by Răzvan Codrescu, Lucian D. Popescu and Claudiu Târziu, Christiana Publishing House, Bucharest, 2007, especially pp. 39-42, 85-86, 93-96 (the circumstances of Father Calciu’s death and burial).