Spiritual delights with Father John, in the Aiud’s Zarca

The next day, in the morning, the corridor comes alive. I heard footsteps and muffled orders. The door to my cell opened and a guard, with an air of mystery about him, ordered me to put my zebra on my head and go outside. After a few steps I’m joined by a group of three prisoners and we make our way to a cell. We stopped in front of a door. As we entered, one of my unknown comrades poked his head out from under the wedge, raised his eyes and muttered something cryptic:

– Five! The number of the Mother of God!

As we entered, I wondered who the man was who had interpreted our future cell number in a Christian way. Alone, we looked at each other with joy and interest. From the first moment, one name had an explosive effect: Father Ioan Iovan from Vladimirești! I had heard so many interesting and even amazing things about Vladimirești Monastery, and the fact that I was in the company of Father Iovan gave me great joy. I feel that Providence has smiled on me a second time. From the school of the great theologian [Dumitru Stăniloae], where I spent the last five months, I entered the school of the great ascetic in the famous monastery. This second theological course, the one on asceticism and mysticism, was probably only to be found in Zarca. One could not imagine a more favourable environment and a more appropriate setting. […]

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Father John has his own programme, which he follows constantly. Every morning, after the common cell programme, Father Ioan celebrates Liturgy in the right corner (facing the door), which is at a blind angle to the window. The rest of us observe this supreme religious moment with reverence and devotion, in silence. The main purpose of this liturgical moment is to invoke God’s grace and protection for the nuns of Vladimirești, scattered to the four winds by the “armed arm” of the proletarian revolution. For those in prison, help and strength to endure suffering, and for those exiled in the world, help and protection to overcome temptations and remain pure. Father John does not bear this name in vain. He suffers with all the intensity of care for his spiritual daughters.

Father John came to our cell community after a long and hard period of solitude and persecution.

In each of the two large prisons we have passed through, we have lived with priests in our cell. In the communist prisons, the Romanian fighters who resisted atheistic communism believed that they were repeating the resistance and martyrdom of the Christians in the first centuries of persecution. In these circumstances, the presence and role of priests is overwhelming. Scattered throughout the prison cells, they preached the faith, encouraged Christian heroism and administered the sacraments. After so many years of imprisonment, the prisoners no longer had the opportunity to confess and receive Holy Communion, as their Christian souls ardently desired and as the constant threat of death in the extermination conditions in which they lived demanded. It is therefore a favour from Providence to sit in a cell with a priest. […]

Here, in the Zarca, during the day, Father Ioan delights us with spiritual moments. He has his favourite Gospel pericopes. He puts so much grace into them that you feel their mysterious charm penetrate the depths of your soul. The pericope of the sinner in the house of Simon the leper, in the mouth of Father John, becomes an open door to the lights of heaven. When he begins with the first sentence: “Simon, I want to tell you something”, you are sure that two thousand years ago the Saviour addressed Simon the leper with the same nuance in his voice. “Simon!” – A soft address, in the mouth of one who could command with authority. A plea, apparently timid, to be heard for a moment. A whisper, as in the moments of great confessions. It is as if one could see Simon, penetrated by the mystery of the solemn moment, lose his usual Pharisee arrogance and say with humility and maximum interest: “Tell me, Master!”

There is, of course, no shortage of stories about scenes and sayings from the lives of the saints. The wonders of the Paterikon are revealed to us in all their splendour. […]

But what we expect most from Father John is the truth about Vladimirești Monastery. Since his childhood, as the son of a priest and exposed to religious matters at an early age, he has been fascinated by the mystery of grace and the presence and work of God in the world. He became convinced that God is much more active and visible in the world than people generally think. Those who are indifferent or resistant to the divine miracle are unable to perceive God’s work in the world. It was on the eve of his ordination to the priesthood that he first heard of Vladimirești, while he was in the monastery of Sâmbăta. At that moment he felt that he had discovered his mission and that his place was there. He was ordained by Blessed Nicolae Popovici, the great Bishop of Oradea and later defender and martyr of the Church.

Father is convinced that a number of miraculous things happened there. But the greatest and most obvious miracle was the presence of tens of thousands of pilgrims who sought rest and consolation in this monastery. The communist regime, unhappy with the extraordinary influx of the faithful, ordered a political trial and the closure of the monastery. Father John regrets that there were hierarchs who, in order to satisfy the wishes of the atheistic communist regime, fought against pilgrimages. One of the personalities of the monastery was Mother Mihaela, sister of the great living of the Romanian Christian spirit, Iordache Nicoară.

The case of the Vladimirești monastery remains a clear proof of the destructive atheism installed in Romania by the communists. Any religious manifestation that did not fall within the minimum limits they imposed was silenced. They could not tolerate the presence of tens of thousands of people who sought solace in the monastery and thus expressed their opposition to atheistic Bolshevism. Since the Romanian Communists could not repeat the total anti-Christian persecution of the time of the establishment of Communism in Russia (they would have liked to, but the international conditions no longer allowed it), they accepted – more precisely, tolerated – the existence of churches, but fought hard to empty them.

(Fr. Liviu Brânzaș, Ray from the catacomb. Diary from prison, Scara Publishing House, Bucharest, 2001, pp. 277-282)