Stejaru Hermitage watched over by the spirit of the martyred priest Aurel Lazarov
One day when I set off without knowing my exact destination, I was surprised to find myself in foggy Dobrogea, and this time the dry winds didn’t let up, keeping my gaze fixed on an endless expanse of wilderness. After climbing up the otherwise rather arduous country road, I experienced the joy of waking up to an outline that connects the sky with the empty expanse, and above it all, the majestic Stejaru Hermitage. On such a day, a martyr of the communist dungeons was remembered, Father Aurel Lazarov, son of the place, who ended up in the communist dungeons after 12 years of imprisonment, during which time he shared a cell with Father Stăniloae and two other chosen ones of God on Romanian soil, the confessors Arsenie Papacioc and Justin Pârvu. The priest from Dobrogea was remembered by his family, Archimandrite Andrei Tudor, Protosinghel Maxim Vlad, Priest Gheorghe Niculescu and the faithful from Stejaru and the surrounding area.
Carapelit-Bair, an oasis in the wilderness of Dobrogea
A dense fog that came and went with dizzying speed made me walk for tens of kilometres as if through a tunnel of time, at the end of which I found myself in a settlement of people unlike any other I had visited during my travels. As I entered the Plain of Dobrogea, I came to a crossroads. I was 78 kilometres from Constanța and 17 kilometres from Hârșova, in the commune of Saraiu, somewhere in the immediate vicinity of Casimcei Plain, and this settlement is divided into three distinct localities: Saraiu, Stejaru and Dulgheru. Taken separately, they are almost identical communities, I would say, but in the end you find yourself in the same wonderful landscape, surrounded by holm oaks and other steppe plants, which find their life in the gentle trickles of the Haidar stream (Topolog). And to make the scenery truly magical, we were pleasantly startled by the sound of a flock of goats and sheep grazing quietly in the evening silence. We were looking at a unique panorama of ramshackle settlements, as if left over from the time when these lands were Christianised. There, between the villages of Dulgheru and Saraiu, in the heart of the Dobrogea wilderness, we reached the village of Carapelit (Stejaru). The original name of the village is linked to the name of the hill Carapelit-Bair, from the time when the village was under Turkish occupation. Between 1916 and 1922, all the Tartars from the village emigrated to Turkey, and in 1930 the name of the village was changed from Carapelit to Stejaru. Translated from Turkish into Romanian, Carapelit-Bair means ‘black oak’ or ‘black wood’.
Monastery revived by four nuns
As we trudged through this cold, harsh land, looking for local places of worship, somewhere to the left of the road, a slender silhouette loomed on the highest ridge. It was the church of the village monastery. In the old days, the people of Stejaru used to go to the church in the village of Dulgheru, about three kilometres away, for Sunday and holiday services. To get away from the muddy or snowy roads, people have always wanted their own church. God ordained that four nuns from Costinești should stay here and give the locals the joy of having a monastic settlement in Stejaru. The monastery, dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord, was to become a place of prayer for all the inhabitants of the area. Located on the top of a hill, the monastery church looks like a ship rising from the clear waves that sweep across the Dobrogea steppe, making you feel the unnaturally cold winds melted by the warmth of prayer. The church of Stejaru was built between 1934 and 1943. The architecture of the church is Byzantine, in the shape of a cross, with a single tower. The vaulted ceiling and the icons were made by Eremia Păvăluc from Tulcea in 1942. The monastery church was renovated between 2008 and 2010.
A believer from Bucharest, Constantin Zamfir, donated a bell of rare beauty, which brings additional piety to the faithful who come to worship in this holy monastery.
Father Aurel Lazarov: 12 years of hard imprisonment
Among other worthy priests of these lands, the church of Stejaru was served by Father Aurel Lazarov, a native of the commune Gârliciu, Constanța, who was appointed parish priest of the commune at the age of 27. Only two years later, he was imprisoned in communist prisons for having fed two refugees who had links with the legionaries. Fr. Aurel was imprisoned in Jilava, Cavnic and Aiud for 12 years, after which he died in Aiud prison at the age of 39. Dumitru Stăniloae and Liviu Brânzaș wrote about Fr. Lazarov, including the testimonies of the great confessors of our nation, such as Arsenie Papacioc and Justin Pârvu, who were his companions. Eugen Lazarov, son of the martyred father, who attended the event with his family, recalled with emotion: “My father was in prison for 12 years until he died, and in all that time I heard from him only once, through a special man, a good friend of my father’s parish, Father Mocanu. Around 1958-59 he came to us and brought me a small wooden cross from my father and an icon made of some kind of bone. Then, in 1992, Father Calciu-Dumitreasa came to us and told me about my father, that ‘he was a saint'”.
Prison companions of Arsenie Papacioc and Justin Pârvu
Everyone present at the service had a memory, a testimony, but what was truly impressive was the life of Christ lived beyond the cold walls of the communist prisons. Many such heartbreaking stories were born in the darkest of the darkest of the darkest of the darkest, but human solidarity was at its highest, as Father Arsenie Papacioc recounts:
“Do you know what Father Aurică was like? We were all in Zarca (Aiud prison). Water was coming down from above and Aurică sat on me so that the water wouldn’t run down me, because I had a lung problem. He was the man who, even if he was hungry for a week and got a piece of bread, preferred to give it away so that he could see others smile”. No two days were the same. Although the days and nights spent within the prison walls followed the same path, the impact of each one on the prison was different. In the pages of The Orthodox Word magazine in 1994, Father Justin Pârvu described a night of resurrection experienced by the Cavnic martyrs: “In 1954 we celebrated the Resurrection of Christ 800 metres underground, in a salt mine (Cavnic). At that time everything was done according to the Soviet model, the whole life was according to the Soviet model: celebrations, music, everything. Even the guards were fed up and asked us: “Hey, sing us some Romanian songs”, “We want to hear the life of the Romanians, we are at home”. You have to have a robust psyche to be able to accept this, to save your soul, your heart and your mind, to keep them intact, whole. That was what they were trying to destroy: they were trying to kill your soul, your mind, your heart and your will. I took all the pieces of metal from the rock cutters and put them on a string. They made a wonderful sound. I beat them all with a stick, from one end of the string to the other. The collection time was 2.30am. Then we got into the lift and we all started making noise. It was the moment of our lives when we felt a deep spiritual breathlessness. We priests sang everything we knew, loudly, deeply, at our peril! We were somehow out of our depth. No one was afraid of danger – it was now or never! As we entered the lift, we sang “Christ is risen”. Then we heard those who remained and those who came down from the surface into the mine in our place, we could hear their singing deep down in the mine. The singing began underground, continued in the lift and on the surface. There were 20 of us priests, both Orthodox and Greek Catholic. We all learn from one another. That’s how the flame of life was kept alive, that’s how we stayed alive,” recalls Father Justin.
Supplicants have diminished, lawlessness has multiplied
The martyrs of the Romanian nation during the communist period are those who came from the great straits and shook the foundations of this people. Even if today is not a day dedicated to one of the holy martyrs of the calendar, God has ordained that on this day a martyr of the nation should be remembered, because the day of the martyrs of Christ is every day. Once again, Father Maxim Vlad impressed us with a sermon that touched everyone’s soul: “The whole history of the Church of Christ is marked by the presence of the martyrs of Christ, these witnesses of the truth. If their sacrifice is not to be in vain and to bear fruit, the Church must carry out an act of restitutio memoriae. This is, in fact, a liturgical honour, inscribing these heroes of the faith in the calendar, so that their example may be a constant source of inspiration for Christian generations to come. In fact, this act is urgently needed for the peace and good order of the whole world, because in the world in which we live there are too few prayers. With the lack of prayer, lawlessness has multiplied, and this will inevitably lead to wars, pain and suffering of which, unfortunately, humanity is not yet aware. The Church’s struggle is not against our fellow human beings, but against the fallen spirits that turn human beings into real prisoners and instruments for spreading evil in the world. That is why the Church needs martyrs, that is why today the martyrs’ legion remembers and testifies to Father Aurel Lazarov as its light”.
I left Stejaru Monastery through the same thick fog, but it made little difference whether I was on the road to Constanța or not, one thing was clear to me now: I had to find as many documents as possible about this martyr from Dobrogea!
Father Maxim Vlad and the documentalist Ionuț Druche helped me in my efforts, so that today I can present to you these treasures found somewhere “at the end of the world”. This hermitage in the heart of Dobrogea has more life and more light than the great monasteries I have passed through over the years, and the spirit of the martyred Father Aurel Lazarov enriches the experience of those who come to worship in the monastery between the Babadag Mountains and the Great Sea.
(Mariana Borloveanu – The World of Faith Magazine no. 3 (140), March 2015)