Tatiana Răduleț, a nun bearer of light in the communist darkness

This lover of Christ was born on 22 July 1921 in the village of Berivoii Mari, in the region of Făgăraș, today Brașov County, and was baptised Victoria. Her parents’ names were Nicolae and Ana. Her father, Nicolae, was a devout Orthodox Christian and, like most of the people from Ardel, a sympathizer of the National Peasant Party led by Iuliu Maniu. He died in 1948. Ana’s mother was born in another village, Hîrseni, with the surname Judele, she was a peasant’s daughter, with a gentle nature, she raised her seven children with great love, inspiring them with the love of God and respect among people. She gave birth to four boys: Ioan, Vasile, Nicolae, Toma and three daughters: Maria, Ana and Victoria, who will become mother Tatiana.

At the age of 12, after attending six primary classes in her native commune, Victoria went to live in Bucharest with her mother’s sister, Puiu Alexandrina, who raised her as she had no children of her own. Aunt Alexandrina was a housewife and was closely involved in raising and educating little Victoria. Her husband was a civil servant and it was with his support that she was able to learn tailoring, a trade she quickly mastered. The courses at this school lasted four years and on completion the school was considered a grammar school. Her aunt had a dressmaking business in Bucharest where Victoria worked until she entered the convent. In 1950, Victoria was called Tatiana and lived in Tismana Monastery, having become a nun in Bistrița-Valcea[1] Monastery, as Tismana was still a monastic convent.

In February 1952, Mother Tiatiana Răduleț was appointed Abbess of Tismana Monastery, replacing Mother Eliseia Glăvan. Mother Tatiana’s troubles began with her appointment as abbess of the monastery at a time of great turmoil. The convent of Tismana numbered 81 nuns, brought from 3 monasteries: Gologanu, Gura Motrului and Bistrița-Vâlcea. They worked in the “Propășirea” cooperative, whose president was Father Veniamin Nicolae, exarch of the monasteries. In this cooperative they made pig-hair drums “which they sold to various companies in the country or in the socialist trade”[2]. These production cooperatives were set up on the initiative of Patriarch Justinian in order to provide the communist power with a justification for monasticism as a supporter of the “working people”. Production cooperatives existed in both monastic and nunnery monasteries. Polovragi produced wooden materials for brushes and bidets. The monasteries of Jitianu, Strâmba Jiu and Gura Motrului made carpets and other household items; Horezu and Bistrița produced fine things – embroidery, sewing, ceramics; the monasteries of Agapia and Văratec in Moldavia had carpet workshops. Mother Superior Tatiana, together with Sisters Nicodima Vasilache, secretary, and Gabriela Cotârlan, treasurer, and Father Veniamin Nicolae, president, formed a “committee”.

Between 21 April and 7 October 1957, the head of the regional section, Lieutenant Major Mandoc Constantin, drew up a plan of action for the “Cerna” action in the Tismana monastery.

Welcoming into the convent such “hostile elements” as a retired priest and two Romanian nuns born in Bessarabia, appointing a former legionnaire like Mother Nicodima as secretary, allowing a former legionnaire like Father Veniamin to be an assistant priest, were only the beginning of the accusations against Mother Tatiana. The most difficult thing for this confessor of the faith to face were the accusations made by some of the monastery’s residents. These testimonies were extracted from the nuns after numerous threats by the Securitate, who were looking for a pretext to compromise the leadership of the convent. The group of “enemies” of the people of Tismana convent was given a name: “Cerna”. It was under this name that they were tried and sentenced: Father Veniamin Nicolae, Mother Superior Tatiana, the secretary Nicodima Vasilache, the treasurer Gabriela Cotârlan. Mother Ambrozia (Mother Mărgărit) was not spared either, accused of “carrying out activities contrary to the regime and of having links with various elements in other localities, and of using the convent’s funds in a suspicious and unjustified manner”[3]. One of the “democratic” accusations against the convent’s leadership was also “complicity in the misappropriation”[4] of funds, using the nuns’ salaries for their own benefit, etc., although the nuns did not receive any money from their salaries in hand, food and clothing being provided by the convent’s leadership. The wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing and tried to extract statements from some of the weaker nuns. Some gave in to the pressure, others defended their abbess.

Among those who defended her were Mother Maximilia Doca, Mother Veronica Luchian, Hristina Munteanu, Teodosia Popa, Petrovia Axenti. Those who testified that there were irregularities in the monastery were Harisica Teodoreanu, Magdalena Pichiu and Sister Lupescu Fănica. The party’s main “paternal concern” for the nuns was whether they had clothes and food, whether they received their wages, whether wine was served at meals and other benefits. The nuns admitted that they did not receive their wages in cash, but they signed the payroll and were largely satisfied with the arrangement. Those who were dissatisfied were the two nuns and the sister mentioned above. Mother Tatiana, being far-sighted, realised that they were collaborating with the Securitate and, in order not to damage the convent any further, sent them to another convent, Gura Motrului. Their complaints were that they worked 10 or 11 hours a day instead of 8, that the food was bad and they did not get enough wine, that they did not get any money, that they did not get any clothes made, that their letters were censored by the abbess, that the nuns in charge forced the sisters to wash their clothes and that the treasurer Gabriela had beaten some sisters.

When we look at these accusations, we see that they are really just gossip; it was not the convent management that decided how much and how to work, it was the whole party that demanded exaggerated rules; and as for food, clothes, money, beatings and other clever things, the real nuns knew well what they had promised before St. Francis. The real nuns knew well what they had promised at the altar when they received the monastic habit, “For by being hungry and thirsty and naked and condemned and mocked and scorned and reviled and persecuted and surrounded by many sorrows and afflictions, one imagines the life after God. And when you have suffered all these things, rejoice, says the Lord, for your reward is great in heaven”[5]. In June 1958 Mother Superior Tatiana was called to Craiova for a trivial reason, and from there she did not return to the convent, being arrested and sentenced to 16 years’ hard labour under Art. 209 pc. 1 C.P., by the military tribunal of Bucharest. She served 14 years of hard labour, during which she endured all the evils of prison: “imprisonment, beatings, starvation, first of all she had no air, they did not take her out for air. She needed air and they didn’t take her out to get it”[6]. The reasons for her imprisonment were invented by the authorities: “embezzlement” (they could not accuse her of politics because she had done nothing), harbouring “hostile elements” in the convent. On the basis of these charges, she spent 14 years in prison, where she was polished like gold in a smelter to make her shine more brightly. In the decision to register Mother Tatiana on 17.07.1962, under the heading of political activity after 23 August 1944, she is listed as an “active militant of the Orthodox monastic cult“[7] .

This was the nun’s policy and she had to be destroyed, humiliated and imprisoned. On 23 October 1964, she served her sentence, “imprisoned” in the 0726 Târgușor formation, Ploiești region. The 1964 decree on the release of political prisoners was not applied to her, and she continued to suffer until 1972. […] 

After her release from prison, she went to the Căldărușani monastery, whose abbot was Father Veniamin Nicolae, who had been sentenced with her in the same trial. From Căldărușani Monastery, on 12 October 1972, she wrote a letter to Mother Nicodima from Tismana, her friend in suffering. Here is the spiritual content of the letter:

“First of all, I would like to apologise for not answering your two letters. I am not trying to justify myself because I have no justification except that I am getting old. I kept thinking that I still had the strength to go to Tismana, but as you know, I didn’t make it. I used to get a letter from the Mother Superior, but I see that she has left me for good, “eyes that don’t see are forgotten”. You know that when I was the youngest I had to write to you from time to time, but yesterday I got glasses and today I’m writing to you, maybe you won’t believe that I can hardly see. I wish you a lot, a lot of everything and there is not a day when I don’t think of Tismana and send you good thoughts of health, peace and all that is good and useful from God. I think I am also mentioned at least as the prodigal son. May the Lord grant that the day will come when I will say: “I am not yet worthy to be called your daughter, accept me as one of your servants. Nun Tatiana”[8].

After her release from prison, the Securitate followed her every step. An “enemy of the people” could not be tolerated. Mother Tatiana’s frequent visits to Tismana were recorded by the source “Jeana”, who wrote down every visit to her beloved convent, noting everything she said or where she stayed. Here is one of the many informative notes

“The former abbess of Tismana Monastery – TATIANA – who is now a nun in Căldărușani Monastery in the Monastery of Monks, where the abbot is the monk Veniamin, former president of the cooperative “Propășirea” of Tismana Monastery, visited Tismana Monastery between 17.XII.1973 and 19.XII.1973, before the New Year until 2 January 1974 and between 5 and 9 February 1974.

The source learned from Mother Isidora Popescu that, before the arrest of the management of the “Propășirea” cooperative, the former abbess Tatiana, together with Nicodima Vasilache, with whom she was a good friend, had destroyed by burning and hiding in the attics and under the floorboards various goods that were in excess and could not be justified during the inspection. It is also said that oil drums, brooms, etc. were thrown over the waterfall.

In connection with the repeated visits of the nun Tatiana to the Tismana Monastery, according to the statements of Mother Superior Ierusalima and Mother Nicodima, they would like Mother Tatiana to return to the staff of the Tismana Monastery. During her last visit, Mother Tatiana lived with Mother Superior Ierusalima.”[9]

When Father Veniamin Nicolae was sent to the diocese of Buzău as a Vicar Bishop, Mother Tatiana went with him. In the second half of December 1977, Mother Tatiana’s dream of returning to Tismana was fulfilled. She did not escape the surveillance of the Securitate. The source “Bogdan” asked her why she was returning to the Tismana oblast, and Mother replied promptly: “because I was ordered to do so.”[10] According to the source “Jeana”[11], Mother Ierusalima, the abbess of the convent, and Mother Nicodima had been waiting for her for a long time. After her return to the convent, the nervous illness she had contracted in the dungeon as a result of the beatings and humiliations she had endured had worsened. Mother Florentia said of her that in the last part of her life she had reached a very serious state: “she lost her mind, she left the convent naked, she was badly beaten, she was tormented”[12].

After much suffering, Mother Tatiana Rudolat died on 24 February 1986, to receive the crown of patience from God.

The nuns who loved her wrote on the cross at her bedside: “The Lord will judge everyone with fire and with the sword” Isaiah.

(Fr. Siluan Antoci – Orthodox Nuns Bearers of Light in the Communist Darkness, Vol. I, Doxologia Publishing House, Iași, 2010, pp. 120-130)

[1] Ana Maria Rădulescu, Olteni clerics in communist prisons. Preliminary study (IV) in “Revista Mitropolia Olteniei”, year LVII, Mitropolia Olteniei Publishing House, Craiova, no. 1-4/2005, p. 145

[2] ACNSAS, Information file 234105, vol. 1, f. 27

[3] Ibidem, f. 13, 14

[4] Ibid, f. 70

[5] Molitfelnic. Rânduiala schimei celei mici, Publishing House of the Biblical and Mission Institute of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, 1992, p. 513.

[6] Testimony of Mother Prioress Ierusalima Gligor of Tismana Monastery

[7] ACNSAS, Information file 234106, f.1

[8] ACNSAS, information file 234105, vol. 4, f. 50

[9] Idem, vol. 3, f. 159

[10] Ibid, vol. 3, f. 68

[11] Ibid, f. 159

[12] Testimony of Mother Florentia Bârdan of Polovragi Monastery.