The Book of Divine Light

For 12 and a half years, I went through the rigours of the Securitate dungeons of Uranus[1], Jilava, Gherla, the Baia Sprie and Cavnic lead mines, the T.B.C. hospital in Târgu-Ocna and finally Aiud. Here, seriously ill, I stayed until my release.

Between life and death, my main preoccupation was constant prayer, which sometimes continued in my sleep through the hesychast prayer[2].

Following the admonition of the Apostle Paul, “Pray without ceasing” (I Thess 5:17), I received the uncreated light. The heavens opened to me[3] and what I saw and felt, rather than thought, I put down in verse, for this was the only language closer to reality and easier to remember for the time when I would be set free.

Because of recent illness, many of these poems have been forgotten, but a few have remained in my memory for posterity. It should be known that I did not use metaphors or figures of speech[4], but this was the only way to express these realities and experiences, visible and palpable with all the senses, spiritual experiences[5].

I have written down here, more than what I thought[6], what was beyond thinking, what was revealed to me through and during prayer; after having succeeded, with much effort and risk[7] to separate and distinguish what was pure and divine from what was diabolical and demonic temptation. It was a spiritual battle of unspeakable severity. I endured this through prayers of all kinds, the predominant one being the prayer of the heart, the hesychast prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!

It all began with the appearance of the cross of sunlight[8] on the right side of my heart[9], then the light gradually spread over the whole body. The struggle was hard and lasted for years to remove the darkness[10] and the satanic apparitions, the demonic possessions that tended to bring me down.

In time, the spiritual light enveloped me and expanded to infinity. Only the hesychast prayer, recited constantly, sometimes even in my sleep, saved me spiritually and often physically. White light[11] appeared to me first, then gradually[12] mystical lights[13] of certain colours. I heard, I felt, I tasted with smell, I fiddled[14] in the Spirit with the spirit and my spiritual body[15] – seen in different colours and forms.

Other spiritual bodies of saints and angels[16] helped me. I saw, I understood, a new world[17] was revealed to me, spiritually, through the Spirit of God, being part of that light, invisible to the bodily eyes, through the Body of Christ[18].

I participated[19] and lived[20] in the uncreated light, the invisible Church was revealed to me[21], I entered the Kingdom of Heaven that was given to me[22].

The promise of Vladimirești[23] was fulfilled with me: “Into the hearts that entrust themselves to Me and call Me with all longing, I will descend with all heaven and make them My altar”[24].

I have always felt myself to be a bodily altar[25] among other altars[26], architecturally connected in prayer. I saw ships coming towards me and fantastic altars[27] in colour. I saw the spiritual Eye like a sun, taking me from one spiritual world to other spiritual worlds, purer and greater. All this was at the end of my 12 years of imprisonment: 1963-1964.

When I was sick, in pain and without prospects[28], I used to say as a prayer: “Thank you, Lord, for everything! In the depths of my misery[29], I felt that this[30] was the purest expression of my love and glory in the depths of my physical existence.

In the poems I did not present the sufferings and trials I went through, but rose above them through faith and prayer. Below I present some wonderful things that happened to me[31].

When I was suffering from cerebral congestion, I saw the paw of Christ’s foot on which a tear had fallen… I kissed His foot, sipped the tear, and from that moment, when all my veins were excessively swollen, the congestion gradually ceased and in time disappeared altogether.

Another time, when I was collapsed with illness, in semi-dream[32], Christ laid His hand on my heart. My joy was so great that it lasted a few days and then I was well again.

Sometimes I felt and saw a divine light coming from my heart and standing around me, and it was more evident and more palpable to the spirit than material light[33] and matter itself. I experienced the acceleration[34] which tended towards infinity, which disappeared into silence, and in this silence the Kingdom of heaven was revealed to me.

On another occasion, a roommate[35] who had been in prison for almost 20 years, entered a silence in which, according to his later testimony, he felt he was going mad. For days I prayed for him to the Blessed Mother, who appeared to me as a bluish light with three suns shining in it. The moment this light was fixed on him,[36] he came and told me why he had adopted this attitude of silence. I advised him to begin speaking[37] with all the others in the cell.

He confessed to me that he could not. I continued to pray to Our Lady and the blue light returned to him. The next day he came to tell me that a force he could not resist was pushing him and that he needed to speak to me again. In time he returned to normal.

These poems are but a pale shadow of what I saw and felt in God’s light. I don’t know if I have succeeded[38] in making the reader see beyond words[39] the greatness and beauty of the spiritual world. I quote here the words of the priest Professor Dumitru Stăniloae[40], in a letter dated 5.01.1979[41], when he replied to a letter addressed to me, concerning the poem Spiritualisaton, as follows: “The poem gave me the impression of an authentic experience in the divine light, since it is very similar to those of St. Simeon the New Theologian[42]”.

I consider these poems to be a theme of contemplation and a unique experience, born of the heart and the mind, of the love of the divine light, of purity and the ascent to God in conditions of monasticism and unrepeatable suffering.

With humility I must confess that the light and the vision in the Spirit[43] lasted for some years. Returning to ordinary life[44], the light and the vision in the Spirit were lost, but they did not disappear completely. “The gift is given, but it is also taken away.” 

But I want to publish these pages as a necessity for the new times, so that we may turn our hearts and souls to God[45].

Turnu Măgurele,
March, 1990.

(The complete writings of Blessed Elijah the Seer of God and his life, commented by his disciple and son in the Lord, Pr. Dr Dorin Octavian Picioruș. Vol. I, Theology for Today, Bucharest, 2010, pp. 25-29)

[1] Which was torn down according to: http://www.jurnalul.ro/stire-special/bibliotecarul-de-lamanastirea-antim-70568.html.

[2] In the words of the Master: it was said “of itself”.

[3] Spiritually. That is, she began to have godly visions.

[4] In my poems.

[5] Living and seeing spiritually, you also feel spiritually. Hence the reality of feeling with our spirit/soul the spiritual realities.

[6] That is, I related what I saw – how I could relate it – without thinking, without fully realizing what I saw and reasoning too much about it. I thought less than I saw.

[7]Personal. The fear of madness was haunting him.

[8] Uncreated. Divine light appeared in the form of a cross.

[9] All that he saw, he alone saw, and that in his spirit. Not outside his person, but inside his body.

[10] Spiritual, which he saw and felt and which disturbed him.

[11] I experienced.

[12] With time and more and more.

[13] The mode or modes of existence of the uncreated light, through a continuous and deep state of love and prayer.

[14] With the senses of the soul.

[15] With my spirit and my body participating in the spiritualisation process.

[16] Not that the saints in heaven have with them their earthly bodies transfigured, but their souls as well as the Angels, for those who see them in the Spirit, have a certain corporeality.

[17] To me.

[18] Because of His incarnation and all the consequences that follow this “self-emptying” of the Son of God (Phil. 2:7).

[19] I have witnessed the life of the Kingdom of God.

[20] Consciously and effectively, in my spirit.

[21] Of the Saints in heaven, in comparison with the Church on earth.

[22] I was allowed to see it.

[23] At the beginning of the twentieth century, in this locality, some spiritual manifestations happened. I don’t know much about the subject. The teacher believed in their authenticity. He was interested in the message indicated in the text and not in the affiliation with what happened later with the Vladimirești group.

[24] It may be an extended paraphrase of “I in them” from John 17:23.

[25] From which I offered the sacrifice of my prayer, my love and my purity.

[26] I believe the Saints and Angels, if not other supplicants still in the flesh. He did not expressly confess to me whether he saw other supplicants in the body in heaven at the time when he had divine visions.

[27] Incredibly beautiful and hard to describe.

[28] That is to say: I could no longer see a perspective.

[29] Of human helplessness.

[30] Prayer.

[31] During detention.

[32] In an intermediate state. Between wakefulness and sleep.

[33] That from the sun or other sources of illumination.

[34] Relating to speed, through the view of the spirit.

[35] Of the cell.

[36] Remained over him.

[37] In fact: to begin again.

[38] By what I have written.

[39] In his spirit.

[40] More about himself: http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumitru_St%C4%83niloae.

[41] This letter is in our possession and we will edit it in one of the volumes of this aghiographical series dedicated to Blessed Elijah, our spiritual Father.

[42] See our doctoral thesis: http://bastrix.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/vederea-luidumnezeu-in-teologia-sfantului-simeon-noul-teolog/.

[43] In The Holy Spirit.

[44] After release from prison.

[45] And with this complete edition of his work and our commentaries we are in fact fulfilling the great desire of his life, that his mystical experience and his theological insights may reach the members of our Church and build them up in their faith and love for God and for people.