The ”Burning Bush” movement and the Prison

For Antim Monastery, the years of famine 1945-1948, which came upon us, together with the end of the Second World War and our occupation by Communism, were very hard years, not only for us, but for the whole Romanian country. From then on, the unrest began that lasted until the revolution of December 1989.

During these difficult years, in the monastery of Antim, about 40 monks and brothers, some of them students at various faculties in Bucharest, and others working in the workshops of church objects, based in this monastery, we had some comforts, namely: during this period, the two large spires of the main church of the monastery were rebuilt, replacing the old ones made of straw with the current ones made of reinforced concrete and exposed brick, and the interior painting of the church was washed and restored.

This was done on the material level. On the spiritual level, there were the daily services of the restored church and our humble request at the time: the Jesus Prayer, in which the Burning Bush, a biblical expression from Exodus 3:2-5, appeared.

The Burning Bush, which burned and did not move, is the symbol of unceasing prayer, hence the Jesus Prayer. This interpretation belongs to Father Daniil Teodorescu, the initiator of the Burning Bush, who died in Aiud prison.

Between 1945 and 1948, a series of conferences on this subject were held in the library of Antim monastery.

Among the lecturers were several prominent personalities of the cultural-religious life of the time, including the above-mentioned Fr. Hieroshikomonk Daniil, Fr. Benedict Ghiuș, Fr. Vasile Vasilachi, then abbot of Antim Monastery, Fr. prof. univ. Dumitru Stăniloae, prof. univ. Alexandru Elian, prof. univ. Alexandru Mironescu, the writer Paul Sterian, the writer Ion Marin Sadoveanu, the poet Vasile Voiculescu.

The conferences were of a theological nature, with reference to prayer in general, to man’s relationship with God, seen historically, to the prayer of Jesus and the practice of this prayer, also seen historically, starting from the apostolic age, through the Fathers of the Desert, the Philokalic Fathers, the Romanian Hesychasm in the monasteries, Hermitages and monasteries from the 14th century, the Hesychasm and monasteries from the time of St. Nicodemus of Tismana, Prior Basil of Poiana Mărului, St. Paisios Velichkovsky, Paisianism, Prior George of Cernica and the practice of the Jesus Prayer in our monasteries, the Jesus Prayer in the civil world.

The conferences were held in the library of the monastery of Antim, in the presence of many faithful, including many students from different faculties. After the lecture it was customary for everyone in the room to ask questions on the subject presented. The lecturer or other well-informed people in the room would answer. In this way, the subject of the lecture was fixed in the minds of the audience.

Parallel to these lectures, on weekdays, after the evening services, the seven lauds of the Church were explained in detail, with emphasis on Vespers and Evening Prayer and the Psalms. Special emphasis was placed on the explanation of the Holy Mass. On each day of the week, for example, the traditional symbolism of the Holy Mass was presented on Monday, the musical aspects of the Holy Mass on Tuesday, the iconographic vision of the Holy Mass on Wednesday, and the mystical presentation of the Holy Mass on Thursday.

In spite of all the scaffolding that was being erected inside and outside the church for the construction of the present spires, in spite of all the atheism and hostility that was spreading in the capital and in the country, both verbally and in the press, in spite of all the poverty and hunger that was spreading throughout the country, the church was full of worshippers and listeners who received with sympathy and piety the explanations prepared for the above-mentioned Services.

At that time, more precisely in the autumn of 1945, the celibate priest Ioan Kulighin appeared as a guest at the Antim Monastery. He was the confessor of Metropolitan Nicholas of Rostov, a refugee from Russia, where the German armies were retreating, and was staying at the Cernica monastery with the blessing of the then Patriarch Nicodemus.

Father John, who was about 60 years old at the time, came to our house every Saturday, celebrated Sunday Mass with us, ate lunch with us and, after Vespers in the afternoon, took part in the meeting in the library hall. He had a young Bessarabian, Leonte, as a translator from Russian into Romanian, who knew both Romanian and Russian well, and with his help we understood well what Father John was telling us.

This priest, the confessor of the Metropolitan Nicodemus of Rostov, was an ordinary man, blond, blue-eyed, with a small and sparse beard, but he was an authentic devotee of the Jesus Prayer and a very good scholar of the Holy Fathers, a kind of Father Cleopas among us. He had learnt the Jesus Prayer in the monastery of Optina, north of Moscow, at the beginning of the revolution of 1917, after the elders of Optina had been liquidated, the young people, including then Brother John, were arrested and taken to socialist forced labour and later imprisoned. He tells many beautiful and moving stories from his life and the lives of his compatriots.

What was very important for us were his personal confessions in connection with the Jesus Prayer, which he really said incessantly. For many years the call of the Lord’s name had gone from his mind to his heart, and he prayed it when he spoke, when he served, when he ate and when he walked. For him, prayer was like breathing. And he prayed in his sleep.

I know this from him because whenever he came to Antim Monastery, I took him into my cell and he told me many things. From him I learned a lot about hesychasm in Russia, where it was practised not only in monasteries but also in the lives of many believers, like the Russian pilgrim, a book that Father John knew well.

In January 1947 he was arrested from the Cernica monastery, together with his apprentice, Brother Leonte. Father John was sentenced to life imprisonment in Odessa and Brother Leonte was deported to Siberia, from where he sent us a postcard ending with the Jesus Prayer.

The Open Hearth conversations continued until mid-1948, when they were suspended for several years by political order. Much of the staff of Antim Monastery was transferred elsewhere, especially to the Theological Seminary of Neamț Monastery, so that any active enthusiasm in the name of the ”Burning Bush” was largely stifled.

Meanwhile, we received sad news of the suffering of the prisoners on the Danube-Black Sea Canal and of the atrocities committed against the student youth imprisoned in Pitești.

Before long, in June 1958, those of us who had been active in the ”Burning Bush” were arrested. At that time I was in the monastery of Ghighiu, near Ploiești, on scaffolding with a group of novice monks and brothers who were frescoing the church in the monastery cemetery. I was arrested together with Father Felix Dubneac, also a member of the Burning Bush.

The investigation took several months. It wasn’t until the trial before the military tribunal that we found out that we were sixteen prisoners, part of the “Burning Bush Organisation”.

Among us and with us were Father Hieroschemamonk Daniil Teodorescu, the former Sandu Tudor, the initiator of the so-called “organisation”, Father Benedict Ghiuș, Father prof. univ. Dumitru Stăniloae, P. Arsenie Papacioc, P. Roman Braga, prof. univ. Alexandru Mironescu and his son Serban, the student of literature, doctor and poet Vasile Voiculescu, doctor Gheorghe Dabija. The rest, students from various faculties in the capital, archimandrites and brothers Vasile and Haralambie Vasilachi, were imprisoned with another group in Gherla.

After the trial at the military tribunal, we met again at Jilava, the triage prison, its walls painted with fuel oil, and from there to Aiud prison.

From the literature published after the 1989 revolution on life in communist prisons, the reader has learned much about the suffering of the prisoners, but it is one thing to read about suffering and another to experience it.

So the total lack of freedom, being locked out by the guard, in a small cell with several people, including old and sick people, with bunk beds, with an open toilet, where everyone did their little and big business, with the stinking toilet air, with the light bulb on day and night, and always watching through the bean slot lest they catch someone doing something. You weren’t allowed to work. But what could you do? They hammered on the wall in Morse code to get messages from outside, from those who had just entered the prison. Others rubbed the soles of their boots with soapsuds, then used a chopstick to write a text: a prayer or a word from the Bible. Without books, newspapers or writing paper, but with the help of the Morse alphabet and the writing on the sole of their boots, some learned the Holy Gospel of Matthew or John or an Epistle, especially the Epistle of James, by heart.

The little, meagre and miserable food, the lack of air, the immobility, had turned the poor prisoners into white-blue beings, like ghosts, weak on the outside but strong on the inside, with the hope that we would not die in this necropolis of Aiud, where many ended their earthly lives, including Father Daniil, the initiator of the ”Burning Bush”, who was often chained during his 25 years of hard imprisonment.

After four years of cell life, one day we were taken out of the cells, a large van was filled with us, and we were locked outside and taken to the Salcia colony in the Brăila Valley. Other vans were loaded. We arrived at Sălcia in the middle of the open plain. A long hut with bunk beds in a large yard, surrounded by a barbed wire fence with armed soldiers at the corners. There were many of us. Later I learned that there were a thousand prisoners. A hundred of us were priests. We settled down in our bunks. From the ”Burning Bush” were Father Bendeict Ghiuș, Father Roman Braga and myself, who is writing this. The others were taken to other colonies for spring work.

The next morning, five of us lined up with axes on our backs, we were taken to roast corn in a large cornfield guarded by militiamen. Weak as we were, we could hardly move the hoe. When we were in the cells, we weren’t allowed to do any work. Here, forced labour. We weren’t allowed to rest, we had to dig as usual. We had to hoe all the time. We weren’t allowed to stay behind, even if your strength and powerlessness were failing you. The militiamen around us, like former Bohemian vassals, had this mission of making us work with disgust. At noon the food was better and more filling than in the cell. After an hour of eating and resting, we went back to work. In the evening, five of us lined up to go back to the dormitory.

In the long, wide hut, with bunk beds for a thousand people and open windows, the air became hard to breathe at night. We were glad to be able to breathe fresh air again the next day at work.

That’s how the days of the week passed.

We didn’t work on Sundays. It was a day of rest. Under the same guard of armed soldiers from the four corners of the barbed-wire yard, the prisoners filled the yard in groups of five to ten. There was usually a priest between them. They prayed. Some kind of sermon or words of help and encouragement were given. These groups were like little churches with priests and congregations.

Meanwhile, the famous raids took place. A mob of militiamen would empty the dormitory, and while all the prisoners were taken out into the yard, all the blankets, mattresses and prisoners’ little bags would be searched. Usually nothing forbidden was found, but the prisoners often panicked.

We took turns doing all the farm work and repairing the nearby dam. The same regime of forced labour. Always in full view of the guards, with our freedom curtailed.

Some books and newspapers began to appear in the colony; in the evenings after work and on Sundays we read. We read what they gave us, not what we wanted to read. But we read.

More than two years had passed since we had been there, working summer and winter on this flat, hill-less plain, covered by the vast vault of the sky.

Here, as in cell life, apart from the merciless eyes of the jailers who watched us with hostility, the all-seeing eye and kind heart of the Heavenly Father watched over us day and night. From Him came the patience and peace that accompanied us through more than six years of imprisonment. We left for our home, the monastery, in July 1964.

(Fr. Sofian Boghiu, “The Burning Bush and the Prison” in Vestitorul Ortodoxiei, 1996)