The confession of the colonel who arrested Father Arsenie at Sâmbăta Monastery

I remember an interesting episode at Sâmbăta Monastery. I was staying at the monastery at the time. And one day a gentleman came from the city of Victoria, dressed in civilian clothes… and asked me my name and how long I’d been in the monastery. And he said to me: “Do you know who I am?” “How should I know?” I laughed! Why should I know everybody, I can’t know them. And he said, “I’ll tell you who I am. I’m the colonel who arrested Father Arsenios.” I was so scared! It gave me the creeps! I said: You didn’t come here to tease me. And he said: No, father, don’t worry, I’ve resigned. I’ve since left the Security Service. That’s when I resigned, when I saw Father’s miracles!

And then I pulled his tongue to tell me as much as possible: Come on, tell me! Tell me what kind of man he was, how you saw him. And he said: Father, come here and I’ll tell you. I don’t know which general from Brașov heard that Father was gathering a lot of people at the monastery in Sâmbăta – that a lot of people were gathering, that he was telling people all sorts of things. And you know, at the time of Ceaușescu, there was a great fear that a lot of people would gather, lest there be a revolution or something. Even though people don’t go to church for a revolution, they go to church for prayer and for their problems… And when the order came, the colonel said: It wasn’t just me. There were three of us – me, a captain and another – I don’t know what his rank was. He sent us to the monastery to bring him, to arrest Father and to take him somewhere to Sâmbăta de Sus, where the Brâncovenesc palace is. You can still see that palace, it’s a big, beautiful building. They had to go, arrest him, lock him up, lock him up there until the General came to talk to Father. They went and arrested him… And he said to me: Father, you’ll see when we arrest him! I said: “Father, look, the General has sent us to arrest you.” Father says: “Well, I knew that…”. Father knew before! And he said, “Allow me to say the Lord’s Prayer.” And that was around noon. By the time Father said the Lord’s Prayer, it was evening. We were knocking on the door and walking around the church. We thought: “Man, the priest must have jumped! He must have gone into the altar, jumped out of the window, and was gone…”. How would he leave, because those windows don’t even open…

This is about the little church in Sâmbăta, isn’t it?

Yes, in the church, in the altar. In that little church, in the middle, over there; the thick wall, 1.20 m. Those windows don’t open, they’re old! And the colonel goes on: Once I opened the curtain and looked. Father was kneeling before the Holy Table. He was praying. After Father had prayed, I took him, carried him and locked him up. There were three rows of doors! One row of bars, one row of iron doors and one row of ordinary doors. One key was on me, one on another and the third on the other. We couldn’t get in without the other two! Bars on the windows, bars everywhere! I took him in, put Father in there and locked him in. The next day the General was to come and talk to him where we had locked him up, in this palace.

And the Colonel said: Father, when I came the next day with the General, no, we opened the door… and there was nobody in the room! The room was empty! Oh dear! We’d wanted to cross ourselves! We were colonels in the Security Service and we wanted to cross ourselves! Who can imagine such a thing? asked the General: “Well, how did you get him? Where did you take him? There’s nobody here. The room is empty! No, go and get him!” We were desperate: Where are we going to take him? No, we’ll go back to the monastery, where else? When we got to the convent, Father was holding the Holy Mass and he was just saying “Peace to you all”. We’d walk in the door and peace was the last thing we had! But we weren’t allowed to take him until he’d finished. We waited, he finished the Holy Mass, nicely, and then took him away.

And the Colonel said to me: Since then I said to the General: “You know I’m resigning from the Security Service! One man can’t do that! Look, here are my colleagues – one key is with one, one key is with the other, the third was with me. How did this man get out? A normal man can’t do that! Can’t do that!”

(Pr. Ghelasie Țepeș – Be lenient with people’s weaknesses. Testimonies about Fr. Arsenie Boca, edited by Romeo Petrașciuc, Agnos Publishing House, Sibiu, 2013, pp. 48-50)