The last battle was won by God

An Interview with Father Gheorghe Calciu on the Spiritual Nature of Atheist Re-education

– What was the real target of this regime of terror in Pitești?
The target was our soul. Since the French Revolution, oppressors have sought to subjugate their victims not only through imprisonment and death, but also through re-education. The French Revolution itself was carried out through re-education. I once read that the crown prince of the royal family—an intelligent child of about ten—was re-educated by a drunken cobbler after the dethronement of his parents.
The cobbler called to him, “Capet, come here!”
“Here I am,” replied the child.
The cobbler kicked him in the back and shouted insults, then forced him to drink. The boy was only ten. This entire process of “re-education” was meant to make him the accuser at his mother’s trial. And indeed, he stood as prosecutor against her, and the queen was beheaded.

That is what happened in Pitești. They sought to destroy within us everything that parental, social, and Church education had built. To achieve this, they tried to isolate us, to strip us of all communion. I remember some verses written in prison by Constantin Oprișan:

“To see that unseen depths open,
The demons stand alone, and the angels pair up.”

Medieval iconography depicts the demons as isolated, each one alone, while the seraphim and cherubim appear at least in pairs, if not in choirs. That is what they wanted us to become: isolated beings, cut off from one another, like lonely islands in an ocean of misery.

– You only understood this later, didn’t you?
Yes. When I was first imprisoned, I was twenty-two—full of enthusiasm. We all believed we would conquer, that we would break the walls and bars, that our sacrifice would be brief and glorious. It was not so. Gradually our enthusiasm faded, and we had to go deeper. Our only salvation was prayer. Either you threw yourself entirely into faith and prayer, or you fell into despair, madness, or death. Hope in men was shattered; hope in ourselves was shattered. Only hope in God remained.

– Yet many lost even that…
Yes, I believe we all compromised, in one way or another. I know that I did. I know I fell—but I also know that God lifted me up. Technology can measure the strength of wood, iron, or thread—but who can measure the endurance of the human soul? Some fell before torture; others fell after. Those who did not fall under torture often succumbed later, to temptation. The human soul defies all measurement—it cannot be quantified.

The Securitate, in its effort to destroy us, believed that eventually our souls would break. Yet it is not the soul that breaks—it is the will. They believed that by torturing the body beyond endurance, they could destroy the soul. Being materialists, they thought the soul was merely a function of the flesh. They imagined that when the body collapses, the soul is theirs to command—just as Simon the cobbler manipulated the young prince of France. But it is not so.

When matter breaks, it is difficult to repair. But when the soul “breaks,” it regenerates. The soul becomes still, then it buds again, like a broken branch putting forth new shoots. Slowly, painfully, we recovered—and without doubt, I say, we were better for it.

– Looking back, why do you think God allowed such a fall?
I believe God allowed it because we thought we were strong—too strong. We had prepared ourselves to suffer and even gloried in our imagined endurance. So God allowed the fall to show us our weakness and to make us humble and better. And indeed, we came out better.

– Would it be too presumptuous to think that God allowed the suffering in Pitești, and in the prisons generally, because there was good spiritual material there—people capable of bearing temptation for themselves and for others?
Perhaps. But I would not say we endured so heroically. Some did. Yet I recall what Scripture says—when God was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded with the angels: if ten righteous men could be found, the city would be spared. Surely there were more than ten righteous men in Pitești. I believe it was an act of atonement for the whole nation. Good or bad, we were the sacrifice—the scapegoat upon whom the people laid their sins before sending it into the wilderness. The hand of the nation was laid upon us to bear its guilt.

– How do you now, after more than half a century, characterise the Pitești experiment?
I believe everything that happened there was the work of the devil—a cosmic battle between good and evil. It was a trial, a microcosm of the universe where Heaven and Hell contended. The battlefield was our hearts—not inert ground, but living soil that could incline toward Hell or Heaven. Many hearts, out of terror and despair, yielded to the devil. But in the end, God called us all back. He gave each of us another chance to fight the final battle.

The last battle was not in Pitești—it was within our hearts, once we had left Pitești. And for most of us, that final battle was won by God.

– So you believe this experience helped you?
Undoubtedly.

– What was the final result?
It enriched me spiritually.

(Fr. Gheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa – The Life of Father Gheorghe Calciu According to His Own Testimony and That of Others)