“The light of the saints from beyond the ages was reflected on his face”
Father Sofian and I lived together for many years in the monasteries of Cernica and Antim in Bucharest. As seminarians we were two years behind him, but living in the same monastic community gave us the opportunity to get to know each other better.
Brother Serghie (as he was called in the monastery) came from Bessarabia, which had not yet been taken over by the neighbours, from the Dobrușa monastery, a well-established monastery where the monks had a monastic school, learned trades – he had learnt church painting – and had a skilful spiritual father.
His studies at the seminary showed a special intellectual gift and he was first in his class for all eight years of his studies.
After leaving the seminary, he did not return to the occupied Bessarabia, but settled in Antim Monastery in Bucharest, where he continued his theological studies and perfected his painting skills at the Academy of Fine Arts, becoming an accomplished painter. He was commissioned to paint the most important churches: the chapel of Antim Monastery, the church of Radu Vodă Monastery and others. He was also in demand abroad: he painted the cathedral of the Orthodox Metropolitanate in Lebanon.
And when the monastery was left without a superior, the Church authorities could not find a more suitable person than Father Sofian, to whom they entrusted the Antim parish, which he managed with great merit for 50 years, until the end of his life.
In Antim monastery, Fr. Sofian had the happy opportunity to live with great spiritual fathers: Nicodemus Ioniță, Benedict Ghiuș, Daniil Tudor, from whose example he also grew spiritually, becoming one of the leading representatives of the spiritual movement of the ”Burning Bush” in this monastery.
His long sojourn in the world of the saints, whom Father Sofian painted on icons and church walls, deeply sealed his inner spiritual life. This could be seen in his devout service at the holy altar and in the warmth of heart and faith of his sermons.
As abbot, Fr. Sofian used all the gifts with which he was endowed: good administration of the parish, holy services every day and on feast days – when the church was overcrowded with the crowds of faithful who came, a merciful heart, much dedication and help to the poor and needy, following the example of the founder – St. Martyr Hierarch Anthim, for whom almsgiving was a special honour. Naturally, Fr. Sofian’s spiritual fulfilment did not go unnoticed by the crowds of Antim’s faithful. And so more and more people came to ask him for clarification and good advice in the perplexities of life, or to be relieved of the burden of sins. And he, with great kindness and patience, turned many back from the wanderings of sin and freed many from the bondage of passions, joining the ranks of the great confessors that our country has been blessed with in these times.
How much the people of Bucharest made use of Father Sofian’s good spirituality was shown by the great crowd of the faithful who came to receive their last blessing from their beloved confessor, their spiritual father who went to meet the Lord.
But Father Sofian lived in a time of hard trials – the whole period of communism – from which he suffered many hardships, miseries, years of imprisonment, but also physical sufferings did not spare him. And yet the path of his spiritual life was always upward: neither hardship nor misery weakened him. And in his old age something of the light of the saints beyond the ages was reflected in his face.
(Jerome. Petroniu Tănase, Prodromu Romanian Hermitage, – Father Sofian, 2nd revised and added edition by Constanța Costea and Ioana Iancovescu, Byzantine Publishing House, Bucharest, 2012, pp. 229-230)