The priest who refused to be taken out of the concentration camp
Priest Ioan Negruțiu belongs to the generation that “decided to give their lives for the defence of the Romanian faith and soul”, a generation that was “martyred by the communists after their complete takeover of Romania”.
It is difficult to reconstruct his spiritual, theological and intellectual profile on the basis of the few documents preserved in the archives of our Diocesan Centre and the brief information published so far, without knowing the dramatic moments of suffering, deprivation and humiliation he experienced in the communist dungeons.
For this purpose, a rigorous documentation in the archives of the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archives would be more than necessary.
Fr. Ioan Negruțiu was born on 9 July 1915 in the village of Borșa, Săcădat, Bihor County, the son of Simion and Floarea, farmers. By his own admission, he was born frail and sickly, so much so that a coffin was prepared for him at the age of three months. But God had a plan for him, calling him to serve Him, to preach the Gospel and to show people “the way to the Kingdom”.
Orphaned by their mother and then their father, the Negruțiu family’s five children grew up under God’s care and the loving guidance of their older sister. “The house on the outskirts of the village was not at all well-off: “One evening I took in a blind beggar. If Vasile Voiculescu had written the story of the boulder soup, we would have had something to honour our guest, who, surprised by an even greater poverty, prayed with tears in the middle of the night,” the priest told some of his relatives.
He attended first grade in his home village, but because of his poverty he only went to school at the beginning and end of the year. The teacher noticed Ioan’s qualities and, together with her husband, who was the headmaster of the school, enrolled him in an orphanage in Oradea, where he received a scholarship. He attended secondary school at the theological seminaries of Edinț (Bessarabia) and “St. Andrew” in Galați, graduating in 1934.
Imprisoned in the Securitate cellars of Oradea
Between 1934 and 1938, he studied at the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest and then at the Pedagogical Seminary of the University, graduating in 1942. In the same year he was ordained deacon and celibate priest by the martyred Bishop Nicolae Popoviciu of Oradea, who appointed him teacher at the confessional schools in Beiuș. He worked there from 1945 to 1948, when he was arrested and imprisoned in the cellars of the Securitate in Oradea. The trial took place in Cluj and the priest Ioan Negruțiu was sentenced to 10 years’ hard labour as an “enemy of the people” (op. cit., p. 141). He was released after serving his sentence, but was arrested again shortly afterwards. In total, he spent sixteen years in prisons in Aiud, Cluj, Gherla, Jilava and Canal.
In 1957, while in Canal, Father Negruțiu had a dream that would haunt him throughout his years of suffering. “He was climbing Calvary hill with great difficulty. Tired, sweating, crawling up the winding stones, he reached the top of Golgotha, at the foot of the three crosses. Fearful and trembling, he raised his eyes to the three crucified ones and was amazed and disturbed, not understanding what he saw. Only Jesus Christ was on the cross; the two robbers were not there.
– Lord, cried Father John, “You are alone on the Cross! Is there no one beside you to accompany you in this crucifixion that never ends?”
– No one, John, answers Christ from the cross.
– Lord, forgive me for daring to ask You to receive me on one of the crosses so that I too may be with You! May you never be alone again!
– I receive you, John! Come up! Put your hands on the cross!
– Lord, which cross shall I climb, the one on my left or the one on my right? For damnation or for salvation?
– John, the meaning is not the same now as it was on the Friday of the crucifixion. Climb on whichever one you like. On the cross, next to me!
He rose from his knees and walked towards one of the crosses. But as he passed the Saviour’s feet, he lightly touched His bloody knee with his elbow. A shiver ran through him from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet and he woke up sweating and sobbing. The Saviour, who loved him, called him to himself in the expiatory sacrifice” (ibid.). The next day he was released, but he made it only a few steps outside the gate before he was picked up by a Securitate van and taken to the camp. The dream came true and the priest continued to carry the cross of suffering.
Together with his suffering brothers, he refused to be released.
Shortly afterwards, Father Ioan refused Patriarch Justinian’s proposal to be released from the camp, preferring to continue to suffer in order to strengthen his suffering brothers (cf. Ionuț Băiaș and Costel Condurache, “Father Ioan Negruțiu – the prisoner who refused to be released from the camp”, http://www.hotnews.ro/știri-arhiva-1043334-serial-sfinții-închisorilor-ioan-negruțiu-deținutul-care-refuzat-fie-scos-din-lagăr-html).
Forced to live in Rubla, in Bărăgan, the martyred priest Ioan Negruțiu had the strength to transform a dilapidated house into a church and to build it. Unfortunately, the mission started here was brutally interrupted in 1958, when he was arrested again, sentenced and imprisoned in Aiud. Several letters were found on his body, including some poems by the poet Radu Gyr, another “veteran” of the communist prisons.
After the decree of 1964, Ioan Negruțiu was released and had the opportunity to make the most of his God-given talents, both in the pastoral field, as parish priest, confessor and skilful preacher, and in church administration. From 1965 to 1967 he was parish priest of the parish of Cihei in his native Bihor, secretary and diocesan inspector of the diocese of Oradea (1968-1971), professor and director of the Special Theological Seminary of Curtea de Argeș (1971-1976), Patriarchal General Inspector and member of the Central Church Consistory (1976-1979) and chief editor of the magazine “Mitropolia Banatului” (1979-1981).
On 1 January 1982, Fr. Ioan Negruțiu was transferred from the post of editor-in-chief of the publishing house to the post of priest-novice at the Timișeni Șag Monastery. His spiritual work in this monastery on the outskirts of Timișoara soon became known; his high quality, well-documented sermons, which were not lacking in quotations from the Holy Fathers and the works of the great philosophers of the world, and especially his qualities as a humble and gentle confessor, increased the number of believers; many young people came here to be spiritually enriched and to receive spiritual nourishment.
Priest Ioan Negruțiu worked in the Church for decades, formed many generations of altar servers, sowed the Word of God, with many hardships, especially in prison, especially by the example of his life, but he left no theological works, except for the dialogue he had with Hieromonk Ioanichie Bălan, published in the well-known “Convorbiri duhovnicești”, and his bachelor’s thesis: “The Christian Concept of Martyrdom in the First Three Centuries”, graded 9.00, i.e. “cum laudae”. But his testimonies, as many as they are, of the sufferings he endured in communist prisons are very important. Here are just a few: “Thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands of the best people the country had were transferred to these camps and dungeons,” Father said. All the basic institutions of our society were well represented. The Romanian Academy, the University, the faculties, including theology; the former governments, together with the army, the clergy and monks, the schools and businesses, the workers and peasants who were not prepared to sell their souls to Satan, and so on and so forth… The goal was well defined: the slow extermination of the individual by the annihilation of personality and the total degradation of man by the destruction of the image of God in man, by his debauchery.
Priest Ioan Negruțiu was thus one of the 1,725 Orthodox clergymen, including 31 hierarchs, some of whom were deposed and died in obscure circumstances (Irineu Mihălcescu, Nicolae Popovici, etc.), who suffered in the Canal, in prisons, deportations and camps. Due to the harsh regime of imprisonment he suffered for more than 16 years, the health of the priest Ioan Negruțiu deteriorated more and more, until in 1996 he fell into bed and for seven years was cared for by the nuns in the modest convent cell, visited by all those who knew, appreciated and loved him. He died on 22 October 2003 and was buried in the monastery cemetery.
(Fr. Ionel Popescu – Ziarul Lumina)