The prisons of the priest Dimitrie Gornic from Arad

He was born on 5 December 1914 in Iermata, Arad County. After primary school in his native village, the young Gornic enrolled in the “Moise Nicoară” High School in Arad. Gymnasium in Arad, from which he graduated in 1934. Two years later, he enrolled at the Arad Theological Academy. He became involved in the Legionary Movement, as the Security Service documents are confusing about his activities. The political struggle would cause him many problems. In 1938, after the ban on political parties, Dimitrie Gornic was arrested by the Security Service for his Legionary activities. The priest in his home village had received some manifestos in the post, thinking they were from the student Gornic.

It turned out that he had not committed this crime and he was released after 45 days of unjust imprisonment. The series of injustices against him continued. In September 1939, after the assassination of Armand Calinescu, the young Gornic, with the stigma of being a legionnaire on his record, was briefly detained after presenting himself alone to the gendarmerie in Arad. After graduating from the academy (1940), Dimitrie Gornic wanted to become a theology teacher. He enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy in Bucharest. To support himself, he worked in a textile warehouse in Bucharest. As he was not in Arad during the days of the Legionary uprising, Gornic was considered a participant in the unfortunate events, for which he was sentenced to one year in prison. This prevented him from pursuing a university career and he decided to become a priest instead.

On 27 October 1942, he was ordained a priest for the parish of Cristești, Arad County. A year later he moved to Buteni and six years later to his native town. He was under constant surveillance by the Antonescu authorities, who had orders to prevent any political activity, especially legionary. In March 1944, Father Gornic was investigated by the gendarmerie in Buteni for allegedly harbouring a person in possession of a photograph of Corneliu Z. Codreanu. However, the Arad court martial acquitted Father Gornic. After the political change on 23 August 1944, Father Gornic was again targeted by the repressive authorities. In October 1944 he was interned for a month in the Sebiș camp because of his political past. At the beginning of 1945, he was interned again for a month, and the sorting committee for political internees later found that Father Gornic was no longer politically active. It was also during this period that he met his old friend Gligor Cantemir, a legionnaire who had been parachuted in by the German Luftwaffe in December 1944 with the aim of forming an anti-Soviet resistance group. With the war over, Cantemir tried to become legal, which he did at the end of 1945 when the state authorities issued him with an identity card. Cantemir married in November 1946 and Gornic became his godfather. This relationship would prove fatal for Gornic in the late 1950s. Cantemir was arrested along with the people he had contacted in late 1948 in an attempt to form an anti-communist resistance group. Dimitrie Gornic continued to work at Iermata, but under the spectre of terror imposed by the communist authorities. In 1953 he was accused of demonstrating against collectivisation and imprisoned three years later. In 1956 he was transferred to the parish of Micălaca, near Arad. His transfer was achieved with the support of some prominent priests in Arad, who were known for their reticence towards the political regime. This practical gesture provoked fierce persecution from the Security Service, which constantly supported provocateurs among the Arad priesthood in order to reduce pastoral and missionary activity and to fuel tensions. He is always seen in the group of priests Ilarion V. Felea, Cornel Caceu, Tudor Demian, Alexandru Budai, Gheorghe Lițiu and others. On 13 February 1958, the inevitable happened. He was arrested on the same day as the priest Cornel Caceu.

He was investigated under dramatic conditions, later joined by other priests considered undesirable by the regime. On 14 March 1959, the military tribunal in Cluj sentenced Father Gornic to 18 years’ hard labour for “intensive activity against the working class” and 18 years’ hard labour for “conspiracy against the social order”.

In March 1959 he was sent to Gherla and in February 1960 to Aiud. He was released from Aiud on 31 July 1964. According to sentence no. 17 of 25 September 1964 of the Consistory of the Diocese of Arad, he was suspended from performing sacred works during his imprisonment. After his rehabilitation, he was assigned to the parish of Vinerea, now in the county of Alba, where he served until 1986.

(Adrian Nicolae Petcu – Ziarul Lumina, electronic edition of 14 August 2017)