The spiritual earthquake

Also in Aiud. There were four of us in the cell. A cell where I later found out a prisoner had committed suicide. So it was a cell haunted by demons.

Two of us prayed a lot, while the other two crossed themselves but did not pray. One was a simple, faithful farmer, while the other, who didn’t pray, was a psychopath who tormented us all and made our lives more and more bitter.

And here we heard the walls of the cell pounding and thundering, especially when we prayed. But I was not the only one to hear these sounds, everyone in the cell did, so it was not my imagination.

Everything we suffered here was seen as a test and atonement for our sins and for our nation, and this gave our suffering meaning and motivation.

Many times I scolded those who complained and did not accept the suffering of imprisonment as a sacrifice in the name of Jesus and as a test of our faith.

In this cell, while praying, I felt the greatest demonic attacks of various shades.

For a while I experienced an earthquake in my spirit, moments of terrible shaking of the soul, visions of the collapse of the earth, macabre apparitions, I heard vulgar songs and music, insults against the saints… Everything was chaotic and obsessive…

I was searching for God and my spirit was flogged, terribly shaken by obsessions and terrifying visions. I had moments when I felt the symptoms of epilepsy… but I didn’t give in and I prayed constantly…

Because of the nervous tension I was enduring, I ended up with brain congestion, which I and others thought would bring me down. I couldn’t sleep… but I prayed day and night and sometimes I dozed off a little….

At the most critical moment, unable to bear the inner tension, I lay down on the bed to rest for a few moments. We were not allowed to lie in bed from the time we woke up, from 5am to 10pm….

As I prayed, I saw the silhouette of a leg shining like the sun, and on the foot of the leg a tear like a crystal…and shining…. My eyes filled with tears… as they do now when I remember this… And I said to myself then: It’s Jesus! It’s His tear!…and I sipped it eagerly… Suddenly I felt relieved and totally relaxed. I remained in the ecstasy of this vision for a few more minutes and then I examined my hands and my temples… where the veins, which had been swollen to bursting, were now normal…

I got out of bed and said to the others with joy in my eyes and in my heart: I’ve escaped! I’m saved!!…And I told the others what had happened to me.

Gradually, over the course of a week, my veins, which were still swelling up a bit, returned to normal.

If anybody wants to believe what I told them in good conscience, believe it! I experienced these things in prison…

During this time, in my ignorance of what to ask for, as an unworthy person, I wished to be shown an angel, not realising that I was not worthy of such a gift.

From time to time, however, I saw some lights, but they were quickly extinguished by the bloody red and black. Finally, a winged wheel appeared to me, spinning fantastically fast, and as it approached, as it moved away from me…

At first I was afraid of these apparitions because I didn’t know what they were…

It was also in this cell that I suffered a second direct demonic attack. There were only three of us in the cell. The one who prayed with me, his name was Teodor Man, from Târgu Mureș, had left. It was around dawn. I awoke from my sleep with a dark, black slime hanging over me, which was stinging me, tormenting me, trying to strangle me.

I struggled to relax a little, and although I began to pray with my tongue and hands, this demonic presence over me would not leave me or let me go.

I began to pray to the Holy Trinity and it was only then that I saw it begin to move to the bed next to me where a farmer was sleeping who began to stir in his sleep and then woke up and began to worship.

The shadow moved up and then the one sleeping in the top bed jumped straight into the middle of the cell, screaming in terror. They both told me of the nightmares they had been having.

At that time we had no hope for the future, because those who were nearing the end of their sentence, a few months before or if the sentence was more than a year or two or even more, were called to other trials, already prepared for them, from which they returned with a sentence greater than the one they had received and served the first time. And this to the dismay of those who had hated them when they left prison and who had entrusted them with messages for their homes. I myself, after 10 years in prison, was called as a witness in another trial. As a result of these repeated trials, some of them had accumulated sentences of decades or more than 100 years.

From Aiud I was taken by van to Bucharest, to Văcărești, with the doctor’s recommendation that I be carefully monitored by the head of the van, who told me on the way that I had to resist and not die on the way because I would cause him complications.

He also gave me hope that I would be admitted to Văcărești Hospital in Bucharest. However, I was not admitted to Văcărești, but after the hearing I was taken back to Aiud, again by van, so as not to pass on any news from the outside, which I could have learnt from other prisoners with whom I had come into contact on the way.

From a famous doctor, a prisoner like us, in the Aiud hospital, although he was not allowed to tell me the diagnosis, I found out that I had TB plastic peritonitis, a very rare case, which the other doctors could not diagnose.

Being isolated and not knowing what disease I had, as I could no longer stand, I just sat bent forward at 90 degrees and lived like that for almost two months. During those two months I didn’t drink water and ate only a little bread.

This illness had been with me1 for almost a year… and now it is also unbelievable to me how I was able to go on for almost two months without tasting water or any other liquid, because any attempt to take a sip of water would make my stomach boil and I would vomit everything up… ….

In this situation, I thought there was no hope for me. I had reached the end of my strength…but I kept praying and praising God for all the suffering and torment I was going through.

I did not despair…I had put my last hope in doing God’s will, that is, glorifying Him by dying like the early Christians[2].

I hoped that death would save me[3].

One day, in solitary confinement, where I had not eaten for three days and where my food bowls were lying against the wall of my cell, the militiaman, who was known to be the harshest of all, came. He was known for his deeds on the Danube-Black Sea canal, where they worked with prisoners at that time… and he forced me to eat.

I refused. He asked me if I was on hunger strike and I said I wasn’t. I said that because I knew that the prison administration didn’t allow hunger strikes.

I asked him to leave me alone because I couldn’t eat.

The jailer offered me something to eat on the pretext that he was taking me to the doctor.

“I said, “OK, I’ll eat, but I know you won’t take me to the doctor, so I won’t eat any more. “I’ll take you out! You’ll see…” he said and left.

I poured the contents of the gametes into the can, because I could not eat or drink anything. When he returned an hour later, the militiaman saw that there was nothing left of the gametes in my cell and opened the door for me to be examined by the doctor.

I walked leaning against the walls… When I returned to my cell, the militiaman asked me why I was walking with my back bent and holding on to the walls. I told him that I couldn’t stand up and walk without leaning on something.

When he saw my situation, a few minutes later he brought me a stretcher on his own initiative and, with the doctor’s advice, took me to the hospital, where I was operated on.

And this is yet another proof I have experienced that even the hardest and most hardened dog-like hearts can be tamed by God’s will. Just as the thief on the cross was saved at the right hand of God…

Behold, these are the real and at the same time vital conditions under which I composed the hymns of glory contained in this book! I wrote them as an opening, out of suffering and darkness, to God, glorifying God who filled me with His glory.

I saw His glory rising from the depths of my inner darkness and filling me with eternal joy and happiness. It blossomed in my heart – which did not cease to hope – and flowed like the waves of the sea when they break on the shore and new ones keep coming in their place.

In spirit, infinity[4] is everywhere and everywhere, like the sun at noon, which is with me and with another at the same time.

The beginning and the edges of the light are in us as they are in everyone else.

Why should we look for the beginning and the end of the universe anywhere but in our own hearts?

In spirit, eternity is also in the past, present and future.

That is why I tried to delve into my own past, and in doing so I revived moments and images from my childhood, from my youth, that I had never thought about, that I had never discovered before[5].

As the vision began to materialise in my mind[6], I began to see multicoloured pagodas[7], then gradually Indian ones. Egyptian and Hebrew images followed.

I saw them without calling for them, without thinking about them. They appeared in this order of their own accord.

But I did not stop at any symbol I saw, but continued my prayers and my way forward, not being impressed or influenced by the beauty of these appearances in my mind, which reflected the unfolding of these spiritual worlds like a mirror.

But I sought my way to God and to His love, which I wanted to awaken in my heart and soul.

(The complete writings of Blessed Elijah the Seer of God and his life, commented by his disciple and son in the Lord, Pr. Dr Dorin Octavian Picioruș. Volume I, Theology for Today, Bucharest, 2010, pp. 301-305)

[1] I began to be aware of it…

[2] I mean martyrdom.

[3] To end my suffering.

[4] Divine light.

[5] Their profound meanings.

[6] To develop more and more.

[7] We have an example of a pagoda here:

https://duendebymadamzozo.com/dbmzz-content/uploads/2015/01/Chureito-Pagoda-Japan-1.jpg