Valer Mândroni, martyr for Christ during the communist regime

Farmer Valer Mândroni was born into a family with deep roots in the land of Hațeg. It was a family of native Romanians with a long genealogy, faith in God and a perfect respect for work, honesty and justice. He went to school in his native village and graduated in 1915. He showed a love of learning, but the cost of higher education was too high for him to complete his studies.

He stayed in the village and worked with his parents and brothers on the farm and in the ironworks.[1] This is how he lived his life as a teenager and young man. He became a skilled blacksmith, much appreciated by the villagers of Ciula Mare. The First World War did not affect him, as he was too young to enlist and be sent to the front. In 1924, he was drafted into the army and became a member of the Royal Guard. For the young farmer from Ardeal, who had only completed 6 years of primary school, it was a momentous occasion. For 3 years he was part of the military elite, he knew a different life, new horizons of human perception were opened to him. After his military service, he returned to his native village. He resumed his work as a farmer and blacksmith,[2] but from a new social position.

He becomes one of the village leaders, a respected and responsible man in the local community. He became a leading member of the Orthodox parish of Ciula Mare and was elected epitrope, a position he held for 29 years (1930-1959). Between 1941 and 1945 he was elected mayor of his native village, where he selflessly cared for the needs of the villagers. He did not have a high school education, but he had a great experience of life and a special way of understanding and approaching his fellow human beings. For Valer Mândroni, a wealthy, hard-working farmer and a good Christian, the totalitarian communist regime brought only injustice, suffering and abuse. He was often humiliated and made to do a lot of work for the communist state. These were hard years, with many upheavals for the simple conscience of a peasant from the Alps. Against this background, in the spring of 1953, he approached the “Lord’s Army”, and in the summer of that year he took the vow of faith and became one of the most active preachers of the Word to the glory of God[3].

Valer Mândroni’s entry and journey in “The Lord’s Host” was not ordinary. His call to become a soldier of Christ was a special one, with a strong echo among the villagers of the Hațeg region. He was a simple man, without a high, academic theological culture. Even the Patriarch Justinian, who sent him a Bible,[4] heard about the transformation of this peasant from the Ardeal region. It was a moment of great importance in this man’s life. He read the Bible eagerly, trying to penetrate and understand the great wisdom of the Christian doctrine. He studied tirelessly and at the same time tried to live his life according to the teachings of the Church, which he also passed on to the villagers in the villages of Hațeg. His speech was unpretentious, direct, but deeply spiritual. He travelled around the villages, taking part in the meetings of the “Army” and inspiring people with his penetrating words about the Christian faith. His house in Ciula Mare became a meeting place for those who had made a covenant with “The Lord’s Army”. His work attracts many people to the “Army” who make the covenant of faith. New congregations were founded in several villages, and Valer Mândroni was always called upon to call people to repentance and to explain the Word of God, without departing from the teaching of the Church and without breaking away from the parish community. With the Bible in his pocket, he went from one meeting of the “Lord’s Army” to another, preaching the doctrine of the Holy Gospel[5]. The last years of his life were devoted to faith in God.

Valer Mândroni’s missionary work in the “Lord’s Army” association was not without danger. In 1947, the communist authorities in Romania banned the Oastea Domnului and arrested many of its leaders. To bring the Word of God to the Romanian people after 1947 meant a great risk and a conscious acceptance of sacrifice. The Security Service authorities watched the meetings of the Host and monitored those who secretly joined its ranks. A long and terrible period of repression followed. The Orthodox believers in the ‘Lord’s Army’ were subjected to every possible obstacle in a totalitarian regime, while their leaders were arrested and sentenced to years in prison. Valer Mândroni was persecuted for several years. The Security Services created a veritable circle of informers around him. They followed him step by step, preparing his arrest and his political and religious convictions. On 4 August 1959 he was arrested and interrogated at the security police station in Deva. On 19 November 1959, he was tried at the court in Deva, together with other leaders of the “Lord’s Army” from Hunedoara and Alba counties. He was sentenced to 14 years of hard labour, 10 years of public humiliation and total confiscation of his property. He behaved with dignity during the trial. He admitted that he had preached Christian doctrine and declared that “this is what he had in his heart and this is what he did. He has no regrets”[6]. A clear, direct confession that led to his imprisonment and conviction, which then caused him so much suffering and illness. After the sentence was pronounced, he appealed, but the court in Cluj confirmed the original sentence. He was imprisoned in Gherla prison. But during the investigation in Deva security prison he fell ill and the inhuman conditions of his months of detention in Gherla aggravated his illness. He died in his cell on 7 March 1960. Another victim of faith, another grave without a cross, was added to the cemetery of Gherla prison. It was that of a man who had undergone a true transformation of soul, who had converted with all his being to the Christian faith, confessing Christ to the point of martyrdom.

(Loan Munteanu – Martyrs for Christ, from Romania, during the communist regime, Publishing House of the Biblical and Missionary Institute of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, 2007, pp. 467-469)

1. Ioan Beg, A good soldier of Christ. Brother Vaier of Ciula, Simeria, Traian Dorz Publishing House, 2003, p. 61.

2. Ibidem, pp. 71-72.

3. Ibid, p. 114.

4. Ibid, p. 116.

5. Ibid, pp. 123-134.

6. Ibid, p. 162.