“Why did you wake me up?! I was walking on such a beautiful path…”

From Gherla we went to Târgu Ocna with chains on our legs and handcuffs on our hands, all of us with sentences of more than 10 years. There they kept us in chains for another week and then took them off. Here we had other problems. Snitching, as it was called in prison, was in full bloom.

A lot of people died without being treated, just because they didn’t want to betray others, that is, to put others in prison. I knew names… but I no longer remembered them.

I only remembered that a sick monk-priest, who was being watched by other sick people, dying, was awakened by those around him and brought back to life. The monk then said to them, “Why did you wake me up? I was walking along such a beautiful path, with beautiful grass, with orchards of flowering trees!’

I was ecstatic to see such a landscape of paradise, which radiates and overwhelms the heart with a fragrant and living charm. Nature, in eternity, is an ecstasy of eternal life, for it too aspires to transfiguration and immortality in the perfection of eternity.

And then the monk said: “You had better pray for me when you see that I am going away again.”

An hour later the monk fell asleep again and went away forever. Everyone prayed with tears in their eyes, especially those who knew the pure life he led in the monastery.

It was the monk Iscu [Gherasim], as I learned from others.

(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. Vol. I, Theology for Today, Bucharest, 2010, p. 289)