“With love even vipers you tame”

I stayed with Fr. Felea in Aiud. He was also a protopriest and professor of theology in Arad. And he worked in the factory in the forge. He had a lung inflammation and they didn’t want to put him in the hospital. And he got a permanent lung inflammation while he was working in the factory. And he got better.

What did he work on? He drove the wagons. We made wooden carts, wooden carts for the army. We painted them. The smiths made the ones for the wooden shelves and anything metal. And I worked in the forge. And I was in the yard when Father Felea had a team pulling carts, moving carts for loading. And comprising of that team he had many, many informers. He was being watched very, very closely. And I heard him say:

– You can’t talk about them if you want to talk about something, that’s what I heard him say. He said:

– With love even vipers you tame.

And these, the theologians from Arad, where he was a professor… they spoke so nicely about Felea, and then he was sentenced to 15 years, but in ’59 they sentenced Fr. Felea to life. And he died in prison, Father Felea.

(Fragment of an interview with Octavian Gherman – Aiudule, Aiudule, edited by Dragoș Ursu and Ioana Ursu, Renașterea Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 2011, p. 111)