Traian Trifan (en)

Did you know Traian Trifan? Yes, I did. I was best friends with him in prison, and we worked together. Can you tell us something about him? Certainly. Traian Trifan was imprisoned from 1941 by Antonescu because he had been the Prefect of Brașov. During the Legionary Government? Yes, during the Legionary Government, for about four months. He and Traian Marian—two Traians—were there. Traian Trifan was the Prefect, and Traian Marian was the head of the county of Brașov for all the legionaries. Both were sentenced by Antonescu to 25 years in prison. Marian Trifan wasn’t taken to the factory; […]

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I met Mr. Traian Trifan and Marian Traian in 1942 in Aiud, where I had been sent to serve a three-year sentence. (…) One day, all the prisoners were assembled in the prison yard. The warden, Captain Aurel Munteanu, read aloud a decree of rehabilitation, conditional upon our deployment to the anti-Soviet front, where we would be “rehabilitated” only through acts of bravery. Immediately after reading the decree, without further explanation, he addressed the prisoners: Anyone who does not wish to go to the front should step forward! Three prisoners emerged: Trifan, the lawyer Marian, and an officer whose name […]

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I was fortunate enough to spend a brief time with Traian Trifan. I had been transferred from the infirmary and had the opportunity to stay with him. He was a remarkable personality—a great man, a profound soul, a distinguished intellectual, a doctor of law, a friend of Moța, a former legionnaire, and a former prefect of Brașov. He had been wrongly convicted. Nothing had happened in Brașov, yet he was sentenced to ten years in prison. Later, we met again in Periprava, in the same barrack. At first, there was some friction—not disagreement, but slight differences in perspective—but we harmonized […]

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From the outset, the legionaries were forced by intimidation to go to the front for rehabilitation. We know what happened from the accounts of those present in Aiud at the time and from what Trifan and Marian told us. Captain Munteanu and Colonel Suceveanu, called from Sibiu and declared enemies of the legionaries, had assembled the prisoners in the yard, surrounded by armed soldiers and trusted guards. They delivered an enticing speech: release on condition that they go to the front for “rehabilitation,” which ended treacherously: “Is there anyone who doesn’t want to go to the front?” Confused by this […]

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I met the lawyer Trifan in cell 32 in Gherla. In prison, I had heard of the group led by Marian, the former head of Brasov County, and Trifan, the former legionary prefect of Brasov, both sentenced to long terms since the time of Antonescu. Another group of legionaries sentenced during that period had gathered around Biriș. Yet the two groups embodied very different approaches. One lived and breathed in the spirit of the Eastern Fathers; the other lived and thought in the spirit of the Western Fathers. What struck me most was the understanding with which the older prisoners […]

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On the way to the church, there stood [1] bădia Traian Trifan and his wife, both convicts. Pure of heart, perfectly balanced, chosen Christians. At Liturgy, old Traian always sat on his knees. On his table at home, the Bible and the Philokalia. At the age of 60, he worked in the mill, lifting sacks of flour ten hours a day. He was still a doctor of law… (Fr. Dimitrie Bejan – The Cursed Village, Ed. Cartea Moldovei, 1998, p. 34) [1] This is the village of Răchitoasa, where Traian Trifan had his compulsory residence after his release from prison.

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It is very difficult to speak of a man you loved until the end. A man of profound Christian life, of great and upright character, a gentle, wise, and calm teacher, who seemed to convey entire pages of wisdom in a single word. For him, the path to Jesus Christ was open and generous, never confined by rigid rules. Bădia Trifan lived in concentrated silence; he was a man of prayer. The prayer of Jesus enabled him to see Christ in every person and every person in Christ. This was the aspiration of our hero, who united Jesus with his […]

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It is written in the Holy Bible: Behold, I set before you life and good, death and evil: Choose! Here are the two wills, in constant conflict for dominion over man. Man seeks life and goodness, yet often falls into death and evil. Man struggles, faces temptation and death. Man—God has given Himself as a model for those who wish to free themselves from the bondage of sin and the fear of death by asking for heavenly blessings, for “every good and perfect gift is from above.” And I confess: I am the servant 1036. These are the words of […]

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Bădia Trifan endured much, yet he never complained. That is why I carry him in my soul, in a light that transcends space and time… We were in the colonies and worked at Galda de Jos in 1946. It was around July. In front of the ruined castle where we were staying, there stood an old wooden church—abandoned. In the evenings, before going to bed, we would retire there to pray, either individually or in small groups, as we managed to organise our time. When I was young and not very discerning, barely in my twenties, I became curious about […]

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I was K-1942. [1] I arrived in Aiud around Christmas 1941. At that time, and in the following spring, every Sunday at 9 a.m., the legionnaires would line up in the long wing on the ground floor to go to the church in the prison yard. It was here that I first saw Mr. Trifan. Next to him, inseparable, was Mr. Marian. (…) Mr. Trifan was a man of medium height, well-built and athletic, pleasant to talk to, pure of heart, and widely respected. There was simply nothing amiss about him. The atmosphere around him seemed calmer, more relaxed—or so […]

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During the time of the work colony in Galda, around 1946–1948, whenever I returned from the vineyards, I would see Mr. Trifan continually reading from the Philokalia. Sometimes he would sit with his eyes closed, so it was impossible to tell whether he was dozing, meditating, or praying. I believe Mr. Trifan was practising the prayer of the heart. I even saw him weep a few times. These were tears of faith, not of human weakness, for he was otherwise a steadfast and strong man. He would even take a stand with the boldness of a confessor—for example, during the […]

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Just as saints rarely speak of themselves, but are revealed through the words of their disciples, so too do we — those who once shared the hearth of Aiud — bear witness to Bădia Traian Trifan. Above all, he shone through his high moral stature, his courage, his modesty, and his profoundly Christian life, lived with unwavering intensity. “How beautiful is the union between brothers!” — thus began Aiud. Around Bădia gathered an elite circle: Marian Traian, Valeriu Ștefănescu, Anghel Papacioc, Ion Schiau, Căliman Ian Agapie, and many others, young men perhaps lesser known but no less worthy. Within the […]

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Bădia Traian — The Strength of the Dacians In the autumn of 1941, the large cell in Aiud prison held around seven hundred political prisoners — legionnaires condemned by Antonescu’s military regime. Among them, some 250 were young men from the Brotherhood of the Cross, no older than twenty. The majority were between twenty and thirty-five; only a few were over forty. We, the younger ones, called each other by the respectful, ancient Romanian term “bădie” — elder brother. For the older prisoners, we used “domnule” — “sir.” But for Traian Trifan, about forty-five years old at the time — […]

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The imprisonment of the Legionnaires, which began in 1941 under Antonescu, continued seamlessly into the collective imprisonment of the entire nation under the communist regime from 1945 until 1964 — nearly a quarter of a century for many of those who endured this long, motionless march through the darkness of communist captivity. Under pressure from the West, the Communists were eventually forced to release political prisoners — twenty years after the war had ended. Among those who stepped again into the light of freedom was Badia Traian, an unmistakable figure along this journey. He carried within him the light of […]

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Another aberration of the inhuman communist system was the farce—without any legal foundation—called the “socialist competitions.” The communist regime, ignoring the most elementary principles of law, applied this absurd practice in the nation’s prisons, particularly in Aiud, where a large metallurgical and woodworking industry had been developed in the former factory complex. The Communists, having violated every legal principle, naturally constructed new “legal” foundations upon a single doctrine: whatever benefited their party was deemed right and moral, and whatever harmed it was considered wrong. These new tenets legalized crime, injustice, incompetence, moral corruption, terror, and abuse of power—everything that served […]

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Traian Trifan from Brașov, former prefect of Brașov County, a good lawyer and a distinguished “green Romanian”, as they say, who did not accept compromising trials, very faithful, forever with the Bible in his hand. He read mainly books of religious doctrine. He was particularly drawn to Milton’s Lost Paradise, which he read with tears in his eyes. I knew him from the Vaslui camp. He didn’t want to hear anything about reconciliation with Antonescu. (Nicolae Grebenea – Memories from the Darkness, p. 132)

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