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Written by the Very Rev. John Breck
In 1999, the
Romanian National Institute for the Study of
Totalitarianism published a volume entitled “The
Imprisoned Church: Romania, 1944-1989.” It is
presented as a “dictionary” that details the
persecution and suffering endured by clergy and
other figures in the Orthodox, Catholic (Eastern
and Roman) and Protestant Churches in Romania
during the period of communist domination.
In his foreword to the volume, Dr. Radu Ciuceanu
states: “In just one year, 1922, the tragic
balance sheet of the Russian Orthodox Church
indicated 2,691 priests, 1972 monks and 3,447
hermits had been assassinated. As the power was
taken over by the Bolsheviks and terror was
instated, the casualties multiplied.”
1.
The Dictionary goes on to give a thumbnail
sketch of the persecution endured in Romania by
more than 2500 “ecclesiastical personnel,” from
the 1944 communist take-over until the
Revolution of 1989. The following entries are
typical.
Bogoevici,
Pavel; Orthodox priest. Biography: Ministered at
Bania; arrested in 1950; charge: sedition;
sentenced to 12 years of correctional prison,
detention places: Aiud, Turda, Gherla, The
Canal; deceased.
Bucur,
Gheorghe; Orthodox priest. Biog: The communists
took him to the Arges river, beat him up, threw
him into the water, pulled on his beard, then
let him surface and catch his breath just to
torture him some more; deceased.
Etdes,
Stefan; Roman-Catholic priest. He served in
Lespezi, Bacau County; arrested for building the
Parish Church.
Paciu,
Monica; Orthodox nun. Biog: Ministered at the
Bistrita Monastery; beaten and raped by the
Securitate [secret police] of Craiova; tried
on 06.12.1949 by the Craiova Military Court.
Stancu,
Tinca; Orthodox nun. Biog: Sentenced by the
Ploiesti Court to 1 year and 4 months
imprisonment; charge: unauthorized wearing of
uniform [the monastic habit], after the
monastery she had belonged to was dismantled.
Vasiliu,
Mircea; Orthodox priest. Biog: Ministered at
Roscani, Botosani county; detention place: Aiud;
lung disease; abandoned without medical care, he
died in that prison.
Similar entries
exist for persons many of us know or have known
over the years, persons whose spiritual,
theological and pastoral witness has touched us
deeply: Archimandrite Roman Braga, Fr Ilie
Cleopa, Fr Dumitru Staniloae….
Early in 2005, The Orthodox Word
published a remarkable article by Nikolai
Kolchurinsky, titled “Having Endured the Cross.
The Martyric Death and Posthumous Miracles of
Archpriest Constantine Podgorsky.”
2.
The author recounts the life and tragic death
suffered by this new martyr of Russia, whose
incorrupt relics have brought healing to
multitudes of pilgrims. A priest in the village
of Kirzhemany (Nizhni Novgorod), Father
Constantine was serving the Divine Liturgy on
November 7, 1918. Previously he had infuriated
the revolutionary authorities by celebrating a
pannikhida (memorial service) for the Tsar
Nicholas and his family, as well as by devoting
himself unsparingly to the pastoral needs of his
flock. On this day, he provoked the authorities
still further by gathering his people for a
festal Liturgy, while the revolutionaries
expected the villagers to assemble for a
celebration of the first anniversary of the
Bolshevik rise to power.
Militants burst into the church during the
following day’s service, seized Fr Constantine
and, tearing off his vestments, threw him into
the street. After humiliating and torturing him,
“they dragged the now weakened priest by the
hair to the high church porch and crucified him
on the church doors…”
3.
There have been other reports of priests being
crucified in this way, by communists but also by
representatives of non-Christian religions.
Today, as we are all painfully aware, Christians
are subjected to persecution, and at times
execution, in numerous countries throughout the
world. It’s hackneyed but probably accurate to
say that things will get worse before they get
better. This is true in the United States, by
the way, as well as in Saudi Arabia, Sudan or
North Korea. When I was in seminary, back in the
early 1960s, the society in general looked up to
pastoral ministry as a “noble profession,” one
that attracted bright, committed young people to
a life of service and witness, coupled, for
those who cared, with a certain degree of social
status. Conditions nowadays have certainly not
reverted to what they were under Stalin or
Ceaucescu. But to commit oneself to seminary
study and the pastoral ministry today requires
far more courage, determination, and perhaps
even faith, than it did in my day. And again,
not only in the mission field and lands of
Islamic fundamentalism, but here at home.
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
Church,” Tertullian said. This is a truth we
should neither forget nor minimize. The Epistle
to the Hebrews closes with a recital of the
sufferings borne by faithful Israelites in the
period before Christ’s coming. Since that time,
countless martyrs and “confessors” have shared
directly, personally in the sufferings of
Christ. The cross they have endured is none
other than the cross of Christ. And their cross,
like His, is borne not so much for themselves as
for us.
Their blood, mingled with the blood of Christ,
nourishes the Church throughout the ages. For
us, that commingled blood both assures us of
what has been and presages what might lie ahead.
Most of us will never go through the dread and
suffering of martyrdom, but some will. And that
fact alone tells us that in our prayer and our
ecclesial consciousness, we must never forget
the ultimate price paid by our Lord and by so
many others in His name.
1. NIST,
publication of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest
1999.
2. Vol. 41/1,
no. 240 (Jan-Feb, 2005) 33-41.
3. P. 37.
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