When, in August 1978, I secretly met the Romanian Orthodox priest Father
Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa in Bucharest, he exuded the confidence that
he would shortly be imprisoned and that his actions expressed a
compulsion to do and say what his faith dictated in the most difficult
of circumstances.
He could look back on 11 years of study, semi-secret
ordination and teaching at the Bucharest theological seminary, preceded
by 16 years of deprivation, barely surviving a succession of brutal
communist prisons. He also knew he faced a further 10-year sentence for
sharpening the social conscience of his students and confirming their
moral obligation to stand firm against state atheism. Now Father Calciu,
as he was universally known, has died, aged 80.
He was born in
the beautiful, remote wilderness of the Danube delta, one of 11 children
- and the only one to go to school. He came under the influence of a
saintly priest, whose moral precepts weighed strongly when he started at
medical school and found himself in an aggressively secular
environment. Meeting a Russian monk, a fugitive from communist
oppression, strengthened his resolve to quit his studies.
In 1948,
the Romanian regime imprisoned Calciu without trial for 14 years for
"betraying his education". He attributed his survival to God's power,
and vowed to train for the priesthood. Since this was not open to him as
a former political prisoner, he took a French degree, and quietly
instilled Christian values in the pupils at the high school where he
taught. Patriarch Justinian invited him to teach French at the Bucharest
seminary, and after secretly studying for the priesthood he was
ordained in 1973.
His Lenten sermons of 1978, Seven Words to Young
People, attracted massive interest, and attention from the Securitate,
the Romanian secret police. He addressed those "whose souls have been
damaged by a materialistic philosophy and a total lack of spiritual
endeavour". He also publicly called on the Romanian dictator Nicolae
Ceaucescu to reverse his policy of destroying Bucharest's historic
churches to make way for his monstrous palace.
The next Patriarch,
Justin, oversaw Calciu's betrayal by the church and called on him to
"repent". Refusing to do so left him facing jail again, this time on a
charge of subversion. The World Council of Churches - unusually -
defended him. The general secretary, Philip Potter, received a letter
written by Bishop Roman on behalf of the Patriarch, alleging that "ever
since he was a schoolboy [Calciu] was under the baneful influence of a
fascist organisation ... The daily evening spiritual meditations, held
by the professors o f the seminary for the pupils, have been transformed
[by him into] political fascist speeches and slander against the church
hierarchy." There were three pages of such libel.
Following an
appeal by Archbishop Robert Runcie in 1983 and US demands the following
year, Calciu was released from prison, but only into house arrest and
with the indignity of being defrocked by his church. After finally being
freed in 1985, he settled in Ohio for three years, travelling
extensively and visiting this country twice. A two-week speaking tour in
May 1986, accompanied by his wife Adriana, culminated in a visit to
Keston College, Oxfordshire, a research institute which had extensively
published information about him during the previous 10 years.
Everywhere,
his sincerity and continuing devotion to the youth of Romania made a
stunning impression. He said he considered all his life from the day of
his first arrest to be a gift from God, because, by all logic, he should
have perished - and, indeed, at times his suffering had been so great
that he had prayed for death. His delivery left him fearless.
In
his last years, Calciu revisited Romania several times and met many of
those whom he had influenced. The Romanian Orthodox Church in the US
never recognised his defrocking, and in 1989 invited him to take charge
of the Holy Cross Church at Alexandria, Virginia, where he lived out his
last years in dedicated parish ministry.
· Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa, priest, born November 23 1925; died November 21 2006
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