Blessed Are the Persecuted.
The Story of a Modern Martyr
by Sandro Magister
At least five times in the last two weeks, Pope Francis has called attention back to “our many brothers and sisters who give witness to the name of Jesus, even to the point of martyrdom.”
During the same days as these appeals from the pope, the Romanian bishop Alexandru Mesian has gone from city to city in Italy to present to the public the witness of one of these martyrs of our time, his predecessor in the leadership of the Greek-Catholic diocese of Lugoj.
His name is Ioan Ploscaru. He died in 1998 at the age of 87, fifteen of which he spent in prison. For one fault alone: that of remaining faithful to the Church of Rome and therefore of refusing to switch to the Orthodox Church, as ordered by the communist government.
The second world war had just ended, and just as in Ukraine, in Romania as well the regime wanted to wipe out the local Greek-Catholic Church, with its bishops, priests, and millions of faithful, excluding it from the law and incorporating it forcibly into the Orthodox Church. In the face of their refusal, in 1948, all of the bishops were arrested. They would die in jail. Other bishops were ordained clandestinely. These included Ioan Ploscaru, who received the imposition of the hands from the Vatican nuncio in Bucharest on November 30, 1948. But he would hold out in the catacombs for only a few months. In August of 1949 he would be arrested as well.
And his Calvary began. Which he then recounted in a book of memoirs. The book was published in Romania in 1993. But it was only this year that it crossed the borders of his country, in a very well edited Italian edition printed by Edizioni Dehoniane in Bologna.
It is an extraordinary book for many reasons. It recalls the “Kolyma Tales" of Salamov when it depicts the ferocity of the jailers, cruel to the point of the incredible, amid humiliations that included "[making the prisoners] eat their own feces, urinating in their mouths, forcing them to confess having practiced aberrant sexual acts with their parents." But it also recalls the descriptive serenity and the irony of Solzhenitsyn in "The Gulag Archipelago."
Above all it is the account of an experience of faith. Which lights up even the darkest nights. Which kindles with astonishment even the most depraved. Which arrives at feeling mercy even for the most terrible persecutors.
The Romanian communist regime collapsed in 1989. In 1990 Ioan Ploscaru was able to resume the stewardship of his cathedral, which was restored to him by the Orthodox metropolitan of Lugoj.
The following is a little anthology of his book of memoirs, with the titles of the chapters from which the respective passages are taken.
___________
CHAINS AND TERROR
by Ioan Ploscaru
To all of us, the Greek-Catholic priests and bishops, freedom was offered in exchange for switching to the Orthodox Church. To me personally they proposed this exchange a number of times beginning with my first arrest. But one cannot compromise with one's conscience. If I had given in, it would have been a great disaster for my conscience and a source of confusion for those among whom I was living.
In the memoirs I have written you will not find grave lamentations, much less desperate states of mind, because in offering all of these sufferings to God they become bearable. But I would not have been able to bear them alone, if Jesus had not been always beside me and all of us.
I considered our jailers as “instruments,” and against none of them do I make any accusation: on the contrary, I desire for those inquisitors true conversion to God and true and clear repentance for all that they have done.
I was in prison for 15 years, 4 of them in isolation. Freed in 1964, I was still monitored, shadowed, pursued. Even in the years afterward I have continued, at times, to be afraid.
For all of the sufferings that I have had to bear, may God be praised unto the ages of ages.
During the same days as these appeals from the pope, the Romanian bishop Alexandru Mesian has gone from city to city in Italy to present to the public the witness of one of these martyrs of our time, his predecessor in the leadership of the Greek-Catholic diocese of Lugoj.
His name is Ioan Ploscaru. He died in 1998 at the age of 87, fifteen of which he spent in prison. For one fault alone: that of remaining faithful to the Church of Rome and therefore of refusing to switch to the Orthodox Church, as ordered by the communist government.
The second world war had just ended, and just as in Ukraine, in Romania as well the regime wanted to wipe out the local Greek-Catholic Church, with its bishops, priests, and millions of faithful, excluding it from the law and incorporating it forcibly into the Orthodox Church. In the face of their refusal, in 1948, all of the bishops were arrested. They would die in jail. Other bishops were ordained clandestinely. These included Ioan Ploscaru, who received the imposition of the hands from the Vatican nuncio in Bucharest on November 30, 1948. But he would hold out in the catacombs for only a few months. In August of 1949 he would be arrested as well.
And his Calvary began. Which he then recounted in a book of memoirs. The book was published in Romania in 1993. But it was only this year that it crossed the borders of his country, in a very well edited Italian edition printed by Edizioni Dehoniane in Bologna.
It is an extraordinary book for many reasons. It recalls the “Kolyma Tales" of Salamov when it depicts the ferocity of the jailers, cruel to the point of the incredible, amid humiliations that included "[making the prisoners] eat their own feces, urinating in their mouths, forcing them to confess having practiced aberrant sexual acts with their parents." But it also recalls the descriptive serenity and the irony of Solzhenitsyn in "The Gulag Archipelago."
Above all it is the account of an experience of faith. Which lights up even the darkest nights. Which kindles with astonishment even the most depraved. Which arrives at feeling mercy even for the most terrible persecutors.
The Romanian communist regime collapsed in 1989. In 1990 Ioan Ploscaru was able to resume the stewardship of his cathedral, which was restored to him by the Orthodox metropolitan of Lugoj.
The following is a little anthology of his book of memoirs, with the titles of the chapters from which the respective passages are taken.
___________
CHAINS AND TERROR
by Ioan Ploscaru
To all of us, the Greek-Catholic priests and bishops, freedom was offered in exchange for switching to the Orthodox Church. To me personally they proposed this exchange a number of times beginning with my first arrest. But one cannot compromise with one's conscience. If I had given in, it would have been a great disaster for my conscience and a source of confusion for those among whom I was living.
In the memoirs I have written you will not find grave lamentations, much less desperate states of mind, because in offering all of these sufferings to God they become bearable. But I would not have been able to bear them alone, if Jesus had not been always beside me and all of us.
I considered our jailers as “instruments,” and against none of them do I make any accusation: on the contrary, I desire for those inquisitors true conversion to God and true and clear repentance for all that they have done.
I was in prison for 15 years, 4 of them in isolation. Freed in 1964, I was still monitored, shadowed, pursued. Even in the years afterward I have continued, at times, to be afraid.
For all of the sufferings that I have had to bear, may God be praised unto the ages of ages.
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