Fr. Gheorghe Calciu: An Easter story from Aiud prison
Here is my “Easter story”: I was imprisoned in Aiud prison, and I was preparing myself for the Holy feast day. I was purifying my soul as much as I could; I was deaf to insults, insensitive to beatings, armored against hunger, warmed up by inner prayer. In the night I knew to be Easter night, at midnight, I heard the bells tolling from Aiud village. Their sound was penetrating the prison spiritually. It was not the sound you heard if you were next to them, but it was penetrating the walls. It was like a message that the outside world was sending us, the world that was celebrating the Lord’s Resurrection.
And I started to chant, “Christ is risen!” At first, in my mind; then I felt the need to chant it not loudly but so that I could hear myself. Around me was the silence of the grave. Any movement from the cells was felt outside in the hallways, and of course, the prison guard heard me chanting, then he came up to me and started to insult me. And I decided to stop chanting so that I did not disturb that Holy night of the Resurrection. I remembered what used to happen in my childhood, my dearest memories. (...)
There were six guards in our section of the prison - which was a special section with the most severe punishments - because it was a large section. They were walking in a file, and one would open the cell door. We had to face the wall while the prison guard checked that everything was in order. We were not allowed to face the door until after the guards left and the door was locked.
On that Easter morning, I didn't turn to face the wall; I faced the door. The guard was a "beautiful devil" - if you have ever seen a beautiful devil. He was a villager, a tall and slender young man, with blue angelic eyes, with a handsome face, always dressed elegantly, in a suit. The other guards were unkempt. He was always very neatly dressed, very elegant. But his cruelty was inexplicable. It is hard to understand how someone who projects gentleness and masculine beauty cannot be a gentle person. How can someone with such an angelic beauty be such a cruel man? If this young man didn't beat up five or six inmates every day, he wouldn't feel fulfilled.
Generally speaking, in prison, in that terror, it was easier to stand your own torture. But when you heard the yelling…Most of the inmates who were beaten were regular inmates, because there were few political prisoners. Those people would yell when they were beaten. We, the political prisoners, would be silent, we would never yell. But your imagination would start working when you heard that yelling. And you would imagine horrible things. It was such a terrible psychological torment that you preferred the guards come and beat you so that you would stop hearing the others' yelling.
And this guard was one of those who found pleasure in torturing others. On that morning, when he opened the cell door, I had prayed to God all night. I had said hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life," so that the truth of the Resurrection could penetrate deeply into my mind and heart. I faced the door that morning, and when the guard came in, I told him, "Christ is risen!" The guard looked at me, turned his head to look at the other guards behind me, then turned back to me and said: "Truly He is risen!"
I felt as if somebody had hit me over the head. And I understood then that it wasn’t the guard who told me, “Truly He is risen!” but the angel of the Lord. The angel who, sitting by the tomb, told the myrrh-bearing women: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen! See the place where they laid Him.” Through the guard’s mouth, the angel confirmed the Resurrection to me because I needed this confirmation. (...) God wanted to confirm the truth of the Resurrection to me through the mouth of my enemy. My cell became full of light. And my joy was so great that the next 5-6 hours until noon, when we were given food, were full of light and spiritual joy.
From: Fr. Gheorghe Calciu: Suffering as Blessing (Cathisma Press: Bucharest, 2007).