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Father ARSENIE BOCA The Man of God
“All the diamonds of the world are trash compared to one moment in God’s light!” Fr. Arsenie Boca
At Prislop Monastery of the land of Hatzeg, a grave covered by flowers that seem never to wither
is the destination for thousands of pilgrims.
Here rests Father Arsenie Boca.
On November 28th 2009, 20 years after his departure to God, over 30,000 faithful joined the memorial service.
The unabated love people have for this not-yet-canonized saint of Romanian Orthodoxy
is only matched by the love which guided his whole life of humble and full of grace intercessor of God.
It bears witness of a unique and magnetic personality that attracted not only faithful people of all walks of life
but also the relentless suspicion of the authorities.
that could not understand the origin of the exceptional power that made people follow him.
Aspazia Otel Petrescu writer - former political convict
He is the one who made himself warrant for the redemption of his people.
God has a grand plan for redemption. It is a masterpiece of our eternal Father.
In this large scheme we all have our little individual plan for salvation
which we are unable to see darkened as we are by our fallen nature.
yet we can be lead if we allow it, if we obey.
This is the voice of Fr. Arsenie.
It is the call to fulfill our destiny, which is the salvation of our souls.
But I should add that for all of those to whom out of the fulness of his heart he revealed himself
as he did to me
he was a transparence of Christ our Savior.
He made Jesus transparent to us through what he was.
Fr. Arsenie Boca was born on 29th of September 1910, in the village of Vatza de Sus in the Western Carpathians.
His parents, Iosif and Crestina baptized him as Zian Valean.
A rare name, Zian seems to be a local version of Ioan probably deriving from Sanzian.
He remembers his father – a shoemaker by his craft – as a good educator
who once stroke him for wasting time.
He promised his father crying that it would not happen again,
and that promise guided his whole life like a guardian angel.
The young Boca family dwells in Bujoara, on the hillside of Vatza de Sus.
Zian spends his childhood among flowers and woods.
On the hilltop, even the presence of other children was a rare thing.
Maybe this is why Fr. Arsenie enjoyed silence that much.
He goes to school in the small town of Brad, the economic and commercial center of Zarand Country.
His adolescence is marked by the divorce of his parents and the premature death of his father at only 45.
When he graduates from High School as the leader of his class,
Zian Boca plants an oak in the school yard.
It still exists today and it is called Zian’s Oak.
Gifted for science, he wanted to go to the school of aviation in Bucharest, but poverty was a hinder.
Instead, he enrolls at the Theological Academy in Sibiu
which at that time offered scholarships to indigent students.
Zian Boca reads avidly psychology and philosophy, in search of the depths of human soul.
He never gives up the passion for positive sciences.
He speaks French and German fluently, enjoys playing flute, and loves painting.
He is called “The Saint” by his colleagues from the Theological Academy
for his remarkable ascetic and intensely religious life.
Learning about his gift for painting, Metropolitan of Transylvania, Nicolae Balan offers him a fellowship to study at the Art Academy in Bucharest.
He sleeps in the dorms of theology students at Radu Voda Monastery and spends the days in the painting studio on Grivitza Ave.
His main teachers are Francisc Sirato, Costin Petrescu, and Francisc Rainer – the latter, a professor at the School of Medicine.
He is also an enthusiast attendant of the courses in mystical theology taught by Prof. Nichifor Crainic.
Under the guidance of Costin Petrescu, who was offered the commission to paint the fresco of the Romanian Atheneum,
Zian Boca paints the scene of the entry of Michael the Brave in Alba Iulia.
After graduating from the Art Academy, he works as an intern at the St. Demetrius church in the village of Bixad, Covasna County
where he paints frescoes along with his teacher, Costin Petrescu.
In the fall of 1936, Zian Boca is ordained celibate deacon in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Sibiu.
A vintage photo shows him during the service of Theophany with Metropolitan Nicolae Balan in the Grand Plaza of Sibiu.
In March 1939, Metropolitan Nicolae Balan sends Deacon Zian Boca to the Holy Mount Athos
to learn about the monastic order, the paintings and the books from the Garden of the Mother of God.
Traveling to Mount Athos was a privilege at that time,
and the young theologian takes full advantage of this opportunity.
He copies writings of the Holy Fathers and searches the manuscripts from the archives of Prodromu Romanian skete.
He visits both the large monasteries and the small Romanian sketes and cells of the Holy Mountain.
Years after, Father Arsenie says: “When I kissed the hand of St John the Baptist, I understood my destiny."
The story goes that at the Holy Mountain, Zian Boca prayed heartily to the Mother of God, with persistance and tears,
to bring to his path a spiritual father who would initiate him in the mysteries of the Holy Spirit.
After a while, The Holy *** appeared to him and took him on a high peak.
There she handed him to an elder who had lived two hundred years before
and he received from him, through the work of the Holy Spirit, the gift of clairvoyance.
He returns home on June 8th 1939 and in the fall of the same year departs to Kishinev,
to learn from the Russian painters the crafts of a painting workshop.
Rough times lay ahead for the whole human kind.
WWII already started and 1940 turns out to be a tragic year in the history of Romanians.
In just a few months, Basarabia, Northern Bukovina and Hertza are occupied by the soviets,
the South of Dobrogea is passed to Bulgaria and half of Transylvania is taken by Hungary.
Fr. Arsenie is still in Kishinev at that time and is trying to catch the last train of refugees.
From the railway station isle he is watching how the poor people of Basarabia are rushing to the train running from the Soviet Army.
Out of nowhere, on his side appears a mature man modestly dressed .
He looks at people with such pain in his eyes and on his face
as Father Arsenie never saw before.
Impressed, he bends over to take the bread out of his case and give it to this stranger.
When he raises up again, the man is gone as by magic.
He called Him the Man of Our Pains,
and from that moment on he was convinced that the man he saw was Jesus Himself.
Soon after, Romania enters the war.
The future becomes unpredictible.
In this time of insecurity, people turn more to God.
Metropolitan Nicolae Balan desiring a monastic revival
sends the young Zian Boca to the Sambata de Sus Monastery, founded by Constantin Brancoveanu,
which was recently rebuilt.
In the Friday of the Life-Giving-Spring, after the Holy Pascha of 1940,
during a soul moving service, the Deacon Zian Boca is tonsured into monahism under the name of Arsenie.
Fr. Oprea Craciun, Cincis-Cerna
People were looking for him. Why were they looking?
They were bringing their sorrows and predicaments and he was giving them advice.
A couple of months later when healed of their problems they returned to thank him,
these people brought other ten-twenty villagers to cry their pains and receive help.
Thus, very soon, he was so much sought after
that the Metropolitan could not understand why there were so many people on the Monastery grounds.
Once he asked the other fathers: “Why are there so many people here?”
They answered: “Well, they are looking for Fr. Arsenie Boca.
and after he sends them to us for confession.”
“Then, let us ordain him a priest!” as he was not a priest yet.
“Let him be the spiritual father!”
After he was ordained,
from the feast of the Life-Giving-Spring, on Friday after Holy Pascha until the fall,
for as long as one could sleep outside under a blanket,
there were never fewer than 800-1000 people in the yard of the Monastery.
It was war, we were confronted by many problems, especially material needs,
and when we got to Sambata Monastery it was such a sould relief!
When we saw Fr. Arsenie surrounded by people like a shephard in the midst of his flock,
truly it made such a good impression on me, that I kept that good impression for the rest of my life.
He was dressed in that white cassock with a nice, broad belt,
with his hair cut but not bound in a tail
with an extraordinary posture and a gaze that went right through you.
It made you feel he descended from the world of the Saints,
from the world of those who worship God incessantly.
His sight attracted you and gained over you.
He had a very lively gaze.
You could not hide from it.
And what he was telling you was like a Gospel.
You had to remember and follow his advice.
I hear a voice next to me, very warm, very concerned somehow
"What's going on?"
I turn, and in front of me, right in front of me
stands Fr. Arsenie: a tall, thin silhouette, dressed in white,
a face of angelic beauty, and a pair of eyes looking at me very attentively and very seriously.
Why was I scared?
Two blue eyes were looking at me; no doubt, two human blue eyes,
but that gaze had no end, no bottom, no background.
It had an infinite dimension.
My feeling was that an endless blue sky was looking at me through two human eyes.
The news that at the Sambata Monastery one finds a spiritually gifted priest of Christ-like beauty,
who runs church services in a Godly manner, spreads rapidly in the whole region and beyond.
Hundreds and thousands of people take the road to the monastery.
Immediately after being ordained, Fr. Arsenie started what will be called the Spiritual Revival Movement from Sambata.
During the summer, people stayed at the monastery for as long as 2-3 weeks helping with household needs.
Thus came to be the Altar in the forest, the lakes, the garden near the Abbot's house,
decorated with crucifixes, rocks and ornamental pots, all built under the guidance of Fr. Arsenie.
His love for beauty and harmony transformed the monastery into a piece of Heaven.
Fr. Arsenie Boca organized spiritual retreats for students and intellectuals
to whom he expounds chapters from his magisterial work: ‘The Pathway to Kingdom”.
A man came to Fr. Arsenie and suggested it would be good if he asked people to help with the hay of the monastery.
It only took father to ask: “Who can help?”
He had this direct way of talking to everybody.."You!"
and you immediately felt an emotional closeness.
“Who can help us with the hay?”
And everybody followed him.
I did not go as I had other things to do, but I loved the image of the crowd following him.
He was ahead, in his white cassock, and the motley crowd was following,
There must have been dozens of them.
I do not know what they did there, but I still remember the image of the road and the people.
Isn’t this monk, this priest, an impostor?
When I see all these young girls flocking like geese around this radiantly beautiful man
is he not taking advantage of his looks to foster admiration?
Young people easily fall in love..
In the earnest I prayed for the help to see if he was or not an impostor.
These were my thoughts.
Suddenly, I see Father Arsenie stopping and making a sign to them
We cannot talk now! Later! I have something to do!
And I see him coming directly toward me,
but there was also the Metropolitan building where Metropolitan Balan stayed when he came.
I pull back and I lean on an apple tree,
but he comes directly to me, puts his arm around my shoulder and says:
it was the first time he saw me
“Now, Dan, am I an impostor or not?”
I was shaken in that moment.
I said: "Father, please forgive me!"
The Father is keeping the candle like this, on his side to illumine the path we are walking on,
which is leading us, quite a long distance, from the church to the guest house.
I am looking with my eyes hooked on the light saying to myself:
Now it’s going to die out, it’s going to die out!
No way!
The wind is taking the light above the candle but it falls back onto it. It does not go out.
Or it is flying on the side just to return onto the candle.
I was perplexed. We were all perplexed, including those who were used with such things at Sambata.
Father puts the candle on my hand and tells me:
"Here, hold the candle and stop being so surprised!"
I take the candle, protect it with both my hands so it does not die out
Well, it died out immediately. It was not even possible for a candle to burn in that gusty wind.
And the Father tells me: “See, you don’t know how to bear the light in the storm. You need to learn that!”
At that time I did not realize what he was talking about.
He was talking about the storm ahead of me, through which I had to learn to bear the light.
We were all working in the garden of the monastery waiting our turn for confession.
There was a man, a villager, who came with a 16 year old daughter suffering of cerebral palsy.
And he said:" Father…
“Man, go home, take care of your hay and leave the girl here, at the monastery!”
He put the girl in a cell where an old monk was taking care of her.
In the morning, he helped her rise, turn and wash herself,
and after the service, he putsthe girl in a wheel-barrell and brought her into the garden
where we were working to stay with us, so she did not get bored.
At lunch, he brought her back to the monastery, feed her and so on.
One day, around 10AM , I notice that the wheel barell with the girl disappeared.
We are all asking: "Where is the girl?"
And we see the monk bringing her to the church door,
take her inside in his arms, as she could not walk
and one hour later we see the girl coming out of the church on her feet holding Fr. Arsenie's arm.
At Sambata I took part to one of the most beautiful Palm Sundays celebrated by Father Arsenie.
He was also helped by the nature,
he held the service outside in a pavilion where was the altar
and we were staying around in the forest as we could
because for Palm Sunday and Pascha there were thousands of people there.
You could not even count them.
So, imagine a sunny late April with blessed nature around.
The theologians singing and the birds chirping along.
I cannot start telling you…the whole nature, priests and pilgrims - all in one prayer to the Heavenly Father.
Father Arsenie had a vibrant voice.
You could feel the vibration in your chest
and when he cried at the Liturgy, his voice got softer
and then all people in the church cried as well.
This movement from Sambata is unique in the Orthodox Church.
First of all, the Divine Liturgy
a Divine Liturgy I never heard before,
and have never heard since with any priest or hierarch in our country.
When he started confessions, around 1942, he was very strict.
People were confessing as it was the custom in the villages
rather formally – two-three words and the priest gave them forgiveness and this was it.
The Father realized that if they remained at that spiritual level,
they would never make any progress,
so his initial confessions were lasting 2,3,4 even 5 hours.
Then people realized that for the Father you had to be prepared.
Thereafter, confession was shorter – 30-45 min, may 1 hour, not like at the beginning.
Often people were surprised by what the Father was telling them
because they did not have the conscience of their sins.
They were taking them for usual deeds, without any moral awareness.
He was never in a rush, and he let you say whatever you have to say
and then asked: "Why didn’t you say this, why didn’t you say that? You did those as well!"
And then you realized that you either forgot or did not want to tell.
This is proof that he had knowledge of people’s thoughts.
During the war, many women come to his cell worried about their soldier husbands.
He has no time to listen to them.
He just points his finger and says: “You, put a cross behind the house!"
"You, prepare a packet as your husband is wounded but alive!" And so on..
When letters arrived from the front, they proved that his words were true.
The Father told me two things.
The first was about my father.
He asked I do not forget to tell my father to came and talk to him,
which I did not do – as I thought I knew my father, the way he was.
My father said that Father Arsenie was building his own cult,
so I thought: "What should my father do there?"
But I took on myself one of the chances for salvation of my father and should have realized that.
So, he asked me something about my father and told me he should come.
The second was about a desire I had for myself,
to go to the monastery once I finished my studies .
The Father asked me: "How certain are you that you want to take this step?"
I replied: "Father, 99 percent"
He asked: "And how should that one percent be understood?"
I said I am afraid that this was not God’s call for me
and I boast myself with something too much for me.
He smiled, kept silent for a moment and continued:
“Well, my child, that one percent is as important as the other 99!"
I went to Brancoveanu Monastery at Sambata and asked the Father with the shyness of a young man:
"Father, I would like to confess to you!"
He answered: "All right. When I start confessions I’ll take you with the others."
I was only 16 and a half and he was speaking to me as an old monk to his spiritual son.
I waited for a few years to go to him for spiritual and life advice
as I was the son of a peasant and had little education.
I knew something about faith but I had a long way to go to reach maturity.
I was living about 20 miles away from the monastery
and in 1948 I went there being convinced that I will be received for confession, and so it was.
Usually, I was shy at confession but this time I was even more so,
as I knew I was in front of a holy man.
This is how I regarded him, and most of the people did the same.
So he saw how shy I was, and rightly so and he said:
"Come in, brother, come in for confession!"
And he looked at me and saids:" First, I am giving you and advice for your whole life."
And he gave me that saying that many women in prison learned from me:
and which was for the prison, but I had no idea at that time:
“The more one tries to take away from his Cross, the more he adds to it!”
And then he said to me several times:
“May God help you, child!” “May God help you!” “May God help you!”
And each time he gave me a blessing. I could feel it on the top of my head.
I thank him, I rose, and while leading me to the bus, Leonida asked me:
"did you count how many times the Father gave you the blessing?"
I was surprised: "Did I have to count? No, I haven’t. I didn’t know I had to count."
And she said: "It is not normal for a priest to bless you so many times!"
You could not see him as you were kneeled, but I saw his face
it was of an extraordinary sadness while he was blessing you.
Difficult times are ahead of you, I am sorry I have to tell you this!
But it is better to be warned and when you reach your limit,
you should remember that Father Arsenie blessed you.
From Mt Athos Fr. Arsenie Boca and Fr. Seraphim Popescu bring manuscripts of the Filokalia,
which Fr. Dumitru Staniloae translates.
Fr. Arsenie draws the illustrations of the covers
and he makes possible the printing and the spreading of the Filokalia by a system of subscriptions.
As an act of gratitude, Fr. Staniloae names him a parent of Romanian Filokalia.
Among the first words which our great Lucian Blaga said to Fr. Arsenie when they meet,
were these: "Blessed are you, Father Arsenie, as you became a myth!"
To which Fr. Arsenie asked "How so?"
Blaga replied: "Because you believe in what you say!"
Fr Arsenie then said: "Master, I don’t want to wear the hat of the myth!"
And the poet replied: "Yes, you will, because our nation needs it!"
The thousands of lay people who want to know a powerful prophet by word and by deed,
are joined by political and cultural figures of our nation.
At the feast of Pentecost in 1942, Marshall Ion Antonescu participates with his wife, Maria.
King Michael and Princess Ileana, the sister of King Carol II also visit Brancoveanu Monastery.
Impressed by the personality of Father Arsenie, Princess Ileana invites him at the Bran Castle
where the Father preaches on religious themes and interprets parts of the scriptures.
Departing Romania, Princess Ileana leaves Fr. Arsenie a letter of gratitude confessing that he was a beacon in her life.
A lover of solitude, Fr. Arsenie starts digging a cell in the rock, up in the mountains at 1700m, on Sambata Valley.
This brings him into the attention of Military Police which starts monitoring and reporting on him,
under the suspicion that he hides iron-guardists, hostile to the political regime of Antonescu.
For the same unfounded suspicion he is also accused by the new communist regime,
and will be under surveillance for the rest of his life.
He is repeatedly arrested and interrogated in spite if always staying away from politics.
His conversations with some members of the Iron-Guard,
are just those between the priest and his flock.
Moreover, he urges the iron-guardists to give up guns and use of force, for those may turn against them.
Openly confessing Christ in those times is a risk that Father Arsenie assumes.
Without explicitly naming the communists, he speaks openly against those without God,
and this fact upsets the authorities.
To avoid the risk of a new arrest, Metropolitan Nicolae
Balan transfers Father Arsenie to a remote monastery,
away from people’s path.
Thus ends his period at the Brancoveanu Monastery which he loved so much,
the place where he came to spiritual maturity and where he was shepherd of so many souls.
On November 25th 1948 he arrives to Prislop Monastery of the land of Hatzeg.
The Greek-Catholic monks who were removed by the communists,
left the monastery in shambles.
At first, it is a monastery for monks, but soon after it is changed into a nun convent.
Julieta Constantinescu, a theology graduate tonsured as Zamfira, becomes the abbess of the monastery.
Father Arsenie remains there as spiritual father.
Again, numerous people come looking for him and the political police [Securitate] is back on alert.
On January 16th, 1951 at 5AM a group of ten agents of Securitate
break into the monastery and arrest Father Arsenie.
He is sent without trial to the labor camps at Danube-Black Sea Canal for more than a year.
After being released in April 1952, he returns to Prislop but the persecussions do not cease.
He is arrested and interrogated again in Timisoara, Jilava and Oradea.
Victor Rosca - former political convict I was learning for the baccalaureate, as I had the written exam and the oral exam is following.
The day of the oral exam, we were arrested.
We were not brought upstairs but detained in the common cell.
When I entered it looked like a war front hospital.
Everybody looked ill there, but they were gaunt because of what they had to endure.
Among them there was a man with the pants rolled up to his knees, a monk.
He immediately stood up and asked who we were.
"We are students." "Where from?"
"From Radu Negru High School in Fagaras."
He measured each of us up, looksedat the younger ones and said as if to himself but so we could hear:
"The celestial legion of angels is not complete yet!"
The very fact of him being there was something out of the ordinary
as we realized that our suffering is not individual but collective.
Since Fr. Arsenie Boca, the most important personality of that region,
and probably of Southern Transylvania,
was there with us, deserving to be arrested with him means that we were also important.
Being in Timisoara I had the chance to meet him in person in very unusual circumstances.
The door opened and the guard ordered me to go to the washer.
I was very surprised and told him: "but I just went there!"
Yet, he looked at me and ordered again: "Go to the washer!"
I had to obey so I went.
The washer was a room at the end of the hallway
with cells on each side having their windows closed for most of the time.
You could see nothing outside.
But this time the windows were largely open.
What is more for a detainee, than seeing the sky
and breathing the air which comes through a largely opened window!?
So, I forgot why I am there and rushed to the window.
The view of the sky was wonderful, yet the yard was stern
it was the yard where the prisoners were walking.
And it the middle of the yard was Fr. Arsenie Boca walking.
As a priest I met a reserve officer with whom I made friends, and then our families became friends, too.
He told me this story:
There was there in a cell a priest who told people what happened at their homes.
In a week or two they received a letter confirming what the priest said.
When we saw how he knows, one day I and a colleague went to the Father and asked him:
"Father, since you have so much faith, tell us something that will make us believe in God, too!"
And he said: “No use to tell you to believe in God! You will not believe anyway!”
“No, Father! We will believe what you say!”
“Really? Well, then! Go the prison’s gate and you will see two women there.
One of them has a basket, and in her basket she has bread and bacon.
The other one has a bag on her back, and in the bag she has so and so.”
We went immediately, passed one gate, then a second
and when we arrive at the prison’s gate there were, indeed, two women there.
To check what they had on their bags, we started questioning them harshly:
"What are you carrying there?”
"Goodness me! Just food!”
“Let us see!” And food they had indeed.
So we went to the prison’s commander and reported:
“Sir! In one of the cells we have a priest who sees through the walls of the prison!”
When I was a priest at Prislop Monastery,
I remember that an old Christian man came to me and recounted with deep emotion
how Fr. Arsenie was once praying in the cell where he was arrested,
and the guard could see through the window how he was wrapped in fire during the prayer
and raised from the ground like St. Mary of Egypt as she was seen by Abba Zosimas,
or how Abba Arseny of Pateric was seen by his disciple while praying in his cell from the desert of Egypt.
Being released from the cellars of Securitate after other six months of detention,
Fr. Arsenie returns to Prislop, from where he is eventually expelled under the pressure of authorities.
In May 1959, by a decision of the Episcopate of Arad, Fr. Arsenie is defrocked,
and is forbidden to wear monastic clothes and to service in the altar as a priest.
The greatest preacher of Transylvania is thus silenced,
Prislop Monastery is closed and the nuns are thrown back into the world.
Shortly after, the monastery is turned into an asylum.
From Prislop, Fr. Arsenie returns to Bucharest where he comes under even stricter observation
as it results from the 1200+ pages of his surveillance file.
He wears civilian clothes now, with the same elegance he used to wear the antimis.
It is hard to imagine that this elegant gentleman, wearing a suit and sun glasses
is the former confessor of Sambata Monastery.
He lives a quiet life, getting out sometimes to the cinema,
to eat an ice cream or to take a trip to the mountains.
Over ten agents roam around him, some of them specially trained.
Unfortunately, some of them are people of the Church…
It is not hard to imagine that the Father does easily, yet discretely identify them,
a fact confirmed by the officers themselves.
His correspondence is censored.
Hundreds of his letters and akatists are confiscated, including his correspondance with Fr. Ilie Cleopa.
He is repeatedly provoked.
His house in searched numerous times in his absence.
In Bucharest, together with Vasile Rudeanu, Fr. Arsenie paints the altar of St. Elefterie Church.
In order to maintain peace of mind and avoid provocations,
he wears a badge with the inscription: "I do not answer questions"
A few years ago, the student theologian Alexandru Valentin Craciun
noticed that baby Jesus is dressed in convict’s clothes.
The Savior is Himself incarcerated together with those in the communist prisons.
It is amazing that for almost fifty years nobody noticed it,
that none of the dozens of informers who swarmed around the Father remarked.
It would have had very serious consequences at that time.
Being appreciated by the Patriarch Justinian Marina, Fr. Arsenie is hired at the painting workshop of the Patriarchy.
He was making all sorts of beautiful things and I go to him and say:
"Father, now that you work here, you can make that painting for me."
This is how he saw the Savior through the window, at Sambata.
A portrait of rare beauty.
He packs it for me before taking it on the motorcycle, and says:
"You will have some trouble when exiting the city."
The Police stoped me and asked: "What do you have there? It is an overload."
"A painting!" "Why is it so large?"
"That’s how it was made, but it’s not larger than the horns of the bike."
I had a large bike. And that is how I got away with it.
On the road something else happened.
Close to Predeal a big rain starts.
Mind this: it rains to left and right but the highway is dry!
My sister – she’s dead now – asks: "what’s going on?"
"It rains on the sides, and it rains hard, but not on the road!"
This was the first miracle of this painting.
On our trip to Father Arsenie’s cell at Sambata we had an unusual encounter.
A group of faithful were bringing a cross
as gratitude for discovering an icon painted by him.
Here is the story.
She says: "Father, I am being sent by Fr. Arsenie!"
"By Fr. Arsenie?! Fr. Arsenie is dead!"
"No, no! Don't worry! I’m being sent by him with a very important mission."
"My Goodness, what have I done?"
And she tells me she had a vision, tells me the story of her life, and what happened with her son.
Fr. Arsenie told her where to find him.
He was a mountaineer, got lost and fell.
Nobody found him for seven days so she prayed deeply to Fr. Arsenie
and he appeared to her in a vision and told her
"You will find him in that place, in that valley, but you need to arrange for a service because he is dead."
She prayed further and he told her: "You need to go to Chiches."
"There in the church you will find an icon painted by me. It needs to be framed and put in a good place."
I say: "My goodness, sister! This is a poor parish. There are many Magyars here."
"I don’t have money for a frame. What kind of frame?"
"I do not want to do something wrong!" As I am afraid.
"No, Father. Go with God! I am sure you will do something good."
So, I prayed to the Mother of God: "Mother of God, I do what you want, but keep me safe please! Me and my family."
So, I said. "I do not have the money to do this frame because it is quite a large icon."
"Do not worry, Father! The money for the frame are also from Fr. Arsenie."
" He told me to pay the frame. You just do it."
Since then, there has been a pilgrimage.
People come from Bucharest and from Targoviste.
The first group was from Bucharest. They were all saying: "We want to see the icon! We want to see the icon!"
Oh, goodness! What’s going to happen now?
The miracles that occurred were countless.
Everything was made out of nothing.
Each person came as if sent by God and Holy Theotokos.
"Father, I want to donate this carpet!" "Very well, sister!"
"Father, I want to give this chrystal chandelier!" "Do it, sister!"
"Father, I want to donate a round of vestments." " Donate them, sister!"
"Father, I want to do that..!" "Do it!"
"But, Father, but you are not going to say No to anything?" "No, sister!"
"Why not?" "If the Mother of God sent you, why should I get in the way?"
The whole little church was made with the help of the Mother of God.
Many such icons are all over the country, as the icon of Dormition of Mother of God from Brancoveanu Monastery at Sambata,
painted by Fr. Arseny when he was the Abbot of the Monastery.
This icon he gave to Bica family the very day he departed from Sambata.
The icon of St. Parascheva from St. Anthony Church in Bucharest.
The Icon of the Feast of the Spring of Life from Holy Trinity Church at Ghyka Tei.
Also, the holy icons of the altar screen of the churches of Draganescu and Prislop.
about which Fr. Arsenie told to a nun from Hurezu Monastery:
"These icons will be wonder working. Not now, but later."
Yet, his most important painting is the church of Draganescu village, 16 miles away from Bucharest,
to which he worked for 15 years, when a church painting is usually finished in 2-3 years.
Tempera-based, the bright tones of the new painting evoke the light of the Heavenly Kingdom.
The rumour that Fr. Arsenie is at Draganescu spreads around
and a large number of faithful show up each day in the church yard.
Simple people come as to a saint, to find comfort and healing, to seek advice in times of trouble.
"A person should meet to me only twice", said Fr. Arsenie.
"First time when he hears what he has to do,
and second time on the death bed to confess if he did what he was told."
Father Arsenie translates the pastoral sermon from Sambata and Prislop into a painted catechism,
personal in style – a warning picture, with prophetic images,
a new call to repentance made understandable to everybody.
…there is no devil;there is no soul, only biochemistry..
Among the visitors are young theologians who come for advice and spiritual guidance
of whom many will later become worthy priests and monks, abbots, abbesses, and hierarchs of Romanian Orthodox Church.
Metropolitan of Transylvania Laurentiu Streza
Some people say he altered the Byzantine canon,
but it is rather a visionary completion of exquisite theological value
by which the Father brought to fruition his gift of grace,
his ability to put into images what lay people could only read and the holy fathers experience.
I can still see him painting up there, on a side of the church.
When he heard the door he turned - as there were no people around - and said:
"You, there! You just wanted to see me?"
"Then, look! Look at me!"
"Well, Father. That’s all what I wanted...
Coming and not finding you would have been …"
"Now, see, you found me!"
This happening, this unusual circumstance of August 1968,
a major trial for the country and its people.
Father Savian goes to the church to invite him for dinner,
and he finds him in the altar, to the right of the Holy Table,
on his knees, praying, and on the floor there is a pool of tears.
And he asks him with spiritual daring: "What are you doing, Father?"
The Father answers:"Our country is facing a crucial and very difficult moment for its destiny"
"and we have to pray for it and for the good of its people."
I believe that for his prayers as well, God saved us from a tragedy
so that what happened that year and that month in Prague did not happen to us, too.
He is followed..the faithful are coming, they hide at Draganescu.
I took part to a few of these wonderful and out of the ordinary encounters.
He never tried to impress people and was always strict in matters of spiritual life, never lenient.
He never covered a sin by saying it was not a sin.
He bent forward with so much love and mercy for the poor people who came asking for his help,
but told each one of them the truth.
I remember going to the church, and there were many people trying to talk to him.
Father Savian, the parish priest, was staying at the door with a watch saying: "you can’t stay more than three minutes!"
I thought I would go and ask:"Father, I am 26. What should I do: should I marry or should I become a monk?"
I looked at the watch, I saw it took only 15 seconds.
Perfect! The Father has time to talk for two and a half minutes.
When I get there he asks: "What do you want?" "Father, I am 26 and I don't know what to do: get marry or become a monk?"
and I say to myself:"Good, now I wait.."
Father looked and me and said: "You are good for neither! Next!"
This was the whole conversation.
And I took the day off and traveled overnight by train, and waited in the crowd, and had to get back..
At that time I didn’t understand his words
but later I understood that nobody makes that decision for yourself. You make it!
In 1969 Fr. Arsenie, Mother Zamfira and a few other former nuns from Prislop buy a house at Sinaia
and organize themselves in a quasi-monastic settlement.
There Fr. Arsenie sets for himself a cell and a small painting studio.
In 1976 Prislop Monastery reopens under the abess Apolinaria.
In those years, such an event appeares as a miracle of the kind only Fr. Arsenie is capable of.
Christ is risen! True is risen! Christ is risen! True is risen!
From time to time he comes to Prislop, the place of his soul.
Thus, under the guidance of Fr. Arsenie, the nuns rebuild and decorate the annexes.
Along with the old church, the Athonite bell tower, new buildings appear,
the park is revamped, flowers, magnolias and silver firs are planted.
The older nuns are still remembering many of the sayings of Fr.Arsenie, either for salvation of the soul or prophetic.
In the summertime, Fr. Arsenie spends a few weeks in reclusion at Bucura Lake of Retezat Mountains,
He is nostalgic for the summers of his childhood spent on the hills of Bujoara,
feels well in the midst of nature, and longs for being a hermit.
People say that he speaks with the bears and the wolves who listen to him, with the deers and the birds.
He spends the last years of his life in his retreat from Sinaia with the former nuns of Prislop.
He takes short trips in the area and once a month travels to Bucharest to pick up his ridiculously small pension.
His health deteriorates because of a heart condition
and in February 1988 he develops a paralysis of his face and left leg.
Beyond reason, Securitate keeps surveilling him while he is agonizing.
Only on the 7th of October 1989, the surveillance is formally stopped.
They are finally obliged to admit what for more than four decades they refused to:
that Father was not engaged in any activity hostile to the socialist order.
After his first arrest, the first Godly miracles occur.
It is said that the hand of the interogator who hit him withered and never recovered.
Another miracle is marked down for investigation in the files of Securitate.
The story goes that Fr. Arsenie attended the funeral of his mother in a village from the country of Zarand
despite the fact that he was an inmate at Danube-Black Sea Canal forced work camp.
We have no proof but people are convinced it happened.
Testimonies add up, and it is hard to know where reality ends and legend begins.
Most of these stayed anonymous as Fr. Arsenie was very discrete in his work as a confessor.
I see Fr. Arsenie in the church, in the Cathedral in Alba Iulia and a few moments later I see him no more.
Three days after the feast of Penticost I go to Sinaia and ask him if he was at Alba Iulia.
He says he was and added that during prayer in the cathedral he experienced a state of elevation – of levitation.
I felt he possesed special spiritual gifts, which he never bragged about.
He never did such things and behaved absolutely normal.
I had a heart attack. Father promised us that if we obey what he says, he will help us both during his life and after his passing.
When I get to the Municipal Hospital and they started recording my heart I heard them saying:"Rush, she’s slipping into a coma!"
In the mean time I started shouting at Fr. Arsenie in my mind as I could no longer speak.
I kept saying in my mind:" Fr. Arsenie help me! Fr. Arsenie help me!"
Three hours and a half later I was agonizing between life and death.
My children brought money but nobody touched them, as they were not sure if I had any chance for survival.
I felt a hand on my face, caressing me like this. I immediately opened the eyes.
There was no longer any hand.. I could see nobody.
I thought it was my daughter and my son in law, but they were not there.
Only the doctor, the professor and a few assitants.
And I suddenly sighed and said: "Doctor, I can speak now! Thank you for bringing me back to life!"
"Don’t thank me! Don’t thank me! Thank to the Almighty."
"He gave you a helping hand! I never thought you will come back to life again!"
For thirty years until his passing, this man and priest endowed with such Godly gifts
could no longer wear the ecclesial clothes and serve the Holy Liturgy.
This was the greatest pain of the life of Fr. Arsenie Boca.
He took part to services but did not serve in the altar.
He remained the same spiritual father, uncompromising in his faith, even though he could no longer listen to confessions.
I remember that once at Sinaia I asked the Father: "Here nobody can see you. Why don’t you serve the Holy Liturgy?"
Take the antimis and vestments..you are a legitimate priest and you can serve!
And he said this to me: "I cannot play with obedience! I am a monk and I obey. I cannot play with it!"
On November 28th 1989 at Sinaia, the earthly being of Fr.Arsenie departs from this world.
On December 4th, the body of Fr. Arsenie, dressed in the monastic clothes he did not worn in thirty years,
is burried at Prislop Monastery in the place he picked himself.
He is mourned by the nuns, the close disciples and the faithful.
One month later the communist order collapses in a bloodshed
and after a brief trial the Ceausescu couple is executed at Targoviste.
For the former activists and agents of Securitate the new democratic order opened attractive perspectives.
For the lay people, the troubles were renewed.
As Fr. Arsenie prophetised, his grave became a place for pilgrimage.
Each year, on the day of his death, at the end of November when the weather warms up miraculously,
unending rows of flower bearing pilgrims come to Prislop
to share their troubles and find solace, to repent for their sins and straighten their path.
People do not believe that Fr. Arsenie ever died.
He is there with them, among them. They feel his presence as a breeze.
They ask the questions in their mind and there they find the answers.
They touch his cross and start crying out of the blue,
flooded by that happiness and inner peace that only Fr. Arsenie could intercede for them.
He is a saint in the hearts of the thousands of people who love and follow him,
and whom he blesses with his larger-than-world love.
I read a lot of books, but none helped me understand
my rebellion against God and His ever more stern and authoritarian face – indifferent to mankind.
This is how I portrayed Him through the books, the experiences and the life I had.
These views gained power while I was in high school and became heavier.
It happened when I read Cioran, Camus, Nietzsche..
all these rebels against God whose ideas more and more identiied with the God I had in my heart…
or maybe my mind, and it seemed that all questions that had been unanswered
found their an in Sartre, Camus, Cioran..these apologets of suicide.
After a second attempt, I was admitted at the University to study Philosophy,
and I had the thought to leave this eaningless world of endless suffering.
My philosophy was that the more you advance in life, the more you realize that life is not worth living, that it is only suffering.
So, the sooner you think about suicide, the better.
My brother was aware of my state and every now and then asked me:
"When are you going to return to God?"
And I’d say: "Get lost! Where should I return? What God? The God you believe in and is nothing but self suggestion?"
The bending point happened after he said: "Well, if you think you are so great,
that you only know the truth and all the others live in deceit, come with me to Prislop on the 8th of May.
"There is there a priest… " "What priest are you talking about? You believe in those pops of yours!"… at that time I did foul talk
But I said: "Ok, let’s go! Let me go and show him there’s nothing there!"
I took with me a very close friend whom I influenced a lot with my negative thinking and we went to Prislop together.
The yard of the Monastery was filled with people moving to and fro.
We did not know where to go. Should we stop by the church? What now?
We noticed that people went uphill and decided to follow them.
So, both I and my friend sat down under the birch tree covering the grave of Fr. Arsenie.
There awere no firs, nothing else you see today..just a group of people surrounding something we did not know what.
I forgot to mention that I had not cried in years
and I thought that crying or lamenting to this harsh and merciless God,
who threw us completely hopeless in this world, with no gentlessness whatsoever,
but who considers Himself good and expects praises on top of everything..
crying and lamenting in front of Him for your pains and your infirmities was the ultimate humiliation which I did not want to go through.
And all of the sudden, I remember, it was around 9AM
tears started streaming … I did not know why.
And something like scales started falling off my heart, my hardened, wicked heart.
I stood up: "What’s the matter with me? How can I cry?"
And I look back to my friend: "Are you also crying?" He was crying, too.
"What’s happening with you?" What was happening with him was happening with me as well.
I believe that God made it happen this way so I did not think it was self suggestion,
as he was also there…smart man, three graduate degrees.
So, I was chastising him:"You are crying, now? Why are you crying for?"
I was still bragging!
When I stand up, this is what happened.
Those evil thoughts that for so many years poured as a rain on me, words hardened against God,
against the world and against my brothers whom death I wished, about whom I thought and I spoke malevolently,
those relentless thoughts that never stopped, that I could not stop, that poured like rain
it was as if an umbrella openened, as if the sky cleared and all of the sudden a silence descendened upon me.
I can never forget that silence.
I believe that out of an unspeakable mercy, by the intercession of Fr. Arsenie,
of whose presence I did not even know, I lived a morcel of God’s grace.
I started to cry and could not stop for days because I met with that God I did not know.
I did not know who is this God who does not remember the evil I had done,
who took me as if I was worthy, and received me as a son. It was beyond comprehension.
I knew what I had done:
I was brothers with the devil, I know how ugly..I mocked the Holy Theotokos in my mind, in my heart, so many times...
And He received me like that!
I see so many young people who are the same way,
deep in their predicaments and hard in their hearts.
If I do not confess the wonders God worked on me, what should they say?
If all these happened to me despite my complete lack of good deeds, I must confess God before everybody.
and also Father Arsenie, the Man of God.