Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa

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Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa (born November 23, 1925 in Mahmudia , Tulcea County , Romania , † November 21, 2006 in Washington, DC , United States of America ) was a Romanian Orthodox priest and dissident .

Life

As a 21-year-old medical student, Calciu-Dumitreasa first rebelled against the communist regime in Romania in his speeches in 1946 and was subsequently imprisoned. During his imprisonment, his faith grew through contact with Romanian Orthodox priests who were also interned. As part of a general amnesty, he was released from prison 16 years later, but he was banned from studying theology. He then chose French as his subject for four years . With the consent of the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church Iustinian Marina , he secretly studied with a view to a priesthood. After the Romanian secret service Securitate became aware of these circumstances, in 1973 Iustitian Marina appointed him professor of French language and the New Testament at the Orthodox seminary in Bucharest . In the same year he received his ordination as a priest.

For the next five years, the government under Nicolae Ceaușescu tolerated his anti-communist sermons on the relationship between Marxism and Christianity in the Radu Vodă Church in Bucharest, with which he mainly attracted younger listeners until 1978. After Iustinian's death in 1977 and the appointment of the new church patriarch Iustin Moisescu , Calciu-Dumitreasa was expelled from the church and arrested again. He was ill-treated in prison. Under pressure from the then US President Ronald Reagan , among other things , he was released from prison in 1985. After two years of house arrest , he had to leave Romania and from then on lived in exile in the US state of Virginia . In the mid-1980s he preached on Voice of America and Radio Free Europe .

The Romanian Orthodox Church had removed Calciu-Dumitreasa from his church office, but he was able to exercise the priesthood in the parish of Alexandria within the Orthodox Church of America . After the Romanian Revolution , he returned to Romania in 1990 to celebrate mass on University Square in Bucharest . Until his end, he remained critical of some Romanian Orthodox bishops in Romania and accused them of infiltrating the Romanian Orthodox Church in the service of the Securitate .

Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa was buried in the Petru Vodă monastery in Poiana Teiului in the Romanian district of Neamț .

Publications

  • Seven words to youth , Edition Hagia Sophia, Wachtendonk, 2014, in German, ISBN 978-3-96321-073-0
  • Christ is calling you. A course in catacomb pastorship , St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina / California, 1997, in Romanian
  • Rugăciune și lumină mistică. Eseuri și meditații religioase , Edition Dacia, Cluj-Napoca, 1998, in Romanian
  • Războiul întru cuvânt. Cuvintele către tineri și alte mărturii , Edition Nemira, Bucharest, 2001, in Romanian
  • Homo americanus. O radiografie ortodoxă , Edition Christiana, Bucharest, 2002, in Romanian
  • Testamentul Părintelui Calciu. Ultimele sale cuvinte, cu un portret biografic și șapte evocări , Edition Christiana, Bucharest, 2007, in Romanian
  • Suferința ca binecuvântare , Edition Cathisma, Bucharest, 2007, in Romanian
  • Mărturisitorul prigonit. Predici, eseuri și meditații religioase , Edition Crigarux, Piatra Neamț, 2007, in Romanian
  • Viața Părintelui Gheorghe Calciu, după mărturiile sale și ale altora , Edition Christiana, Bucharest, 2007, in Romanian

literature

  • Nicolae Geisler (Ed.): The New Confessors of Faith in Romania , Edition Hagia Sophia, Wachtendonk, 2019, in German, ISBN 978-3-96321-073-0
  • Nicolae Geisler (Ed.): Through the hell of communist re-education. New martyrs and confessors of Romania , Edition Hagia Sophia, Wachtendonk, 2011, in German, ISBN 978-3-96321-056-3
  • Lavinia Stan, Lucian Turcescu: Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania. Religion and Global Politics , Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 0-19-530853-0 , p. 286, in English

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Calciu-Dumitreasa, Gheorghe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian Orthodox priest and dissident
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Mahmudia , Romania
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 2006
Place of death Washington, DC , United States of America