Ioan Duma

Ioan Maria Duma OFMConv (born November 5, 1896 in Valea Mare , Bacau district , † July 16, 1981 in Târgu Jiu , buried in Valea Mare) was a Franciscan minister and secret bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Romania .

biography

Duma entered the Franciscan seminary of Hălăuceşti in the fall of 1914 and studied there and at the “Collegium Seraphicum” of Rome . He took part in the "War of the Reunification of the Nation" 1916–1918, during which time he served as a medic. After the war he made his novitiate , taking the provisional vows on October 4, 1919, and then the final monastic vows in Rome in 1922 . On July 24, 1924 he was ordained a priest in Rome and after his return he worked as a diocesan vicar in Săbăoani and Hălăuceşti from September 30, 1925. At the same time he was also professor and director of the Roman Catholic seminary of Hălăuceşti, in 1930 he was pastor of Galați . During this time he published the magazine "Curierul Parohiei Romano-Catolice Galați" and had the monument dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua erected on the left side of the main entrance of the parish church (1934). In 1944 the Pope appointed him Apostolic Visitator of the Franciscan Convents in Transylvania .

Ioan Duma was founded on November 16, 1948 by Pope Pius XII. secretly appointed titular bishop of Iuliopolis . He was intended as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Iași , whose bishop Anton Durcovici was one of the first victims of the new regime. Gerald Patrick O'Hara , the Apostolic Nuncio in Romania, secretly ordained Father Duma on December 8, 1948 in the chapel of the Bucharest Nunciature . The communist state already knew about the new bishops shortly after the secret ordinations of 1948/1949, after the secret service - possibly through the driver of the nuncio - had come across a list of the names of the ordained.

On September 25, 1951, the bishop was arrested for his part and brought before the Timișoara military court , which sentenced him to four years in prison for the crime of "espionage for the Vatican". During this time, he endured severe mental and physical torture. After his release from prison in 1955, he was forced to reside in Iași for 36 months by decision no. 6088 of September 25, 1955. Then he received one in the Constanța district , in the parish of Mihail Kogălniceanu . The Securitate then put together a dossier for individual prosecution, with the aim of documenting the “hostile work as a secret bishop and superior of the Franciscans”. In order to isolate him and monitor him better, he was made resident in Târgu Jiu in 1960.

Later, in 1971, the bishop received authorization from the authorities to travel to Italy, on which occasion he was in audience with Pope Paul VI. was received, but it was not until 1975 that the State Security Agency closed his dossier, as he now, old and sick, no longer represented a potential threat to the communist regime.

Ioan Duma was neither recognized by socialist Romania in his episcopal function, nor could he officially exercise his office. Only after his death did the Holy See publicly confirm his bishopric for the first time.

literature

• Dennis Deletant; "Ceauşescu and the Securitate", Verlag C. Hurst & Co., London 1995, p. 219 f.
• Ioan Bota, Cicerone Ionițoiu: "Martiri și mărturisitori ai bisericii din România (1945–1989): Biserica Română Unită cu Roma, Greco-Catolică, Biserica Romano-Catolică", publishing house Casa de Editură "Viața Cretinăoc", 2001, P. 222 f.

Web links

• Episcopii Ioan Duma şi Anton Durcovici - eroi ai rezistenţei prin credinţă (Romanian)
• Entry on Ioan Duma on catholic-hierarchy.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://ofmconv.ro/liturghie-in-amintirea-ep-ioan-duma/
2. ↑ http://www.ercis.ro/lumina/numar.asp?an=2010&numar=12&id=292
3. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ http://www.ercis.ro/lumina/numar.asp?an=2010&numar=12&id=292