At the "Saints Constantine and Elena" Church in the resort town of Târgu-Ocna (in the vicinity of the Penitentiary-Hospital, the place where the mass graves and Troita of former political prisoners are located), a service takes place every year on February 18 a memorial dedicated to those who suffered in communist prisons, a moment of remembrance, which marks the passing of the anti-communist martyr hero Valeriu Gafencu, along with other former political prisoners buried here.
And this year, on Thursday, February 18, under the organization of the Archdiocese of Romania and Bacău and the "Professor George Manu" Foundation, the annual commemoration dedicated to Valeriu Gafencu and all the victims of the Târgu-Ocna prison will take place. Starting at 9.00 a.m., the Holy Liturgy will be celebrated, which will be followed by the Parastas.
The first commemoration in Târgu-Ocna took place in 1991, and between 1990 and 1997, meetings took place annually in the resort at the foot of Măguria. The death of many of the former political prisoners and the failing health of others led to the discontinuation of this annual event.
Together with those who are alive and with the sisters Valentina and Eleonora Gafencu, in 2007 the thread of the annual meetings was resumed, and with God's help, the number of those who pay respect to Valeriu Gafencu and all his fellow sufferers is constantly increasing from year to year year.
Valeriu Gafencu, nicknamed by Nicolae Steinhardt and the "Saint of prisons" was the man of total sacrifice. He sacrificed, for Christ and the nation, his youth, profession, family, freedom, and in the end, his life... Through his absolute living, devoted to God and the Romanian nation, he remains a landmark of Christian spirituality, rightfully named by the ÎPS Bartolomeu Anania, "pillar of the Romanian spiritual resistance during the communist oppression".
Valeriu Gafencu was born on January 24, 1921 in the town of Sîngerei in Bessarabia (this year marks the 100th anniversary of his birth), and in the fall of 1941, while he was a student at the Faculty of Law and Philosophy in Iasi, he was imprisoned by Antonescu's regime for "legionary activity ”, first in Aiud, then in Pitesti, after which, following the tortures and particularly harsh conditions of detention, he was admitted in a serious condition (sick with TB) to the Penitentiary-Hospital in Târgu-Ocna, where he will pass to the eternal February 18, 1952, at only 31 years old.
"There is no doubt that Valeriu Gafencu is a saint; lived the word of God at a height incomprehensible to us", said Father Gheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa about the "Saint of prisons". Although there were a series of controversies related to Valeriu Gafencu's personality and activity, he was declared a post-mortem Honorary Citizen of the city of Târgu-Ocna.
"Valeriu Gafencu started to be brought into the collective memory immediately after December 1989. At first timidly, but then after the 2000s, he established himself in the consciousness of the Romanian public opinion. During the communist period, understandably, due to the dictatorship, Valeriu Gafencu's name was whispered only by former political prisoners and cellmates who knew him. The name of the martyr from Târgu Ocna was mentioned in the diaries kept tightly under lock and key by former comrades in suffering or by Nicolae Steinhardt in the literature of the drawer. The odyssey of Valeriu Gafencu's memory in the religious consciousness of Romanians continues like the greatest confessors of Christianity, like a ship that first passes through storms to then rest in the harbor with calm waters of faith. Valeriu Gafencu entered the consciousness of Romanians as a popular saint, with an akathist that is read in some Romanian Orthodox monasteries, but the road to an official canonization by the Holy Synod of the BOR will be long and full of the squeals of a secular and atheistic opposition, what draws the sap from Bolshevism". (Ionuț Țene - "Valeriu Gafencu - a saint in post-December memory", article published in "Naționa", 15 October 2015).
Valeriu Gafencu is also mentioned in the volume of Ioan Ianolide (another political prisoner), entitled "Return to Christ - Document for a new world", one of the most valuable testimonies on the phenomenon that will be known as "Prison Saints".
Romulus-Dan BUSNEA