Vasile Aftenie

Early life and education

Born in Lodroman village on May 14, 1899, Alba County, Aftenie began his primary studies in his native village and Blaj, and high school courses at Blaj. In 1917 he was drafted by the army and was in Galicia and Italy at the front. After the end of the war in 1918, he began law school at the Faculty of Law in Bucharest, but then decided in 1919 to enroll at the Academy of Theology of Blaj, and was later sent to Rome at the Greek College of the Saint Athanasius. He took a doctorate in philosophy and theology in 1925 and then returned to Romania.

Career

On 1 January 1926 Aftenie was ordained priest by Metropolitan Vasile Suciu. One month after he became a lecturer at the Theological Academy in Blaj. Soon afterward, Aftenie was named professor at the Blaj theological academy till 1934. From 1934 to 1937 he was archpriest in Bucharest and from 1937 to 1939 Aftenie was canon of the Blaj cathedral. On 1 October 1939, he became rector of the Blaj theological academy. Aftenie on April 12, 1940 was appointed bishop by Pope Pius XII and on June 5, 1940, he was consecrated titular bishop of Ulpiana and Auxiliary bishop in the Blaj Cathedral,^[4] by Metropolitan of Făgăraș and Alba Iulia Alexandru Nicolescu, and returned to Bucharest as vicar bishop at St. Basil's Church in Bucharest.

His co-consecrators were Alexandru Rusu, Bishop of Maramureş, and Ioan Bălan, Bishop of Lugoj. After the death of Archbishop Nicolescu on 15 June 1941, he became Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Făgăraş and Alba Iulia.^{[5][6][7][8][9]}

Arrest, torture and death

In 1948, the new Communist regime outlawed his church, and the authorities' efforts to compromise him failed.

In October 1948 Aftenie severely reprimanded the 36 former Greek-Catholic priests who had signed up for Orthodoxy and arrived from Cluj^[10] to the Patriarchate of Bucharest to bring their so-called adherence to the Romanian Orthodox Church, abandoning the Romanian Church United with Rome. The delegates from Cluj were at the Capşa restaurant when Bishop Vasile Aftenie scolded them in public.^[11][12] More later, many of them have confessed that they were pressed to do it.^[13]

Aftenie was arrested on October 28, 1948^[14] on the Piața Romană,^[15] just after leaving the St. Basil's church, and taken, together with the other five Greek-Catholic bishops, to Dragoslavele and since February 1949 to Căldăruşani Monastery, which had been refashioned into a prison.

He refused the offer of an Orthodox metropolitanate in exchange for conversion. On 10 May 1949 he was taken to the Interior Ministry, held in isolation and tortured on the orders of General Alexandru Nikolski, a Securitate member.^[16] Mutilated, crippled, mentally broken but steadfast in faith he was thrown into Văcăreşti prison, where he died on May 10, 1950.^[17] It is also reported that he was shot by a Securitate officer. Because he was very tall and did not fit in the wooden box (used instead of the coffin) in which he was seated, his legs were cutted and fitted. Initially, authorities ordered the body to be burned, but Aftenie was buried in the Bellu cemetery following a service held by a Roman Catholic priest^[18] from the Bucharest Bărăția and he conducted the rites in secret several days after Aftenie was buried by night under the eyes of the Securitate secret police.

Another priest brought a cross permitted by the communist authorities at his grave with his initials and the year of his death several days after that written: "VA = 1950".

In 1990, a white marble tombstone with a picture of the bishop was erected for him; his grave became a place of pilgrimage and is adorned with candles and flowers, he is called for help and assistance.^[19][20]

The beatification process

Soon after, his tomb became a place of pilgrimage. Thousands of people come and pray to his grave. It is said that wonders happened here, to the prayers of the pilgrims, in response from God.

Since each bishop has the right to be buried in the church he served, the bones of Bishop Vasile Aftenie were exhumed^[21] in 2010, and his remains taken from Bellu cemetery to a Greek-Catholic church in Bucharest for storage on May 13, 2010, a request for his beatification having been submitted the year before.^[22]