Română
In this video, Saint Sofian (Boghiu) of Antim Monastery, the gentle elder of Bucharest, reflects on the lessons learned from the communist persecution and explains that Christianity is not a theory but a life to be lived with profundity and sincerity. The local proclamation of the canonisation of Saint Sofian took place on September 16, 2025 at Antim Monastery, Bucharest, Romania. A renowned spiritual father and iconographer, Saint Sofian was a confessor who endured 16 years of hard labor in communist prisons for his faith and his involvement in the “Burning Bush” spiritual movement.
This is an interview recorded in 2001 at Antim Monastery, Bucharest, Romania.
Watch the full interview on Ortodoxia inimii channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxmuT32DHMM
Saint Sofian:
What lessons do you believe we should draw from the experience of Communism [Communist Regime in Romania]?
We should bear in mind that they were the enemies of the faith, that they wanted to remove God from the life of the people, along with the Church and everything. We ought to integrate ourselves into the Christian life, but with profundity, with sincerity, with a firm will to embrace Christianity in its fullness, not just for form’s sake and not just on Sundays, but in our daily lives.
We ought to be Christians and to enlist ourselves in this practical Christian life. Christianity places great emphasis on practice. Indeed… It is not enough just to believe in the Gospel; you must live it. “He who does and teaches, the same shall be called great” [Matthew 5, 19]. Otherwise, the value of a Christian and of Christianity disappears when it is only a matter of words…
You must live it. You must experience the suffering of another, experience prayer, experience fasting, experience Holy Communion. You must have these Christian practices from your own experience. And then, you learn, to the degree that you are truly close to Christianity, you grow to love this Christianity, you delight in being a Christian, and you have a consolation and a complete peace which God gives to you.
God is present in our lives at every moment and wherever you may be. God is with us, but you must also be with God. God is with us, but we are evasive and avoid doing our duty; we are often lazy. Even if you are not an enemy of Christianity, if you are lazy and do nothing, your value as a Christian is likewise lost.
