Fr. Sofian Boghiu (✝2002), imprisoned for 6 years during the communist regime in Romania for his unwavering faith in Christ, reflects on how suffering, prayer, and faith can transform the soul.
The Romanian Orthodox Church has approved the canonization of 16 new saints during the synodal sessions held on July 11-12th 2024. Venerable Sofian of Antim Monastery is one of them. They will be officially recognized as saints in 2025.
Video source: Ortodoxia inimii, 2001, Antim Monastery
Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/zxmuT32DHMM
Fr. Sofian:
First of all, I came to know more deeply the suffering of almost the entire Romanian people, for there were people of all categories there. There were peasants, intellectuals, soldiers, religious people, and atheists. Each reacted in their own way, and from them, I was learning things that, in the freedom of life outside, I would not have noticed.
For example, here at Antim Monastery, there would come all kinds of people who had been in prison, and they would recount their various trials and hardships. I would hear them, I would pity them, but in truth, I did not share in their suffering. But in that place, beyond merely hearing about such things, I saw them lived out, and I lived them myself. For this reason, living through this experience personally, these events left a much deeper impression on my conscience, for they were collective experiences, shared by all.
Everyone there had their own needs, their own sorrows, and their own illnesses, and these became intertwined with my own state of suffering. And I learned from them. And there, even prayer became far more personal than it ever was outside. Thus, I learned the purpose of suffering for my own life, and I discovered that it could be beneficial. I came to understand things that, outside, I would not have understood—just as one who fasts under compulsion and with reluctance does so without the proper disposition.
But when there is an inner prompting of the soul that supports you, fasting is undertaken with joy and yields fruits that are sweet to the soul. You are left satisfied. In the same way, the suffering there became a source of consolation. I felt an aid that came from outside myself, from God, who would grant me certain joys.
For example, that spiritual peace, which outside one would only taste in much smaller measures. I was not resentful toward anyone for the fact that I had ended up there. I was at peace. I understood that this suffering was for me, for my sins, for the errors of my life. And so, I came to see it as a kind of penance, one that I accepted with complete inner freedom.