In this rare video recording, Elder Proclu Nicau, a Romanian monk and hermit, recounts the night when a sectarian man entered his house, had a revelation and eventually got converted to Orthodox Christianity. Fr. Proclu fell asleep in the Lord in 2017.
Video source: valentinoburlacu, Romania, 2006
Elder Proclu:
Once, it happened that a sectarian man visited some monasteries, when Ceausescu still lived, in those times [mid ’80s], and started to argue with the fathers in the monastery… and the fathers asked someone to take him over the mountain here to my hermitage…
When they got here, the attendant left him at the gate and went home… And the sectarian remained here and said to me that I should let him in because he wants to sleep at my place.
And I said, “I won’t let you in, I don’t know you… What shall I say, maybe you’ll strangle me overnight…”
And he said that if I didn’t let him in then he would sleep at the gate.
Then what did I do? I said, “Woe to me! To sleep at the gate? I’m afraid the wild animals will eat you and I’ll have to pay for you like for a new one… 🙂 And I have no money, no salary… how can I pay?”
I took him inside… you know, I told him that as a joke… so as not to be too scared of my long hair and beard…
And he started telling me about his sects… so… And I put my fingers in my ears, not to hear… I was full of that… So… And then he asked me questions about the Mother of God and the Holy Cross… In the end, he kept asking me questions… but it was 4 o’clock in the morning…
I had to put him to bed… he graduated from two faculties in Bucharest… He was a smart man… but with all his intelligence, the devil twisted his mind… He had a twisted mind…
And I asked him to make the sign of the Holy Cross… no, wait a minute. He told me something, he told me another crazy thing… He said, “We try to teach Christians in an elegant manner, but if we don’t succeed, in one night we will kill them all! From little to big, metropolitans, we kill them all in one hour!” I said, “Woe to me! Is this how Christ taught you to do? To kill people?” Then he didn’t say anything, he just sat and looked into my eyes to see what else I was saying…
I didn’t say anything… And when it was 4 o’clock in the morning I put him to bed, as he did not sleep as he walked through the monasteries, he was sent from place to place… So, what did I do? I laid him down and said to him: “If you pray to the Mother of God with much humility, without blaspheming, and considering yourself a sinner… as a Holy Father said: “Man, if you want to get closer to God, become like an ant… small, unworthy, sinful…” and pray with all your heart! And then I asked him to say, “Mother of God, please, take care of my soul, show me the truth, lest the devil take me to hell…” He said this prayer with me… like that. “Show me the truth, what should I believe in order to do God’s will?”
I turned off the light and couldn’t sleep, I was making the sign of the cross on myself and on him… Then he fell into a deep sleep and had a revelation: “All the mysteries of God are found in the Orthodox churches.” He didn’t say anywhere else…
And when he woke up he said to me like this: “Father, what should I do with my old books?” I said, “There is no other place for your books than on fire…” And he listened to me, set them on fire, and I urged him to go to a priest, he confessed to a priest… and kept in touch with me. But since then he didn’t contradict me with anything, he went to church, he took blessed bread, he received communion… he did his penance, like a Christian… like that.
But the good God ordained that he would die in the Revolution [Romania, 1989]… But he did not die as a pagan, he died as a Christian. And he might even be a martyr, because from then on he sought to help the Church. He helped the Church and told others about the revelation he had. And when he came to me the second time I said to him: “Sir, you should know that many people had revelations like the one you had… And at the same time, these are recent things, but one could find in the books a cloud of testimonies that the truth is in the Orthodox Church! And all those who doubt, let them try and see…”
We would like to encourage you to support our efforts to comfort and inspire Christians and seekers around the world using digital media. We are a 100% donor supported non-profit Christian ministry.
Please support our ministry with your love gift.
Our address to receive BTC on Bitcoin network: bc1qre644umv5dk0ej3ajprvjvwavvkcq3x5ptja8p
