Vasile Aftenie

Vasile Aftenie (14 June 1899 – 10 May 1950) was a Romanian Auxiliary bishop of the Greek-Catholic Church, titular Bishop of Ulpiana, martyr of the faith and Servant of God of the Catholic Church.[2]

Blessed

Vasile Aftenie
Auxiliary Bishop of Făgăraş şi Alba Iulia
ChurchRomanian Greek Catholic Church
Appointed12 April 1940
Term ended10 May 1950
Orders
Ordination1 January 1926 (Priest)
by Vasile Suciu
Consecration5 June 1940 (Bishop)
by Alexandru Nicolescu
Personal details
Born14 June 1899
Lodroman, Kis-Küküllő County, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Died10 May 1950(1950-05-10) (aged 50)
Văcăreşti Monastery, Bucharest, Romania[1]
Sainthood
Feast day2 June
Beatified2 June 2019
Liberty Field, Blaj, Romania
by Pope Francis

He was beaten till his death in the communist regime's jails for refusing to abandon his Greek-Catholic faith and the United Romanian Church. Pope Francis personally presided over his beatification on 2 June 2019.[3][4][5][6]

Biography

Early life and education

Born in Lodroman village on 14 May 1899, Alba County, from his fathers Petru and Agafia,[1] Aftenie began his primary studies in his native village 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 12 April 1940 was appointed bishop by Pope Pius XII and on 5 June 1940 he was consecrated titular bishop of Ulpiana and Auxiliary bishop in the Blaj Cathedral,[1] 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.[1] After the death of Archbishop Nicolescu on 15 June 1941, he became Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Făgăraş and Alba Iulia.[7][8][9][10][11]

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[12] 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.[1][13] More later, many of them have confessed that they were pressed to do it.[1] Being a man of dialogue and sincere goodwill, therefore wrongly considered compliant by the regime, he was even offered, in exchange for his "conversion", to become Orthodox patriarch of Bucharest. He replied: "Neither my faith nor my nation is for sale".

Aftenie was arrested on 28[14] or 29[15] October 1948[14] on the Piața Romană,[16] just after leaving the St. Basil's church, and taken, together with the other five Greek-Catholic bishops, to Dragoslavele[1] and since February 1949 to Căldăruşani Monastery, which had been refashioned into a prison.

On 10 May 1949 he was taken to the Interior Ministry, held in isolation and tortured on the orders of General Alexandru Nicolschi, a Securitate member.[17] Mutilated, crippled, mentally broken but steadfast in faith he was thrown into Văcăreşti prison, where he died on 10 May 1950.[1] 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 cut 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][19] 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.[20][21]

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.

The cause for the beatification and canonization of Vasile Aftenie and 6 other Romanian bishops began on 28 January 1997. The diocesan inquiry is closed in 2010 and sent to Rome for study by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.[22][23]

Since each bishop has the right to be buried in the church he served, the bones of Bishop Vasile Aftenie were exhumed[24] in 2010, and his remains taken from Bellu cemetery to a Greek-Catholic church in Bucharest for storage on 13 May 2010, a request for his beatification having been submitted the year before.[24][25]

On 19 March 2019 Pope Francis approved the beatification of Aftenie and six other Greek-Catholic martyr bishops killed by the communist regime in Romania in the mid-20th century.[26][27] On 25 March it was announced that Pope Francis himself would beatify Aftenie and the other six bishops on 2 June 2019 at Blaj's Liberty Field.[6] He was beatified with the other six Bishops on that day in Blaj's Liberty Field.[3][4][5]

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See also

References
  1. Ioan M. Bota (1994) Istoria Bisericii universale şi a Bisericii româneşti from the origini pănă în zilele noastre, p. 322. Cluj: Viaţa Creştină. ISBN 973-96661-5-9
  2. "Beato Basilio Aftenie su santiebeati.it". Santiebeati.it.
  3. "A joyous celebration in Romania as Pope Francis beatifies seven bishop-martyrs". America Magazine. 2 June 2019.
  4. Dumitrache, Nicolae; Winfield, Nicole (2 June 2019). "Pope apologizes for history of discrimination against Roma". AP NEWS.
  5. "Pope Warns Of Divisive Ideologies As He Beatifies Romanian Bishops". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty.
  6. "Pope to beatify martyrs, visit Marian shrine on trip to Romania". National Catholic Reporter. 25 March 2019.
  7. [Annuario Pontificio, Year 1941.]
  8. [Annuario Pontificio, Year 1951.]
  9. [Le Petit Episcopalist, Issue 121.]
  10. [Le Petit Episcopalist, Issue 155, Additions / Corrections (front)]
  11. [Revue des Ordinations Épiscopales, Issue 1940, Number 37]
  12. [In Cluj, in a rally organized by the communist authorities, on the order of Stalin. On 1 October 1948, 36 Romanian Greek Catholic priests including an archpriest, signed under psychological pressure, the abandonment of the Romanian Church United with Rome and adherence to the Romanian Orthodox Church. On the same day, the Greek Catholic Bishop of Cluj, Iuliu Hossu, issued a decree of excommunication ipso facto, concerning all the participants of the Cluj rally.]
  13. "Cicerone Ionițoiu", p. 3 in Episcopii greco-catolici. Procesul comunismului
  14. Sergiu Grossu (2006) Calvary of Romanian Romania, "Convorbiri Literare" & ABC DAVA, Chisinau. A New Edition: Calvary of Christian Romania, Weather, ISBN 973-645-162-3.
  15. Different sources report different dates: santiebeati.it writes October 28, Cicero Ionițoiu December 29th
  16. [Roman Square: in Romanian, Piata Romană. It is a public square located in the center of the Capital of Romania]
  17. [Alexandru Nikolski / Alexandru Nicolschi (born Boris Grünberg on 2 June 1915, in Tiraspol – died on 16 April 1992 in Bucharest) was a general of Securitate.]
  18. (in Romanian) Episcopul Vasile Aftenie at the Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic site; accessed May 15, 2012
  19. Vasile Aftenie. findagrave.com.
  20. [Silvestru Augustin Prunduş and Clemente Plăianu, Catholicism and Romanian Orthodoxy. Short history of the Romanian United Church. Christian Life Publishing House, Cluj 1994.]
  21. [Silvestru Augustin Prunduş and Clemente Plăianu, The 12 Martyrs Bishops, Publisher "The Christian Life", Cluj 1998.]
  22. "Episcopul catolic hâtru cu destin de martir". evz.ro. 14 May 2010
  23. Episcop greco-catolic roman exhumat pentru beatificare. bistrita.citynews.ro. 13 May 2010
  24. "Comunicat privind recunoaşterea osemintelor Episcopului Vasile Aftenie | Biserica Română Unită cu Roma, Greco-Catolică". www.bru.ro.
  25. (in Romanian) Mirela Corlățan, "Episcopul catolic hâtru cu destin de martir", Evenimentul Zilei, 14 May 2010; accessed May 15, 2012
  26. Hannah Brockhaus. "Seven 20th-century Romanian bishops declared martyrs". Catholic News Agency.
  27. "Promulgazione di Decreti della Congregazione delle Cause dei Santi". Tägliches Bulletin (in Italian). Presseamt des Heiligen Stuhls. 19 March 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2019.

Bibliography
  • Sergiu Grossu, Le calvaire de la Roumanie Chrétienne, Éditions France-Empire, Paris, 1987 ISBN 978-2704805280.
  • Biography on the canonization of the bishops Valeriu Traian Frenţiu, Iuliu Hossu, Alexandru Rusu, Ioan Bălan, Ioan Suciu, Tit Liviu Chinezu and Vasile Aftenie
  • Mihaela Olău: Episcop Vasile Aftenie. Editura Galaxia Gutenberg, 2012, ISBN 978-973-141-461-4.
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