New Romanian Martyr Valeriu Gafencu, the Saint of the Prisons
Valeriu Gafencu was born 24 Jan 1921 in the village of Sangerei, Balti county, Bessarabia. He died in prison in Targu Ocna, 18 Feb 1952, at the age of 31. He is one of those young men who died for Christ, fighitng to defend the Holy Orthodox Faith and the Romanian people from the attacks of Satan. Many people in Romania today call him "the Saint of the Prisons," and eagerly await his Glorification as a Saint of the Holy Church.
In the fall of 1941, aged 20, while a student in the Faculty of Law and Philosophy in Iasi, he led the Brotherhood of the Cross, hoping to help fight communism in Romania. He was arrested, labelled as an "enemy of the people," and sentenced to 25 years if hard labor. He was in prison at Aiud until 1944, then sent to Pitesti, where he was kept until 1949, and then transferred to the prison-sanatarium at Targu Ocna, where he remaied until his death.
While in prison, his bodily strenght declined as he had contracted pulmonary tunerculosis, affecting bones and lymph nodes, and rheumatism. Despite this, his mind and spirit were perfected in the prisons, enriching himself through prayer, and the study of Holy Scripture, the Philokalia, and the Patericon. His entire body covered with open sores from the tubeculosis, he patiently awaited death with a serenity so great, that his composure even affected the inhuman atheist guards who had tortured many.
The day of his death was made known to Valeriu by the Lord long before his departure from the prison, from this earth. On 02 Feb 1952, 16 days before his repose in the Lord, he asked some of his co-sufferers in the prison to try and obtain a candle and a white shirt for him, "before 18 Feb." On 18 Feb, at 2:00 p.m., after remaining long in prayer, he said, "Lord, give me slavery that releases the soul, and freedom that binds the soul." After this prayer, he gave his soul to the Lord.
He told his fellow sufferers, "Find joy in your souls. Do not look outside yourself. Do not wait for happiness to come from somewhere else, rather than within, in your soul, where dwells the Lord of Love, Christ. If you wait for happiness from outside, you live in deception after deception, and will never achieve true happiness."

from an article by Theodore Danalache
http://www.crestinortodox.ro/sfinti/valeriu-gafencu-sfantul-inchisorilor-123622.html

Alexandr

I read his story within the last 6 months. I was very moved...For my Catholic (in communion with Rome) friends...I could also recommend "With God in Russia". The story of Fr. Walter Ciszek SJ. Let me rephrase that, "With God in Russia" is a good story for all to read. Simply it deals with an RC priest with bi-ritual faculties.

I have read a critique on Augustine that his spirituality in a time of truble for Rome was introversed, searching for God within himself rather than the surrounding disappointing world, and I agree that such a one is somehow depressive.
Of course one may find God within AND without himself.
It comes to the boundaries of heresy to say that one may find God only within himself!