The story of Nea’Niculae begins on the „Day of the Cross” in 1914. The village in Făgărășa did not offer him much, but it did not leave him with the tradition and customs of the place that had accompanied him throughout time. He is approaching 103 years old and says with a smile that life is short, „it’s like I entered through one door and left through another”. And he says something else, „faith in God is the only thing that makes us happy”. He met the king and liked him. He didn’t do business with the communists, but he did meet the anti-communists, and he has no words of praise for the post-communists. The great-grandchildren around him, with one eye on the tablet and the other on the TV, can’t quite make out what he’s saying. They even laugh when they see him in the doorway, leaning on his cane, scanning the street up and down. They are preoccupied with socializing, but on the trendy networks on the internet and not on the scoundrel that old Niculae drew for them on the ground in front of the gate. The old man is also familiar with television and knows everything that is happening in the world. He has been saddened by the attacks that are hitting Europe more and more often, and he says that these things will never end. „It’s a lack of faith,” explains the elder. Nicholas.
In no year have attacks in Europe increased. It was in 2016, in Nice, right on the French National Day, when 86 people were killed and 400 others were injured. In Berlin, on the eve of Christmas, 12 people died and over 50 were injured. On March 22, 2017, London was mourned by a British convert to Islam who killed four people with a rented car and injured about 50. On April 7, in Stockholm, a 39-year-old Uzbek citizen drove a truck into a crowd, killing four people and injuring 15 others. At least 40 people were killed by an explosion that occurred in a Coptic church in northern Egypt while Palm Sunday mass was being celebrated. Shortly after, another explosion occurred in front of the Coptic cathedral in the city of Alexandria. In six years of war in Syria, over 400,000 people have been massacred, and last week’s chemical attack killed 59 people, including 11 children. In addition, the bombing ordered by Donald Trump against Syria is a clear signal to other states, but not of peace.
However, other types of attacks are taking place on the ground in the Middle East. Those planned by politicians who have been systematically attacking their people for 27 years. The lack of modernized highways and roads has made Romania the country with the highest number of road deaths, 97 per million inhabitants, almost double the average of 50 deaths recorded at EU level. In hospitals in Romania, people die every minute, and the lack of income blocks the chance for Romanians to turn to hospitals abroad. Education has not been forgiven either, with our children being guinea pigs for the rulers. Romania is the country at the bottom of the European top in terms of average income of citizens, but at the top of the ranking in terms of taxes and their number.
However, the Church, the institution that has recorded the highest profits in recent years, is exempt from taxes and duties. Its representatives have become more builders of walls than of souls because statistics show that every 3 days a church is built. And the great national cathedral surpasses them all, in size, in costs, in bells, in… Father Arsenie Boca used to say: „The walls will grow weeds, if there are no living churches”. But who listens to him anymore?
The conclusion of a young man who had known three former political prisoners surprised him. After discussions with these martyrs of communist prisons, the young man gave a beautiful definition of Orthodoxy, „Orthodoxy means giving”. What percent of the billions of euros in profits do the leaders of the Romanian Orthodox Church give to today’s young people?
Father Niculae said, deeds, thoughts, words define each of us. Profit, attack, faith, what would be the order? Either way, we celebrate the Resurrection of the Savior Jesus every year. The Lord brings the Light into our souls every moment, we just have to open the „doors” to receive it. Christ is Risen!
(Lucia BAKI)