Orthodox Spiritual Resistance Through the Eucharist in Romanian Communist Prisons

The paper explores how Holy Communion was administered and the Eucharist was celebrated among political prisoners of the Orthodox faith in Romanian communist prisons. The main information is taken from memoirs of those who survived the Romanian gulag, but some informative notes found in the funds of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archive also contain interesting details that complete the picture of the liturgical act in detention. Priests had to face several practical and liturgical constraints, such as the lack of Eucharistic elements in accordance with Orthodox practice, the absence of liturgical vestments and objects that had to be improvised, and the difficulty of preserving and distributing the Holy Gifts, which had to be protected from profanation. The harsh conditions also led some ministers to step back from certain liturgical rigors that are usually obligatory. Moreover, given the state of shared suffering, on a few occasions confessional barriers were ignored and inter-communion celebrations took place.