Ioana Pârvulescu - Life Begins on Friday

Perhaps also because of Safta, for whom my heart breaks, perhaps also because I have dark rings under the eyes of my soul, I have decided not to go anywhere on New Year’s Eve. I feel sorry only for Jacques; I know only that he would be glad if I came too. Why should I not spend New Year’s Eve asleep? I value sleep more and more, and I feel sleepy most of the time. Nevertheless, despite everything I have written above, hidden away in my soul is a feeling of wellness. Everything seems very curious to me, most of all the fact that I am alive!

It is obvious that there is a God of journalists, even when they imagine the Creator as a mechanical engineer in white overalls, constantly sabotaged by a devil in black overalls, with a hole in the seat. And the God of journalists made Mr Neculai Procopiu productively fill his morning reading the Universul collection from May 1896. It was the collection that happened to be the handiest. Mrs Procopiu wanted to take advantage of this rare occasion when her husband did not leave the conjugal domicile early in the morning, and she embraced his shoulders, chair back and all, full of the tenderness of an intimate winter morning, in a warm house, with wood crackling softly in the stove and the scent of coffee wafting through the room. But her husband was in a mood that did not allow for dreaming. He gently released himself from her embrace, kissing the back of her hand, and plunged into rereading the news about Metropolitan Ghenadie. His wife had of course taken the Metropolitan’s side when he was deposed, but she had a heart in her head, not only in her chest. Betimes, her thinking was affected by that heart in her head. As for him, he was mistrustful by nature and did not allow details to lead him astray. The articles had been written by two editors, who no longer worked for the paper. He did not know where to get hold of them now at short notice, probably they were away for the holidays, and time pressed hard. He reviewed the facts.

17 May: The members of the Holy Synod gathered, having been invited to do so by the Ministry of Religions. Archbishop Atanasie of Craiova read the Act of Accusation for the sins of argyrophilia, hierosilia , and simony. From the judges came a murmur of horror, amid the sound of their rustling beards and cassocks as they shifted in their seats. For the benefit of the newspaper’s readers, Procopiu added in parenthesis explanations of the words: excessive love of money, sacrilege, and traffic in holy objects, punishable with defrocking and excommunication. It was unanimously decided that he be brought to trial. ‘A locum tenens was hereby appointed and a commission of three apostolic nuncios who would convey to him the three canonical invitations.’ The newspapers played a decisive part in the decision, through ‘the grave accusations levelled at H. H. Ghenadie.’

18 May: The decree suspending him was published. On the same day, Dreptatea gave the signal for a campaign ‘of the greatest violence’ against the Government and in support of the Metropolitan. All the opposition newspapers followed suit.

19 May: In the Dacia Auditorium, N. Fleva, the founder of Dreptatea , and his friend, Nicu Filipescu, organized the first meeting in support of the Metropolitan. Others, more violent, were to follow. N. Fleva was also the Metropolitan’s lawyer.

20 May: H. H. Metropolitan Primate Ghenadie Petrescu presented himself before the Holy Synod (after receiving the three canonical invitations), accompanied by lawyers N. Fleva and C. Dissescu, who were, however, not allowed into the chamber on the grounds that their presence would have been contrary to the Canons, as the judgement of the Synod was ‘a private confession more than a public trial.’ The Metropolitan rejected the accusations and handed the Synod a written contestation, before withdrawing. The Synod began its deliberations, ‘rejected the defence as unfounded,’ and sentenced the Metropolitan to ‘loss of the gift of the priesthood’ and ‘defrocked him from the rank of Metropolitan,’ demoting him to the rank of an ordinary monk at the Căldărușani Monastery.

24 May: Procopiu underlined the day, reckoning that here lay the key to events. Like in a childhood game, he sensed he was getting closer to the hidden object and that they were shouting from the side: ‘Warmer! Warmer!’ He sipped his coffee (which was getting colder, colder) and once more read the news from the day of Ghenadie’s arrest, at the Palace of the Metropolia at seven in the evening. Two bishops from the Synod were present, namely Silvestru and Gherasim Timuș, along with Mr Sărățeanu, who was General Prosecutor of the Court of Appeal; Lilovici, the Chief Prosecutor of Ilfov Tribunal; Paul Stătescu, the Prefect of Police before Caton Lecca; Ștefan Sihleanu, the Secretary General from the Ministry of Religions; Dragomir Dumitrescu, a director from the Ministry; and ‘agents of the forces of public order.’ The Metropolitan refused to receive them, saying he was ill. They burst in, read the sentence to him, and invited him to depart immediately for Căldărușani Monastery. The Metropolitan contested the ‘legality of the Synod’s sentence,’ in which he was supported by the venerable former Prime Minister Lascăr Catargiu and by Nicu Filipescu. The two had entered, thrusting aside with their canes the policemen at the gate. But ‘the prosecutors resorted to the force allowed them by law, gave the order to empty the buildings and then forced the former Metropolitan to leave. They put him inside a carriage, took him from the courtyard of the Metropolia by the gate facing Filaret, and then from Bucharest by the Șerban-Vodă barrier, where the Prefect of the Capital’s Police formally handed him over to Mr Dobrescu, the Prefect of Ilfov, who took him to Căldărușani, where he arrived without disturbance at one o’clock in the morning.’ In the meantime, Fleva had gathered some protesters, but they arrived too late.

After the opposition newspapers and the female public shrieked in a chorus against the brutality of this deposition, and based on this, had wholly taken the Metropolitan’s side, despite the Synod’s sentence; and after the ministers’ wives had dared to contradict their husbands in public, after Fleva and Filipescu organized demonstrations at which the opposing sides “came to fierce blows, with many being struck by canes and chairs, and with windows being broken,” before the “combatants were separated by the police,” monk Ghenadie from Căldărușani was seen once more, in a good mood, smiling or perhaps laughing into his beard. A few days later, as if symbolically, Baronzi, the author of the novel The Mysteries of Bucharest , died.

Procopiu thought he was dreaming: he had found the answer in that very passage! He underlined it in red pencil: “the prosecutors gave the order to empty the buildings.” The buildings ( casele ) or the safes ( cassele )? He was annoyed that he had not asked the question earlier. His editors were very careless; a good job they had left. No, it could only mean the safes ( cassele ), otherwise they would have said ‘the rooms’ or ‘the Palace of the Metropolia,’ not ‘the buildings’ ( casele ). He called his wife and told her his reasoning. The icon, which the Metropolitan probably kept in a safe, had been taken by one of the prosecutor’s men on the evening of the deposition. Therefore matters went up to the highest level. It would make an eminent front-page article! But his wife was unimpressed by his conclusion and said: ‘How do you know it did not vanish before that? If the Metropolitan was accused of simony, which I can hardly credit —’ she hastened to add ‘— then perhaps it was the sale of the icon that was behind it all.’