Holy Icon

"Father Dumitru: The Theologian of the Prisons", acrylic on canvas, by Bishop Maxim, 2021

Fr Dumitru “sits in silence, with no wish to speak” (Saint Silouan), recalling the joy of life in prison described by Elder Sofian Boghiu: “I can say that I had days, many days, in prison that were more joyful than outside, because joy comes from within, not from outside". He remembers entering his cell and seeing other inmates writing biblical verses from memory on their boot soles–verses which he as a professor of theology had not yet inscribed on the tablet of his heart; he longs for the unceasing prayer God granted him amidst the inhumane tortures and deprivations; he gazes upon God’s suffering people, wishing to console them through the living, grace-filled theology welling up in his heart, through the experience of Christ Whom he met within the four walls of a prison cell.