Constantin Oprisan

Constantin Oprișan, called Costache, was born on 16 March 1921 at Onceștii Noi, in Bacău, and died on 26 July 1958 in Jilava prison, aged thirty-⁠seven, of tuberculosis and as a result of torture. He was the national leader of the legionary organization Brotherhoods of the Cross. He is venerated by some believers as a martyr of the prisons, without synodal canonization; his cult is contested because of his legionary past.

He finished lyceum in 1940 and joined the Brotherhoods of the Cross. In 1941, when the Iron Guard came into conflict with Antonescu, he fled to Germany, where he attended philosophy lectures, and between 1942 and 1944 he was interned in the Buchenwald camp, in a separate regime for legionaries. After his release, in 1944, he trained in Germany for actions against the Red Army; the plan was abandoned in 1945. He returned to the country and led the Brotherhoods of the Cross in hiding. He studied Letters and Philosophy at Cluj, where he was assistant to Professor Dumitru Roșca.

He was arrested on 15 May 1948 and sentenced to twenty-⁠five years of hard labour, as national head of the organization. He passed through Jilava, Pitești, Gherla, Târgu Ocna and Văcărești. He was one of the most tortured prisoners of the Pitești re-⁠education experiment, tortured by Eugen Țurcanu precisely because he was a leader. According to historians, under the pressure of torture, he gave way and took part in denunciations at Pitești and Gherla, then, at Târgu Ocna, withdrew the statements demanded by the Securitate. Fellow prisoners described him as a cultured young man, poet and philosopher, with a deep religious life, who supported others morally. In 1958, gravely ill, he was sent to the section called Casimca in Jilava, where he shared a cell with Gheorghe Calciu-⁠Dumitreasa, Marcel Petrișor and Iosif V. Iosif, who cared for him. He died on 26 July 1958.

His verses, kept from memory by his cellmates, were collected in the volume The Books of the Spirit and Other Poems, published in 2009. He is remembered in the writings of several former prisoners. His veneration as a martyr of the prisons is upheld by some believers and criticized by others, who draw attention to his role in the Legionary Movement; the Church has not canonized him.